BBPress + BuddyPress + Buddypress Template Pack + Wordpress + PlatformPro = Need better docs pls

[zvelena 0]

Dear all, After installing and uninstalling all these plugins like 6 times already, both manually and automatically, and not having them appear correctly at any time, and -yes- reading all the forum posts on these issues- I give up on wasting any more time trying to integrate them with each other, as it appears that each plugin needs some lines of code from the others in order to have a seamless integration: bbPress, BuddyPress, wordpress and platformpro. Integration with wordpress is also necessary to share the user base that registered already with the site but it's not mentioned anywhere in the docs, however it has been discussed on the forum. After 6 installs and uninstalls I suppose the only way to have a clean install is to delete the bb_ and bp_ tables from the database. That's also not mentioned anywhere in the docs, if it were not for the forum I wouldn't have known that. I find the integration docs are lacking (only 2 pages and a video), and pretty different in method from what the plugin authors are recommending) and would appreciate you to update them in a more didactic, common installation walkthrough for all these plugins, That is guaranteed to WORK. Seriously better don't do nothing then delivering some shallow docs, would show some respect to the customers who actually paid for your product. It would be a child's play for you and would save lots of time to your customers. Unless of course driving a customer into madness is a way to propose the services of a "Pro" which I assume should be the last resort as this platform is destined for people to build their own sites. I still admire very much what you have achieved as a company BUT you can do better then that, and you should stick to the phrase "as a customer you come first" (I liked that very much) if you want to maintain a high quality standard and if you want people to keep buying and recommending your products further. Please let me know when you are going to update the docs on these plugins. Thanks Elena

[Rob 547]

Elena, My apologies for the delay. I didn't see your post as it slipped through without a QUESTION label. I can tell you're reasonably as frustrated with the combination of bbPress, BuddyPress and Wordpress as I am and have been for some time. It took those guys (all the same company) more than 5 weeks to fix the problems Buddypress 1.5 created. Actually, they had to fix 25 of them. Lots of bugs and many more to go as I can see. One of the unfortunate things about bbPress and Buddypress is that they write so much stuff into those tables they create in the database. Without clearing the tables out, new fixes appear to be simply ignored. Personally, this drives me crazy. I'm pretty good with PHP, MySQL and editing files but even I couldn't figure out their wild machinations. I tried for days to find the errors and fix them. They were everywhere, and that's an understatement. Finally, clearing out and dropping the tables, and starting anew, I was able to get my installation working. Then, as I was looking at the settings, I noticed that the bbPress settings showed that it had a conflict with Buddypress. Can you imagine my reaction? I actually had to change the slug in bbPress from forums to something else. If I weren't already bald, I'd have been pulling the hair out of my head. Heck, my ex-wife didn't give me this much grief. Once I had it working, the first thing I noticed - everything was out of alignment. Things that should be aligned left were centered. Font sizes were huge or microscopic. I was going nuts. Essentially, I discovered that the bbPress plugin actually says I have to edit CSS to make it look good. Isn't that nice of them? Another two weeks of fiddling with it and finally I managed to get it working - one day before they came out with Buddypress 1.5.1 fixing half the things I had to fix myself. As you can see from these forums, we're switching over to Vanilla. You may want to consider that. It too needs some tweeking, particularly its search engine, but much better than bbPress or Buddypress.

[ksnyde 0]

Why do you feel Vanilla is better than Buddypress/bbpress? Not challenging your thinking at all but need to make a decision pretty soon and looking for insights.

[Rob 547]

Buddypress, bbPress and Wordpress are all written by the same company, but by different teams and apparently, they don't like talking to each other. As a result, there are inherent conflicts among the three. Buddypress tries to force your hand at using its theme. bbPress has built in CSS conflicts and their solution is to tell everyone - fix it yourself - which doesn't help people who are not CSS proficient (including me). Wordpress is built to allow multiple themes to work brilliantly in most cases, but neither bbPress nor Buddypress like that and don't play nice with other themes. Vanilla is not theme dependent, so it works with other themes, child themes and our Platform nicely. While each of the forum plugins have their foibles, we've found Vanilla to have the least. In fact, you're looking at it right now.

[zvelena 0]

I get it, thank you so much rangelone. I was going crazy and I said : wait a minute there has to be a simple solution that I couldnt find. Allright, lets delete the BB_ crap out of this beautiful software and lets cook some vanilla ! :)

[zvelena 0]

Hm after trying out vanilla I realized it's a clean forum but pretty expensive / month and it doesnt provide the social networking capabilities of Buddypress, so Im going to TRY AGAIN to fix it for my site... see the discussion i launched today at http://www.pagelines.com/forum/discussion/15398/buddypress-enabled-sidebar#Item_1

[Rob 547]

Zvelena, you're using their .com version. The free version is available from http://www.vanillaforums.org (I made the same mistake). We haven't updated anything for bbPress or Buddypress at this time due to a conflict in the way Platform handles a template element. In a future edition of Pagelines 2.0, once Buddypress and bbPress developers have had the chance to access our code, I'm sure they'll come up with some solutions. However, we remain fairly well committed to Vanilla. In fact, I'll let you in on a little secret. I just built the first public Vanilla Forum in Pagelines 2.0. You can see it here http://www.epicurus.com/discussion/vanilla/ (Feel free to join!)

[zvelena 0]

Allrighty, thats's good news. Thanks for the tip, will try to install the opensource package from vanilla, I just downloaded it.

[Rob 547]

Great!

[cdsanger 0]

This is a helpful discussion! The installation instructions for Vanilla simply say to upload it to your web server. Does it matter where? Is there a recommended folder in which to put it?

[tlovvorn 0]

I am trying to develop a community portal on my pagelines/wordpress site at http://www.truebluetribe.com and have literally spent all day trying to figure out BBPress and BuddyPress. (I even bought another theme that seemed to integrate better with those two.) When the new theme proved too complicated to figure out, I am not back to Pagelines trying to get my community set up. I am trying to provide a membership login with discussion boards and a forum. Any help from you guys who have already been down this road would be greatly appreciated! Traylor