Not easily possible on iOS, might be possible on some Android devices. There is a way by using a native app on iOS but It’s too much work involved for a free plugin.
@buddypressrocks,
Well with iPhoto, one could upload a photo to Facebook and as long as you’ve enabled the setting in Buddystream, the photo will be available under your profile. I am not sure but I believe the Buddystream folks are working on allowing the user to specify which albums to pull from FB. It’s somewhat indirect but would work… Also Brajesh at Buddydev may be working on this for his new version of BP Gallery.
I’ve been working on this for the past couple of weeks. I’ve found a couple of apps that you need to download first, and through them, you can send a photo directly from your iphone to your blog. “Aurigma up” is a nice, simple free app, but is not quite complete yet. It allows you to open the app directly from your wordpress blog, send the photo, and then return (somewhat seemlessly) to your blog. I have tried it on wordpress, but am now trying to tie it into BP. I want users to be able to add the photos to their album from their phone and then have that picture show up in the activity page as a thumbnail. I’m not too hot at PHP, but am trying to work out how to get this done.
If anyone has tried this, please share. I will post what I get done.
THANK YOU @modemlooper for your feedback back. The BuddyPress Mobile is awesome! It has app like features and allows my users to update statuses on the go. Also, for the more craft user, they can actually upload photos via BuddyPress mobile if they have the URL, which Instagram actually provides, once it’s live. And I believe Photobucket, and flickr do as well… Anyway, thank you for the feedback!
@Quint your feedback is awesome! I will look further into this… that might be a way for a user to kill to birds with one stone.. good call!
@not1_name Thank you also for the helpful feedback. I love collaborating on these forums! I will give these options a try and let you know how it plays out!
Best,
Beerguy
Picup app is another native app that uses JavaScript to get an image URL. The issue with these apps are they DO NOT upload to your server they get the image URL externally. I have succesfully created a native BuddyPress app. I’m not sure it would be of value to anyone because of it not being branded to every individual site. Considering the only real reason for a native app is image uploads I didn’t think it was worth losing brandability. This is why I’ve chosen web tech for mobile.
We use Aurigma Up on a custom mobile page for iPhone/iPad. Works great. Uploads to your server.
Then use bp_activity_add() – you should be able to adapt this example.
http://bp-tricks.com/snippets/adding-a-new-activity-stream-entry-when-a-user-changes-his-avatar/
For Apple – you need to check orientation using exif_read_data
For Android – you don’t need it for uploads – but the Avatar crop tool doesn’t work, so we did a custom page for that which includes basic auto-crop.
For both Android and Apple, we use this lib for rotation, thumbnails, resizing and cropping.
https://github.com/masterexploder/PHPThumb/wiki/Basic-Usage
Why not use WP methods? This lib gives us more control and better results.
Note: we don’t use BP Mobile, so there is probably a better way if you do use it.
shanebp. Thanks very much for that. Now I know that it CAN be done, I will have a go with aurimga up again. Their app had the most seemless connection.
modemlooper, aurigma up does upload to your own server, but I don’t know if it goes to theirs as well. I think a native BP app would be very useful! I would love to try it. I assume you haven’t submitted it to the store yet? The app would really need to be free on the store for users of the social network to use, but you could charge a license fee for the webmasters of the sites. The app doesn’t need to be branded to the individual sites, but only a simple no frills UI to get round the mobile safari problem. Aren’t you the dev behind the mobile plugin? Incorporate it all under a premium theme! I’d buy it. Spent too much time already trying to work this all out…
@modemlooper @not1_name @shanebp
Hey guys, this is beautiful feedback!
QUICK QUESTION! I’m desperate. I am learning more and more about WordPress and how to fix issues, but I am stuck.
I just migrated my site over to a Dedicated server and the process was a bit tough. I have everything buttoned up now, the site is running well (fast) but the only problem I am having is that I am not able to UPLOAD images as the admin, nor as a user??
The image shows that it is uploaded when I add them to pages, but they are blank. I am guessing it has to do with permission? There is no “error” message when I am trying to upload an image as an admin, but there is as a user. It reads:
“Server error. Upload directory isn’t writable”
I am sure this is a simple fix, but I can really really really use some guidance here. As I mentioned, everything is working beautifully!
Thank you in advanced!!
As you say, it is probably a permissions issue. Change the permissions (Chmod Settings) for the upload directory to 777. You change it in your FTP client. Just right click the file and there will be a change permissions or Chmod settings link.
@modemlooper – I second not1_name statements re: I think a native BP app would be very useful!
Being dependent on Aurigma is iffy at best.
We wouldn’t want your app incorporated into a theme.
If it works standalone, then a site license fee is a no-brainer !
