BuddyPress.org

@johnjamesjacoby; G’morning mate (or not, as may be your geographical case!) I’ve just been modifying some BP core files, as I do, and keeping them separate so I can overwrite and restore as seems best. The main reason is that I’m very finicky about how things read English-wise for site users, as I’ve found it can really put them off if it isn’t easy to read, or looks wrong because of syntax or extra spacing, etc.

One of the main things I’ve changed is the English in the Activity steam. For example;

“X and Y are now friends: 4 hours ago”

That makes no sense to most not-techie users, and gives them the uncomfortable subconscious feeling that something is wrong. Mine now reads;

“X and Y became friends 4 hours ago”

I know it might seem over-picky, but I’ve done a fair bit of study into the psychological impact of software interfaces and website layouts on users, and small things really do make a difference. It’s amazing what the brain spots unconsciously, making the user feel either comfortable and relaxed, or increasingly more tense as the minutes go by in use.

So, though I haven’t looked into it yet, is it possible to override core BP files in some way, or could it be made possible without huge amounts of work? I mean a bit like theming, where you can just clone the Default theme into a new folder and hack away merrily.

One other option, of course, would be to keep *all* strings used in formatting in the /bp-languages/buddypress.pot file, and user them in all php files, so that modifying the .pot file would change the output instantly. At present, much of the string formatting is hard-coded into the php files (at least in English), so just changing the .pot file doesn’t work globally. Hmm… now I think about it, does using another language .pot file cause that to happen, ie., the formatting in the core php files is overridden? (I don’t speak any other language, and haven’t tried changing it). If this *is* the case, then creating an ‘English Modified’ .pot file would do the trick, yes..?