EllsWeb

I have been using WP Symposium on a Multisite and keeping updated with the nightly releases of WP 3.4 Beta4. It has been working just fine with the the updates. FWIW

Sure is.. ??

Yes, I agree.. if you don’t catch the wave, people move on.. Unfortunately, to their own disappointment most of the time.. But that’s the way it is in the McDonnalds world we live in today.. Give me now or I go somewhere else… lol

However, there are no other really comparable set of plugins that do as much as WP Symposium in such a little time of development..

As I say all the time, if you are wanting a social networking website, the other plugins and themes have to play with the social networking software. It’s a matter of whether or not a person is serious about it.

If you were in the forums at WPS, there is more and more activity in the development and more effort to confront the issues that do arise from the conflicts that do come up with most all configurations of nearly all plugins when you bring them all together under one project.. But, as you said in your post above ‘Symposium is not for everyone’ and that is a good thing.. I would hate to think we were all the same and all of our tastes were the same.. lol

If the panel is deactivated (which runs the chat function) load times are (based on my evaluation using software to measure the load times and which plugins cause the delays) no more from Symposium than they are from WP core and other plugins, which add together to make total load time.. Again, it depends on what plugins you use.

Recent blogs from very experienced people that use WP, are saying more and more.. you don’t really need all those plugins. But who really listens anyway, right?

As far as the Themes, I find that not that many really have issues with Symposium. And regarding Symposium vs. Buddypress, with Symposium you don’t have to modify files to make it work with themes that aren’t made specifically for the plugin such as is required with the majority of themes when dealing with BuddyPress.

But, it’s all personal preference, isn’t it?… (rhetorical)

Why is it that people don’t look through the options of the plugins they are working with? Do they always just want to jump on a forum and have someone else do it for them??

That’s funny..

Just as an update to what has been said here, WP Symposium has come a long way in the 11 months since this thread began. There is a feature to WP Symposium that is much more resource hungry than the core. But that feature can be turned off. It is what is called the “Panel”. Simon is aware of it and has promised there will be some changes to it.

However, if you want a chat option, which is basically what the Panel is most known for, there are other chat plugins out there that don’t use your server to offer members that option.

As far as theme compatibility, yes, those that rely heavily upon ‘jquery/ajax etc’, do sometimes conflict, but given the alternative of ‘BuddyPress’ that plays nicely with only a select few themes designed specifically for it, WP Symposium is a charm.

Configuration of WP Symposium is probably as easy as one could expect. Options are available to turn off certain features to make it more compatible with shared hosting. There are also options to turn off the use of some of the fancy stuff like jquery/ajax.

Overall, I support and recommend WP Symposium. It is a good project with ample support. In fact, I find better support from WP Symposium than I do WP.. Just thought I would throw that in for laughs..

In all seriousness, if you want a social networking plugin, I would go with WP Symposium. I almost always works for most configurations and with a much greater number of themes than BuddyPress.

Oh, and as far as other plugins, I have forty some different plugins on one of my sites and it plays just fine with the others. There have been a few exceptions, but overall.. as with any plugin, or set of plugins, the nature of WP development lends the opportunity for conflict. It’s just the nature of the business.

I would add that on one site I have several plugins that use jquery/ajax, the plugin ‘Plugin Organizer’ allows for stopping plugins from loading on a page by page, post by post basis. Those conflicts I have had between WP Symposium and other plugins have been easily resolved by simply not loading whichever plugin on certain pages or posts.

Basically, if there is a problem there is a way around it.. That’s one of the great things about the WP world.

Just look and there is probably a solution. You just have to know what you are looking for.

As far as a social site goes, in my opinion, if you are serious about developing a social network, you don’t want to stay in a shared hosting environment anyway, unless it’s a cost issue. And really, with the options available in today’s hosting world, VPS isn’t any more expensive, well, almost.. So, I would recommend at least VPS to start. If you grow, move to dedicated server(s). It’s just the way I would suggest putting together a social network. You get what you pay for, if you are serious about it.

And, for those who are wondering about WPMU (multisite), WP Symposium (WPS) has updated to work with WPMU. AND it’s getting better every day..

I have worked with BuddyPress, Mingle and WP Symposium.

Given the fact that Mingle is no longer updated and getting a response from the dev, who also has “PrettyLinks” out, is nearly impossible. The forums for Mingle yield no help at all.

BuddyPress takes over the site, basically and although there are a lot of plugins that contribute to the functionality of BuddyPress, multiple plugins for better functionality have a cost of speed for the site.

WP Symposium is now set up so that it is multisite compatible. I use it exclusively, unless someone refuses to go with anything but BuddyPress.

While there have been a few growing pains with WPS, Simon responds as fast as humanly possible, and addresses most concerns and bugs very quickly. One other note is, Simon is always (so far) nice to deal with.

Anyone looking should really consider trying WP Symposium.

Simon has also put together a wiki where a person can go and find tutorials on how to make new templates for custom layouts of the plugins.. I personally would recommend WP Symposium. It’s been around for a little more than a year now, and it is updated on a regular basis to both improve and to keep up with compatibility issues found by members.. Great Dev. and very active community of supporters.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.
I thought plugin development did take into consideration the version of WP. My error..

Might you consider updating the information with WP so those of us less informed about the actual working of your plugin won’t wonder about that?

I just didn’t see when I looked at your plugin that it had nothing to do with the version of WP or that it doesn’t depend on WP version.. And any plugin created by your plugin doesn’t have to be concerned about the current hooks and deprecated calls.. Thanks for the clarification.

I was wondering, is there any plan to update this plugin for WP 3.3.1?

So, now wp version 3.3.1 has been out a while, and they changed a lot of stuff apis, hooks etc..

Does your plugin work with 3.3.1?
I really don’t need to break my site right now, but would like to have your plugin if it works.

Thanks in advance.

Thank You

I would like to get a copy of the mod-ed file.
Thanks