So what about pages? I found a great plugin called .html on Pages which will add a .html extension to all of your pages. This plugin will also automatically remove the .html extension from any pages that are nested  as a parent page. Soooo: yourwebsite.com/mypage.html will turn into yourwebsite.com/mypage/mysubpage.html.

We ran into a problem, well not so much a problem because the plugin does what it is supposed to do, but we want to not add .html to the end of the blog page. We want /blog.html to be just /blog so we had to make a few modifications to the plugin. If you are comfortable with php the mod is small and here it is:

Add the following code where ever you want inside of the plugin. This code filters any instance of /blog.html and returns /blog.

function blog_permalinks_page_link($permalink, $page) {
$pos = strpos($permalink, “/blog.html”);
if ($pos !== false) {
$permalink = str_replace(“/blog.html”,”/blog”,$permalink);
}
return $permalink;
}
add_filter( ‘page_link’, ‘blog_permalinks_page_link’, 10, 2 );

Next you will need to alter the html_page_permalink() function and add the following code to the top of it:

$string=$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
$pos = strpos($string, “/blog.html”);
if ($pos !== false) {
switch_to_blog(1);//We are using WPMU if you are not you won’t need this line.
wp_redirect( get_option(‘home’).str_replace(“/blog.html”,”/blog”,$string), 301 );
exit();
}else{
$pos = strpos($string, “/blog”);
if ($pos !== false) {
$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] =str_replace(“/blog”,”/blog.html”,$string);
global $wp;
$wp->parse_request();
}
}

The above code makes the redirect of any hits on /blog.html to /blog (which shouldn’t happen because of the link filter) and hard-codes the request-URL so WordPress thinks it’s pulling from the page /blog.html when it’s now on /blog. That’s it, pretty simple… If you are not good with php you can download the modified plugin here: http://webdevstudios.com/downloads/html-on-pages.zip

I’m sure this plugin could easily be modified to work with other extentions like .htm or .php, which could cut down on the amount of 301 redirects you would have to make when migrating to WordPress which by the way everybody running a blog or basic CMS should be doing!

BuddyPress is a set of WordPress MU plugins that adds social networking functionality to any standard WordPress MU installation. Each BuddyPress component is independent, meaning you can choose which features you’d like and are not required to install all features on your site.

Andy Peatling, the developer behind BuddyPress, did an excellent interview on WordPress Weekly last Friday. In the interview Andy goes in to detail on BuddyPress features and functionality, the future of BuddyPress, developing BuddyPress specific components, and much more. As always Jeff did a great job with the interview.

We recently started development on our first production BuddyPress website. We are excited to work with the new BuddyPress plugins and can’t wait to launch this great new website. If you are interested in creating your own BuddyPress website please contact us today to learn how WebDevStudios.com can help!

The first official New Jersey WordPress Meetup is scheduled for January 7th, 2009 starting at 7pm at our office in Belmar, NJ.

We use WordPress on many different projects and highly recommend it to anyone. We also really believe in open source software and want to play our part in helping the community grow!

The WordPress Meetup will be regularly scheduled for the FIRST WEDNESDAY of every month starting at 7pm. We’ll have a scheduled topic for each meeting to discuss as a group and I’m sure will also voyage into distant topics as the night progresses.

We plan on discussing a variety of topics including WordPress usage, Designing WordPress Themes, Creating WordPress Plugins and Widgets, and using WordPress to its full potential. This is going to be a fun and informal way to meet WordPress fanatics just like yourself and share your experiences.

WordPress MU, BuddyPress, and bbPress enthusiasts are also very welcome to attend! We plan on discussing these platforms and the features and enhancements they can provide to the WordPress platform at future meetings.

Be sure to RSVP for the Official New Jersey WordPress Meetup Group to stay up to date on Meetup news and information. We hope you can come out for a fun WordPress filled evening!

BuddyPress is still in a pre-release state, and therefore the installation process has not been streamlined into a nice easy package. I decided to write this article to help anyone else who is trying to install BuddyPress for the first time. This article is very detailed so beginners and experts alike can setup BuddyPress!

Step 1 Install WordPress MU
I’m not going to write how to install WordPress MU. WPMU is as easy to install as regular WordPress and the installation guide can be found here:

http://trac.mu.wordpress.org/browser/trunk/README.txt

One thing to note – When you install WordPress MU, DO NOT edit/rename the wp-config-sample.php file. This is a common mistake made as that is what most people do to install WordPress. If you edit this file your WordPress MU site will display a blank page. WPMU will automatically rename/edit the wp-config-sample.php file during the setup process.

Step 2 Visit the BuddyPress Installation Page

Visit the official installation page located here: http://trac.buddypress.org/wiki/installing-buddypress

This is where you will find the current installation guide and required components for the BuddyPress install. You can read the installation guide here:

http://trac.buddypress.org/browser/trunk/INSTALL-README.txt

The installation guide helps, but there are a few issues it fails to address.

Step 3 Download the required BuddyPress components

Since BuddyPress is in pre-release, you will need to download the installation package from the BuddyPress trunk located here:

http://trac.buddypress.org/browser/trunk

Scroll down to the bottom and click the link titled Zip Archive. This will download the most recent release of the BuddyPress framework.

Step 4 Unzip the components

Extract all of the components from the ZIP file inside the trunk folder to a directory on your computer.

Step 5 Install the plugins and theme

Now comes the time to install the components to your WordPress MU installation. Upload all of the component directories and files (except for buddypress-theme) that you extracted during the previous step to the wp-content/mu-plugins folder. Your mu-plugins directory should look similar to the screenshot on the left.

Open the buddypress-theme folder. The two folders inside are buddypress-member and buddypress-home. Navigate to wp-content/themes/ directory on your WordPress MU installation. Delete the home folder from your server and upload the buddypress-member and buddypress-home directory from your computer to the themes folder.

Step 6 Setup BuddyPress in WordPress MU

Now log in to your WordPress MU admin dashboard. If you copied all of the plugin files and directories to the correct places you will now notice a few new admin sections under Site Admin called BuddyPress, Groups, and Profile Fields.

If you receive an error message stating “Registration has been disabled” you need to enable registration on your WordPress MU site. Navigate to Site Admin > Options and Enable Registrations where it says Allow new registrations

The final step is to enable the BuddyPress Home Theme on your site. Navigate to Site Admin > Themes and activate the BuddyPress Home Theme. Now navigate to Design > Themes and click the BuddyPress Home Theme and activate it for your specific site. Now you can view the new theme via your main site URL.

Congratulations! You have just setup a vanilla install of BuddyPress for WordPress MU!

Common BuddyPress Issues and Errors

Error Message: The image you upload must have dimensions of 450 x 450 pixels or larger.

When you upload a Profile Avatar you receive the above error message. BuddyPress is very picky about image sizes. You must upload an image larger than 450×450 for the upload to work. Also verify you have the proper write permissions on the directory wp-content/blogs.dir

Error Message: Please make sure your BuddyPress enabled theme includes a header.php and footer.php file

This error means you have not uploaded the theme folders and files properly to the wp-content/themes directory. You need to extract two folders inside buddypress-theme from the trunk zip, buddypress-member and buddypress-home. Both of these folders need to be placed in your wp-content/themes directory for the profile theme to work. Make sure you delete the old home directory that WPMU created first.

Error Message: Registration has been disabled

You need to enable registration on your WordPress MU site. Navigate to Site Admin > Options and Enable Registrations where it says Allow new registrations.

I hope this article helps anyone wanting to install BuddyPress. If I missed anything or you run in to errors not covered please post a comment. This post will make a nice repository for helping others along the way and we’ll try to help as best we can.

WebDevStudios.com is learning the ins and outs of BuddyPress so we can offer this service to our clients. If you are interested in launching a BuddyPress site, please contact us!