[alanchrishughes]

It took me a minute to track down when and where this works, but if you comment on a group’s activity wall, it will appear on your activity wall. If people reply to that comment it will appear on the group’s activity wall as well. If you comment on a blog post or forum post, it appears on your activity wall as well, however, when someone replies to that comment it doesn’t appear on the blog post or forum post. I think that will be very confusing to people or result in a lot of comments going completely unnoticed.

My second thought, is that people always make a big deal about the importance of creating child themes so you can always keep your Buddypress installation up to date, and I believe that is important. But if you use the Buddypress Template plugin for your theme and then have to update Template in order to update Buddypress like you did with the last Buddypress update, doesn’t that defeat the purpose? All of your custom theme files will be wiped out when you update Buddypress Template like they would if you directly edited the Buddypress theme instead of creating a child theme.

My last thing is about the activity wall notifications that notify you that you just commented on your own comment, which seems very redundant. You can read the original ticket here http://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/3192 Everybody has their own opinions and a lot of the time they are just differences in how they want to do something, but this to me seems like an obvious no brainer, doesn’t it?

[@mercime]

Re Activity Stream – I see activity streams as records of each action and reaction within the site. If I wanted the facebook-like wall feature, I’d use BP Wire by @sbrajesh. But that’s just me.

Re BuddyPress Template Pack plugin – boonebgorges and r-a-y have added a second method in the 1.2 version which makes it much easier to set up (depends on the WP theme you have) and future-proof. Upgrading the plugin later on won’t require any updates in template files.

Examples of 2nd method:
https://codex.buddypress.org/theme-development/theme-dev-bp-template-pack-walkthrough-twenty-eleven-bp-1-5/
https://codex.buddypress.org/theme-development/theme-dev-bp-template-pack-walkthrough-twenty-ten-bp-1-5/

[alanchrishughes]

Isn’t that the whole point of Buddypress though, to create a fb like system? Other wise it is just a messageboard.

What is this BP Wire?

[alanchrishughes]

If you want to turn the activity page purely into a list, the commenting option should probably be removed other wise people are obviously going to use it.

[@mercime]

BP Wire = http://buddydev.com/buddypress/here-is-the-bp-wire-for-putting-the-buddypress-wire-back-to-buddypress-1-2/ needs to be updated.

In the same vein, check out http://buddydev.com/buddypress/facebook-style-activity-commenting-with-buddypress/

[alanchrishughes]

Thanks @mercime

You wouldn’t happen to have any ideas on how to get Boone’s suggested code working do you?

function bbg_remove_self_replies( $has_activities ) {
global $activities_template;

foreach( $activities_template->activities as $activity_key => $activity ) {
if ( ‘activity_comment’ == $activity->type ) {
// Get the parent item
$parent_id = $activity->item_id;

if ( empty( $activities_template->activity_parents[$parent_id] ) ) {
return $has_activities;
} else {
$parent = $activities_template->activity_parents[$parent_id];
}

// Is the activity author the same as the parent author? If so, remove
if ( $parent->user_id == $activity->user_id ) {
unset( $activities_template->activities[$activity_key] );
}
}
}

// Reset indexes
$activities_template->activities = array_values( $activities_template->activities );

return $has_activities;
}
add_filter( ‘bp_has_activities’, ‘bbg_remove_self_replies’ );

[modemlooper]

The point of BuddyPress is not to create a fb like system. We do not need fb clones. BuddyPress provides a method to create unique ways of social interaction. Sure the out of the box example is a social network but this is only one way to use the software.

[alanchrishughes]

Being able to launch your own website that uses a conversations system similar to fb would be awesome though and Buddypress kind of does that if it weren’t for a few little problems like what I mentioned. Like you mentioned, it would be great if there were different ways to use the software, so intentionally preventing one usage just because you may be afraid of being labeled as copying fb doesn’t make sense. Would we be talking right now if the second person to ever launch a messageboard was afraid of copying the first ever messageboard?

[Boone Gorges]

The code I provided works fine on my BP 1.5 installations. What version of BP are you using?

IMO, @alanchrishughes suggestion is only advisable if we also implement something that pushes an activity item to the top of the activity stream when it has been commented on. Otherwise new activity comments will get buried in the pile. This is not a trivial thing to do, however; I’m not sure it can be easily done with our current activity data schema. A plugin could be written for the purpose right now, but it would probably have to do some funny business with BP’s MySQL queries.

[modemlooper]

My point is, if Apple had made phones like everyone else by copying they would not have succeeded in becoming the most powerful technology company in the world. Also, Facebook copied others before them but took those ideas and presented them in a better more efficient manner.

[alanchrishughes]

@boonebgorges I’m also using BP 1.5 (fresh out of the box installation) and it does work to an extend, it removes the notifications from the top, but adds them to the bottom of the activity stream like I described on the trac page, and it breaks the reply button until your refresh the page. I’ve tried both pasting your code in my functions.php file and creating a bp-custom.php plugin file. Both have the same results.

This fix, and a comment form on friends pages, would be the only two little tweaks it would take to reproduce a fb experience, right now it is reproducing the twitter experience so it is already copying something anyways, giving both options to BP users would be great. And with what you just suggested Boone people could say “oh they’re just trying to copy digg” which I understand would be frustrating, but it honestly isn’t that big of a deal, you would be copying the system but people would be implementing it to their own little situations and needs which would be completely authentic and new. Like comparing tv stations to youtube, it is copying the idea but at the same time it is completely unique because you are bringing the tv station to the users to create more diverse content.

[alanchrishughes]

@modemlooper not to discredit anybody’s hard work, but what does BP currently do that is so innovative that justifies not taking advantage of the option to let people have their own little fb sites in addition to whatever ground breaking Steve Jobs options you are talking about?

[Boone Gorges]

@alanchrishughes I can’t reproduce your exact problem (I don’t see them at the bottom of the screen) though I was able to create at least some kind of error when posting new activity replies via AJAX. Try adding the following to your bp-custom.php in addition to the other stuff:
`function bbg_dont_remove_self_replies_on_ajax() {
remove_filter( ‘bp_has_activities’, ‘bbg_remove_self_replies’ );
}
add_action( ‘wp_ajax_new_activity_comment’, ‘bbg_dont_remove_self_replies_on_ajax’, 1 );`

As I said in the ticket, I don’t think that @alanchrishughes is making a bad suggestion. Just that it’s probably not wise to implement in BP today, without making several further modifications. In the meantime, anyone is welcome to take the code suggested so far and turn it into a proof-of-concept plugin.

[modemlooper]

BP allows you to do whatever you want with the software, fb is under control. That’s a HUGE difference. But if you want a fb clone do it, no stopping you, I’m just making suggestions and encouraging people do “think different”

[alanchrishughes]

@modemlooper I completely agree with you, I’m just saying iphones can still be used as telephones because that is a proven useful means of communicating.

Thanks @boonebgorges that seems to have fixed the reply button, but it is still producing the lines at the bottom of the activity stream. Here is a screen shot.

[Boone Gorges]

Can’t reproduce this on my setup. Strange. Probably has something to do with a total count in $activities_template. You might try var_dump( $activities_template ) inside of that function I gave you to see if there’s anything obvious to change.

[alanchrishughes]

Doesn’t seem to have any effect. I wasn’t sure where you meant to add this new line, so I put it here

function bbg_dont_remove_self_replies_on_ajax() {
remove_filter( ‘bp_has_activities’, ‘bbg_remove_self_replies’ );
var_dump( $activities_template );
}
add_action( ‘wp_ajax_new_activity_comment’, ‘bbg_dont_remove_self_replies_on_ajax’, 1 );

[Boone Gorges]

No, I meant that you should use it for debugging, somewhere where $activities_template was defined.

Try this.

`function bbg_remove_self_replies( $has_activities ) {
global $activities_template;

foreach( $activities_template->activities as $activity_key => $activity ) {
//var_dump( $activity->type );
if ( ‘activity_comment’ == $activity->type ) {
// Get the parent item
$parent_id = $activity->item_id;

if ( empty( $activities_template->activity_parents[$parent_id] ) ) {
return $has_activities;
} else {
$parent = $activities_template->activity_parents[$parent_id];
}

// Is the activity author the same as the parent author? If so, remove
if ( $parent->user_id == $activity->user_id ) {
unset( $activities_template->activities[$activity_key] );

$activities_template->activity_count–;
$activities_template->total_activity_count–;
}
}
}

// Reset indexes
$activities_template->activities = array_values( $activities_template->activities );

return $has_activities;
}
add_filter( ‘bp_has_activities’, ‘bbg_remove_self_replies’ );

function bbg_dont_remove_self_replies_on_ajax() {
remove_filter( ‘bp_has_activities’, ‘bbg_remove_self_replies’ );
}
add_action( ‘wp_ajax_new_activity_comment’, ‘bbg_dont_remove_self_replies_on_ajax’, 1 );`

[alanchrishughes]

Ahhhh, that is working now, thank you very much @boonebgorges

The only other big thing I think is a problem and could be very confusing to people as I mentioned before, if User A posts on a group activity wall it then appears on their profile activity wall and User B can comment on it there and it will also appear on the group’s activity wall. People might not like that and thinking they were only commenting on their buddy’s wall. However, if User A comments on a blog or forum post, it also appears on their profile activity wall and people can still comment on it, but it then doesn’t appear on the original blog.

I’m sure some people would like it one way or the other, I personally think blog, group, and forum posts should only then appear as notifications on a user’s activity wall without the option for others to comment on so that users are certain where their comments are appearing and avoid confusion and possible embarrassment.

Either way it is just an inconsistency that has confused me at least and might be confusing others as well.

[alanchrishughes]

Never mind, you guys are already a step ahead of me.

I could still imagine some people wanting the opposite of my personal preferences though, wanting an option to integrate comments from all sections.

[Most Interesting Man In The World]

Were redesigning a buddypress site and we need to locate a buddypress expert. Buddypress is growing in our business and we need to align with some pro coders.

If interested to learn more, please send a Skype chat to Smartchoiceweb with a link to a buddypress site you worked on and briefly explain what you did.

Thanks,
Taylor

[alanchrishughes]

@boonebgorges @modemlooper Maybe a better way to look at what I was suggesting is instead of “like facebook,” look at it more like giving users “mini blogs.” An idea might be to create a new tab isolating this specific type of activity so you can leave the existing activity tab as it is listing every single thing a user does with links to said activity. Then if site admins don’t want this facebook/mini blog style feature they can just remove the tab and focus on group/forum activity. Pulling in the WordPress WYSIWYG editor for the mini blogs would also be a nice feature to top it off. All just day dream ideas.