Upgrading to BP 1.7 – what to do with template pack plugin?

Hi,

We’re about to push an update for 1.7. Should be up in the coming week.

But if you can’t wait, you can use the bleeding-edge version here:
https://github.com/boonebgorges/bp-template-pack/archive/master.zip

If you used BP Template Pack for your WP theme, then you should continue using it. If you’re new to BP 1.7, then you shouldn’t use this plugin.

Hmmm. I’m using Commons in a Box with P2 Theme on some of the subdirectory sites. I had installed the BP Template Pack to get P2 going in the BuddyPress environment within CBox. Prior to your response, I upgraded to BP 1.7 and deactivated the Template Pack. I haven’t found anything broken (yet), but your response indicates I shouldn’t have done what I’ve done. What sort of nastiness should I expect to see?

Prior to your response, I upgraded to BP 1.7 and deactivated the Template Pack. I haven’t found anything broken (yet), but your response indicates I shouldn’t have done what I’ve done. What sort of nastiness should I expect to see?

When you deactivated BP Template Pack, it still left bp-default templates in your P2 Theme.

This will tell BP that theme compatibility should be turned off.

If you want to try BP 1.7’s theme compatibility, you’ll have to remove these bundled templates. To remove these templates, follow these instructions:
https://codex.buddypress.org/bp-17-upgrading-template-packed-themes/

No nastiness will happen, but your bp-default templates will never be updated if a change is made.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Thank you r-a-y. I deactivated Commons in a Box, which gave visibility to BP 1.7 which I then deactivated as well. Template Pack was already deactivated.

I backed up the P2 theme directory and deleted the subdirectories noted in the link you provided.

I then reactivated BP 1.7, followed by CBox. No obvious errors noted when visiting the site.

However – and I don’t know if this is related or not – I am finding some odd behavior that I’m hoping you can suggest a solution to…

Although BP had been running, I had no need for ‘groups’. After the changes above, I attempted to create a group and add a few members. It apparently worked, and I noted a new menu item (‘members’) added to the main custom menu of the subsite blog which I connected to the group. Clicking that item brings up the ‘members’ page, but no members are listed… just the title and the standard widgets appear.

I manually added ‘groups’ and ‘activity’ to the menu and same problem – just the title on the page, but no relevant content.

The top level CBox site does show the group from the menu selection properly. No other subsites show even the menu item, but they weren’t connected to the selected group blog so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised(?)

Having not used the groups feature prior to this change, I don’t know if the issue is related to the modification to remove the template pack, or if the problem was always there. Or if this is actually the correct behavior! I knew 1.7 was coming and would add the theme feature, so I wasn’t wanting to add complexity to the site before 1.7 dropped!

As well, when logged in I see a blue message indicator in the upper right area of the toolbar that drops down to say my request for membership in the group was accepted. Login in, logging out, clicking the message notification – nothing clears this notification. Odd.

Maybe I need to undo the changes I made?? Any guesses where the problems come from?

Although BP had been running, I had no need for ‘groups’. After the changes above, I attempted to create a group and add a few members. It apparently worked, and I noted a new menu item (‘members’) added to the main custom menu of the subsite blog which I connected to the group. Clicking that item brings up the ‘members’ page, but no members are listed… just the title and the standard widgets appear.

Are you using BP Groupblog? Sounds like you are using that plugin as well. Since you do not need to use groups, I would deactivate the Groups component under “Settings > BuddyPress” in the WP admin dashboard.

As well, when logged in I see a blue message indicator in the upper right area of the toolbar that drops down to say my request for membership in the group was accepted. Login in, logging out, clicking the message notification – nothing clears this notification. Odd.

Were you experiencing this problem before using theme compatibility?

Hi Ray,

I think what has confused me most to date is the apparent ability to get the same end result via different methods. I do have Groupblog installed and it shows as active in the CBox plugins list. However, until sometime after my post, I had not actively used it, at least directly or to my knowledge! I played with it after my post and found that it essentially created a subdirectory blog site that looked pretty much the same as the sites I had created via the Network Admin dashboard.

My understanding of how the groups functions traverse the subdirectory blog sites is weak and the problems I’m having attest to this. I now believe that adding users of the root site to an assortment of subdirectory blog sites is doing much the same thing as forming groups and adding them that way. The big difference being, each group has a blog and I’m going to guess a non-multisite installation with BuddyPress would behave much the same, only there would be just ONE blog. Maybe group memberships would filter the postings in that single blog… I haven’t set up that installation model to check and the answer would be academic only.

As you suggest, I probably don’t need to use groups, so I’ve since deleted the groups I created as well as the ‘group blog’ I created while experimenting with that plug-in.

To answer your last question (which is probably irrelevant now that I’ve abandoned the ‘group’ concept!), I didn’t have enough group configuration in place before to know if the problem existed before. Certainly I had not seen anything overtly wrong until my post. And I’m certainly not confident my backwards way of doing things didn’t create the problems I eventually did see!

I’m going to mark this as ‘resolved’ because I’m no longer sure I wasn’t the architect of my own misfortunes. However, I am going to make one comment more… and it relates to the WordPress system in general and certainly doesn’t single out anyone or any plugin individually.

And that comment is; it would be great if there was a way to better describe the functions offered by plugins and perhaps have a bit of a flow chart (or something) included with the explanation that shows less sophisticated users like myself where it fits into the WP structure and what functions it offers. Using this plugin as an example and looking at the description page on www.ads-software.com, it’s still not clear to me whether this plugin essentially automates what I’ve done manually with multisites? Does it require Multisite to be installed? Is it somehow creating a psuedo-multisite experience but without Multisites? In spite of having used WP for a few years on my own Linux servers (and looking after those servers myself), not being a programmer means all of the WP stuff is really a bunch of black boxes stuck in the plugins directory to me… and very often I suspect I end up using a hammer to do the job of a wrench because I simply don’t appreciate how it all fits together.

I never Completed the Buddypress Template Pack installation. Went through the first 2 steps but never completed the third. I have Buddypress 1.7.1 installed.
Is it ok to deactivate the Buddypress Template Pack, or do I also need to go through the process of deleting folders?

When do you think the update will be available?