BuddyPress.org

@ricsca2 – you are wise to be weary of plugins that are not in the wp-repo – but I think for the wrong reason. I am more concerned that plugins have not had the extra security checks that are run through the official repo. However I have seen more useful plugins for BP outside of the official repo – like the updated one for affecting the activity stream blocking – only on github, ones that get good support on wpmudev, etc.

I want to have faith in the ‘media press’ mentioned above, and I bet many are using it successfully – so it’s worth a try for a short term solution.

You concern about “extensions unofficial because if the developer ceases to update them” – should go beyond things in or not in the wp dot org repo – and it is a valid concern given the history of WP / BP and plugins in general – especially in regard to photo uploads / handling.

Back in the day it was “bp-album” – in the repo – worked. Support ceased – abandoned. Updates to wp / bp broke it.

Rtmedia came in (and for a very short while there was actually an importer / exported from bp-album to rtmedia!) – things have changed – rtmedia is likely the most used plugin for BP – and now they have made it an over-bloated POS (IMHO) – and now when things break they only offer support for paid / premium addons.

(begging for media export options here: https://buddypress.org/support/topic/rtmedia-export-script-attachments-api/

Now there are some other options – still no way to export the data. There are some things being worked on – but nothing definitive. Some great foundations being laid (bpattachments now a (not yet used) thing) –

This is why I have asked time and time again for picture / media handling to be added to BP core –
most recently a year and half ago (https://buddypress.org/support/topic/photos-albums-media-please/ ) – plus in the buddypress surveys.
so future updates will consider breaking this very important piece of live social networks.

However for now we are stuck with not knowing if things are going to work now, or next update. Just like we have been for years..