BuddyPress.org

Lots of questions to address, so I’ll do it in the order they were posed.

@stwc

On the BP install I’m currently working on, the following long list of plugins (all of which seem to be working flawlessly activated non-sitewide) do not even offer the option for Site-wide Activation.

Is there a reason (or reasons) for that? Is there any possible downside? Or are they fine the way they are?

These plugins should work fine whether or not they are activated sitewide. However, there are two reasons why a BP plugin should be tagged to activate sidewide automatically:

1. Because they are BuddyPress-dependent plugins and require BuddyPress to work. Since Buddypress operates sitewide, then all add-on plugins are sitewide-acting by implicit reference.
2. By virtue of the first point, only Site Admins should have access to any plugin configuration. Offering all members with blogs access to these BP-dependent plugins in their admin dashboard only creates confusion as these plugins are for BuddyPress only and not for WordPress blogs.

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@hnla

So for clarity if one adds ‘Site Wide Only: true’ to pluginin files main description then it forces site wide activation regardless of whether one chooses to activate normally non site wide

This is correct. When the Site Wide Only tag is set to true, it does not matter which activation link is clicked as either action will result in sitewide activation. In fact, for all BP plugins I test, I simply click the “Activate” link right under the plugin name and not the “Activate Site Wide” link. If the plugin then shows under the Site Wide listing of plugins, I move on. If it does not, then I know that the plugin author failed to set the tag properly.

Edit/ found a plugin that already had ‘Site Wide Only: true’ set yet does not activate site wide using the plain activate link placing it self in the site wide section unlike bp-links. Is there something else that must be set to enable the site wide activation link or the ability to force the plugin to activate site wide?

Not that I am aware. It might be that the plugin has two Site Wide Only tags and there is a conflict. To which plugin do you refer?

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@MrMaz

Still unsure if I should add this tag to my plugin header. Shouldn’t it be up to the site admin to decide how the plugin is activated?

See my response in this post to @stwc. Since your plugin requires BP to operate, there is no value in letting non-admin members have access to your plugin via their blog dashboard. The more you can do to make installation, activation, and operation of your plugin foolproof the better. Is there actual functionality that your plugin offers if activated non-sitewide? What features of your plugin even make non-sitewide activation a desirable option to Site Admins?

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@hnla

In an ideal world I would like BP installed much as is but described differently but along with BP are installed a series of modules that can be activated or not by admin but that these are only activated from within BP so to speak always sitewide as BP is these modules representing some essential core set of features

I agree completely. I always refer to BuddyPress as a plugin suite but that never sat quite right with me. BuddyPress is a feature-rich platform as far as I’m concerned. It transcends the idea of a simple WordPress plugin. I also agree that many of the BP “plugins” are best described as modules as well. In fact, I consistently refer to my privacy “plugin” as the BuddyPress Privacy Component to separate it from the idea of it being just another plugin.

I could see the possibility of BuddyPress modules having their own set of 3rd-party plugins. So BuddyPress > 3rd-party BP modules > 3rd-party module plugins.

I also like your idea of requiring that all BP-dependent “plugins” get activated within a BuddyPress dashboard–instead of outside of BP. That could take care of all activation conflicts.

In my version of an “ideal BP world”, BuddyPress would become the foundation of the WordPress ecosystem as it is a user-centric platform and not blog centric. WordPress then would be a layer that sits on top of BuddyPress and could be activated if desired. So, Site Admins would install BuddyPress and then could check a box to install WordPress (in single or multisite mode), bbPress, and other modules.

Now I’m taking this thread too far of topic.