BuddyPress.org

Hi everyone,

I made a mock-up of how I picture this “friend” page.. Actually a better name for it would be “My Network” or simply “Home”

The screenshot can be viewed here: http://www.bp-tricks.com/wp-content/uploads/my_friendsv1.jpg

The design is my own, but the functionality could be used for the new BP theme as well:

Left: The activity stream as we all know it from the upcoming BP 1.2. Added the options to filter activity based on “Friend Categories”. This works with a vertical dropdown menu so if a user has many friend categories you won’t run out of horizontal space. It would be cool if the same could be done with Groups. So you can not only show activity from all groups but also from specific groups. This would make the activity stream even better imo! In the example I added a custom filter which could be added by a Twitter plugin. It allows the user to filter the Tweets from their friends!

The right side is filled with boxes which display useful information for the user. It shows:

– Quick Links: Links to pages which might get used a lot. Users can add their own links to pages they visit often.

– Friend Categories: Show the 5 most recent friends from every category

– Groups: The groups a member is part of and an options to show all their groups

– Custom boxes: these are boxes that are added by the users or by plugins. See it as widgets but then for an individual user. In my example I’ve made two widgets:

A quick tweet widget: Allows a user to send a tweet to twitter easily

An RSS widget: The user fills in one (or more) RSS feeds which get displayed in the widget.

Personally I think this would be a great step forward for BuddyPress profiles. If there would be a “Profile API” similar to the current group API, which allows developers to easily integrate widgets or activity stream filters for their plugins, it would be really great! Some other examples could be:

Quick Photo uploads (quickly add photos to your album from your “Home”)

Submit link (BP-Links widget to quickly submit a link)

It would be even better if users could also drag and drop the widgets to their liking. I’m interested in what others think of my mock-up, and the way I think the Stream/Friend Categories should be handled.

Probably just not compatible with the current version of BuddyPress. Try contacting the author and see if they plan to update.

Probably your plugin is getting loaded before BuddyPress is.

I’m not even sure this code works as it should, but try adding this (renaming the function of course):

/* Check that BuddyPress is loaded before Achievements */

function dpa_load_buddypress() {

if ( function_exists( 'bp_core_setup_globals' ) )

return true;



/* Get the list of active sitewide plugins */

$active_sitewide_plugins = maybe_unserialize( get_site_option( 'active_sitewide_plugins' ) );



if ( !isset( $active_sidewide_plugins['buddypress/bp-loader.php'] ) )

return false;



if ( isset( $active_sidewide_plugins['buddypress/bp-loader.php'] ) && !function_exists( 'bp_core_setup_globals' ) ) {

require_once( WP_PLUGIN_DIR . '/buddypress/bp-loader.php' );

return true;

}



return false;

}

add_action( 'plugins_loaded', 'dpa_load_buddypress', 11 );

@Mike

totally agree with you.

especially:

“What BP needs, I think, is expanded friend functionality. Ie friend grouping a la facebook style so I can filter my ever growing list of friends into like groupings e.g. Family, etc.”

being able to do mass-mailing based on different “Groups of Friends” (different mail for Family, company, best friends, etc.).

*IF* the error is the memory one, have a look at https://buddypress.org/forums/topic/500-errors-1and1-webhost#post-29415

Just tried to look but I’m getting a totally blank page. Guess you’re trying stuff.

When you say “any plugin”, which plugins specifically are you referring to? It is possible they out are of date and incompatible with the current release of BuddyPress. The trick to find out is to disable all plugins other than BuddyPress itself, and use the default (unedited) BuddyPress theme, and test your site. If you are still getting this sort of problem, then it’s either a BuddyPress bug or something specific to your setup.

If the problem is only recreated when a plugin is re-activated, then you need to contact the author of that plugin and ask when it will be updated to work with the current version of BuddyPress.

Also, thank you for trying Achievements

That refers to moving the current backwards compatibilty code OUT of the main BuddyPress plugin and moving it to a new, optional plugin (“BuddyPress Legacy”, or something). It won’t be any new code than what there is in the current release.

I want to say “1.2 doesn’t contain any database changes”, but then John’s going to pop in and say something has (probably the activity tables if any). If you are asking will the current trunk version database schema change when 1.2, I doubt it. I think Andy said he’s code-freezing BuddyPress 1.2 at the end of December to allow about a few week’s worth of testing.

Being close to the release of 1.2 (close to a beta, anyway), I’d suggest using 1.1.3 for now. Everything should upgrade easy to 1.2 when that is released.

It doesn’t look like Buddypress would be the most suitable script to develop a site like that. Zillow is an interface on a bunch of databases for homes, agents, lenders, etc. You’d have to adapt the users and post tables in WordPress, which aren’t very flexible…, or develop something around it.

Are there any open source PHP scripts more suitable for this kind of site? Can’t think of any.

Thank you Mike Pratt for doing all my typing for me. +1

Maybe this is a little off topic, but it’s about something mike mentioned. I think the development goes with 1.2 already in the right directions. I like almost everything about it. But some things are really missing. For example the mass-messaging in a group. I think it was a crucial option for the groups (and right now it is the backbone of our groups!!!) and now it’s gone… (is there any thought of bringing a funvtion like that back?)

I many points I agree totally with mike.

There may be hope yet. Not to put any pressure on Andy – his response in testbp.org forum re white screens rendered by plugins using deprecated code, “I’ll be supplying a backwards compatibility plugin” Reference

I am personally not a fan of taking it this direction (with a few caveats depending on where it goes)

@Peter – Yes, Facebook burned “friending” into the lexicon and made a mess of things as far as that definition goes. But it’s here and it’s what we have to work with. Not sure it would be wise to try and break the momentum 300mm users already understand. Now, expanding on the idea is another thing altogether.

We should start with what a “friend” means/should mean in the BP environment. There is overlap of the concept with Groups, but a major distinction, too that keeps me from supporting this shift you describe. If we expand the friend concept in its current manifestation, I think we’ll be better off.

Yes, @jjj friends are just groups of users. But that doesn’t make them Groups. Groups are organizations around a topic/idea. I think if you try to include an aggregation of users into that model, you will blur the lines as to confuse everyone. Since I don’t want being a friend of me being the same as being a member of the “Mike Pratt” group, you will force developers to have to change everything to make it look like the old process, or do it yourself. Is there really that much gained by you in the process? I mean, so much of the group functionality may not be necessary in a personal group.

Re the “it’s like Twitter following” it’s not either/or there. “friending” requires acceptance on the befriended’s part. Following does not. Admittedly, it would be great for BP to allow for a following kind of capability so I can keep tabs on those whose activity I care about but aren’t really “friends” with.

What is the filtering issue you speak of? On 1.2 I can look at activity of My friends or My groups and it works great. What BP needs, I think, is expanded friend functionality. Ie friend grouping a la facebook style so I can filter my ever growing list of friends into like groupings e.g. Family, etc. I’d even do it on buddypress.org and list @jjj @andy @jeffsayre etc into a group to follow what the sage’s all have to say. In this new concept, I will have to create a group for them? but they will already be in my “friends” group?

One thing to consider – the new Update functionality, in effect, already gives each user his own forum. A threaded conversation can already happen there and it’s centered on that user. If you are truing to make it a private one, then revamp the message system to allow me to send a private internal BP message to a group of friends (need that part too) and have it be a private threaded conversation/message. It’s dangerous to allow me to make it like you suggested

“Not only is it a group of people that I know, the people I’ve added to that group now can talk back and forth to one another because I’ve added them as a “friend.”

It gives the ability for someone to interact more personally with someone to whom they never initiated contact. Perhaps just adding a friend “type” ie “follow” would be very useful. It is the type that doesn’t require acceptance on the followee and the followee’s activities are visible according to their own set terms.

In summary, I think we keep Groups as topically focused “clubs” or “associations” that have members, content and activities and then each person has relationships with other users on the site. Some are “friends”, some they just “follow” with added functionality like grouping (pardon the use of the word), mass messaging (based on permissioning), etc

After some thought I kinda like the idea of giving friends a central place to talk just like a regular group. Here are my thoughts:

I think it could work very well and some group-like functions should be added to the My Friends/My Network idea proposed here.

but I also think the “My Friends” should be more limited then a regular group and would serve a different purpose then a regular group. A regular groups allows for more in-depth user interaction which is also viewable for the general audience of your community, while the My Friends section should be a quick way to interact with all your friends and to filter new stuff based on your friend types (familiy, work, regular friends). It does not need to have a discussion forum, I think it’s main focus should be a “friends” activity stream + extension possibilities trough a Friend API (based on a group API)

The way I see it the “My Friends” page should be an overview of all your friends activity and let you filter content just like the activity stream. I am working on a screenshot to visualize my vision . Hope to have it finished today!

I really like the idea to filter your friends by category, and for instance show only the activity of my family members. I also like the idea extending “My Friends” by showing Tweets from my friends etcetera.

think that this is important because Groups are meant to

@Bowe, I’d posted my solutions here and in a whole series of threads. I can’t solve the issue though. It depends on core architectural decisions.

Maybe it would be a very good idea to share that knowledge Peter instead of telling us how bad it currently is.. You could write a tutorial for other users who run into the same problem as you, or maybe it can be added to the core in a next release?

Ok,here is the solution.

This will sllow user to search for the blog posts on the main site only.

I have used two hooks to accomplish the purpose.

put this code in either bp-custom.php or in functions.php of your current theme. No core modification is required.

//filter the allowed search type

add_filter("bp_search_form_type_select","bpdev_allowed_search_type");

function bpdev_allowed_search_type($selecttion_box_old){

//ignore the selection box

$selection_box = '<select name="search-which" id="search-which" style="width: auto">';



if ( function_exists( 'xprofile_install' ) ) {

$selection_box .= '<option value="members">' . __( 'Members', 'buddypress' ) . '</option>';

}



if ( function_exists( 'groups_install' ) ) {

$selection_box .= '<option value="groups">' . __( 'Groups', 'buddypress' ) . '</option>';

}



if ( function_exists( 'bp_forums_setup' ) && !(int) get_site_option( 'bp-disable-forum-directory' ) ) {

$selection_box .= '<option value="forums">' . __( 'Forums', 'buddypress' ) . '</option>';

}

//here we modify the thing to a new type posts

$selection_box .= '<option value="posts">' . __( 'Blog', 'buddypress' ) . '</option>';



$selection_box .= '</select>';

return $selection_box;

}

//let us filter the search action urls

add_filter("bp_core_search_site","bpdev_filter_search_url");

function bpdev_filter_search_url($search_url){

//if user is searching for main site content, modify url else return url

$search_terms = $_POST['search-terms'];

$search_which = $_POST['search-which'];

if($search_which="posts")

$search_url=site_url( "?s=". urlencode($search_terms) );

return $search_url;

}

The name field was previously split into “First Name / Last Name” fields, but this is an issue for internationalization. In future versions it may be possible to apply rules to profile fields that will determine the content allowed.

That is such a silly argument. 90 percent of the civilized world uses firstname + lastname. Why make life difficult for the rest of us just because theoretically a few places in the world use only one name or three names or whatever? Why not let them hack a workaround it?

My issue with this is also not just about that field, but more about what it says about Buddypress’ priorities. If you want to register members in your company or sports club with name, address, phone number, etc. there is no easy way to do it, you’ll have to hack core files and later you’ll have to use custom functions to retrieve the data from several different tables in the database.

Also, BuddyPress will automatically synchronize profile fields with the WP profile fields. Check the function xprofile_sync_wp_profile()

No it doesn’t. Version 1.0 only added first name and last name to wp_usermeta if a user updated his account data after signup. You couldn’t count on the data to be there for every member. I had to write a custom function, based on xprofile_sync_wp_profile, to force that synchronization to happen upon registration.

It should be hopefully replacing the files with the new ones, but you can not be sure , until there is a feature freeze.

As Andy mentions, there may be some unexpected changes(very less expected though) from the current trac to buddypress 1.2 beta.

My advise, if you want, you can go ahead with this, just keep an eye on changes or you may wait till mid of January, then you will have the beta version to work with.

The software that will win out in the race for enterprise collaboration is a combination of all applicable web services that have an API that allows them to be easily mashed-up. Social media/networking/collaboration software should be glue not paper.

No software can be all things to all people, but if you create a platform where the CTO of a small company can pick and choose from hundreds of online apps from multiple sources and easily mash them up, then it will hit the stratosphere (although not sure how to profit from this). The key word here is “easily.” I am not talking about plugins, I am talking about marrying separate applications.

I don’t think this will ever hit the huge corporations though, because of all of the privacy regulations and security issues. Small firms with small budgets will be willing to take the risk, I think.

I agree with a lot of what David Lewis said, but my description would be that most open source collaboration software has a very “huge” and/or clunky feel to it. I want something that feels “light.”

Also, BuddyPress will automatically synchronize profile fields with the WP profile fields. Check the function xprofile_sync_wp_profile()

The name field was previously split into “First Name / Last Name” fields, but this is an issue for internationalization. In future versions it may be possible to apply rules to profile fields that will determine the content allowed.