BuddyPress.org

I think the main point is being missed here. As much as I love them and their work, Andy and jjj can’t do this all by themselves. So guys, I would ask you to wrap your arms around whomever you deem best suited to help you lead this community. We all know who those people are. They are more then capable. But I can tell you from 1st hand knowledge that those very important set of Lieutenants goes very much ignored. Emails go un-responded and forum posts are dying on the vine. THAT’s why the community is floundering. Jeff Sayre, Ray, et all should know what the plan is. They should know why private messaging was turned off. They should know what the vision is for the new bp.org and therefore should be helping steer the community. BUT everyone is left blowing in the wind. So it’s not a matter of “everything is fine” Someone please lead the community. Leadership can even take the form of “I am too busy, , I need you to take charge for me.

@myjive – Please post this as a defect on Trac.

Login with the same credentials as you use here on bp.org.

Note that changes need to occur in the bp_core_catch_no_access() function to be more cooperative with private access pages.

@themightymo The template file that handles this is bp-default/groups/single/home.php. See around line 44 – bp_group_status_message() creates the “to join this group…” message for private groups. If you want to customize the way that you are redirected, you should start here.

It’s strange, though – BP 1.2.4.1 should do what you are suggesting out of the box. Could there be a plugin conflict? Or an issue with a custom theme that you’ve built?

Re: Forum vs. Activity – I have no doubt that it is harder than is seems, but that’s not relevant to the discussion. The issues being discussed are usability. Any good and usable design begins and ends with users… not programmers.

Re: Autocomplete (my pet peeve) – Sorry, doesn’t make sense to me. I’m free to message any member I want but I’m only given help and feedback when typing in friends names. Huh? If I compose a message to a non-friend by putting their username in “Send to” – I have no indication that I’ve gotten it right until after clicking send. And even then, the feedback is not that clear. An error message could be a wrong username or something else. I know you can more easily message non-friends by visiting their profile (instead of having to remember their username and type it without error) and clicking “Send Private Message”… but that only allows for one recipient. As for the spam issue – that’s a technical issue. We’re talking about usability.

And yes… I have tried to create a plugin and I got 99% there – but I’m not a programmer and I got stuck on how to remove / override the existing autocomplete ajax functions. I asked for help here but didn’t get a response. So I had to hack the core Oh well. And for some reason it stopped working the other day. Odd.

Anyway, BuddyPress just seems a little confused when it comes to it’s ideas around Friends, Followers and Members. It feels like an odd mix of Twitter (wide open) and Facebook (walled off).

BuddyPress really seems to be slowing down when following its TRAC and I have followed it for more than a year now. The only thing I am seeing are Andys updates on his Twitter-page talking about soccer and his iPad. For my understanding, this is an indication that BP is (slowly) dying.

There are only a few major features which need to be developed in the BP-Core-Code in order to make BuddyPress a proper Social-Networking-software:
– Privacy features
– Properly working Private-Groups (I do have a TRAC-ticket out there regarding this)
– Blog-Posts from the Front-End

And most of all: BuddyPress needs to be made much simpler in terms of User-Interface (Navigation & Activity-streams).
Less is More !

KISS (Keep It Simple & Stupid)

I have the same thing happening in 3.0 RC3.

I think a trac bug is already filed for this – when you reply to a private message for some reason the notification is updated again.

@aishing – Check out the following code:
https://buddypress.org/community/groups/how-to-and-troubleshooting/forum/topic/how-to-make-a-private-community/?topic_page=2&num=15#post-44616

Add it to your theme’s functions.php file.

Try adding the following in wp-config.php:
define( 'BP_ENABLE_USERNAME_COMPATIBILITY_MODE', true );

This should fix your problem.

it seems you only have one group setup (which is private) so is the forum enabled for that group?

You could probably hook into the get_header action, do your conditional check and if the person is a mentor, then show the page, otherwise show the registration page or whatever.

Modify the function listed in this thread:
https://buddypress.org/community/groups/how-to-and-troubleshooting/forum/topic/how-to-make-a-private-community/?topic_page=2&num=15#post-44616

Hopefully it gives you a few pointers.

Travel Junkie – The first code was great on WP 3.0. Thank you!

Ok, we have found the problem and fixed it. We were using the wp-cache plugin. First we disabled it, but nothing changed. Then we found it had left an objet-cache.php file at the root folder. We deleted it and TADA! In a second all our problems vanished…

@firetag

So, you’re looking for a “crossover” between private and public groups. Private so the activity doesn’t show in the stream (but it does show in the group) yet public so folks don’t need to be invited to join.

This might help: on lines 71 to 101 is the function/action for groups_setup_globals. On line 97 is the valid_status array (public, private, hidden) where I’m thinking you could add a new status like “category”. As that new status would not be “public”, activity shouldn’t show up in the main stream, and as it wouldn’t be “private” either, neither invitations nor membership requests would be needed.

What do you think…doable?

EDIT: I guess you would need a way to keep that option out of the preselects available to users at the group creation stage though. Hmmm…

@nipponmonkey: I tried your solution above, but now all my pages are blank and nothing is visible… I added it directly to my functions.php and changed/added absolutely nothing. Did I make an error?

@themeanwhile – you can enable or disable the various components so if you want Activities only, enable that and disable other components. After you activate BuddyPress, go to the new BuddyPress menu item on the left column of dashboard, and go to

a) General Settings – these are your choices
Base profile group name:
Full Name field name:
Disable BuddyPress to WordPress profile syncing?: Yes No
Hide admin bar for logged out users?: Yes No
Disable avatar uploads? (Gravatars will still work): Yes No
Disable user account deletion?: Yes No
Disable global forum directory?: Yes No
Disable activity stream commenting on blog and forum posts?: Yes No
Default User Avatar – For users without a custom avatar of their own, you can either display a generic logo or a generated one based on their email address

b) Component Setup
Activity Streams – Allow users to post activity updates and track all activity across the entire site.
Enabled Disabled
Blog Tracking – Tracks blogs, blog posts and blogs comments for a user across a WPMU installation.
Enabled Disabled
bbPress Forums – Activates bbPress forum support within BuddyPress groups or any other custom component.
Enabled Disabled
Friends – Allows the creation of friend connections between users.
Enabled Disabled
Groups – Let users create, join and participate in groups.
Enabled Disabled
Private Messaging – Let users send private messages to one another. Site admins can also send site-wide notices.
Enabled Disabled
Extended Profiles – Activates customizable profiles and avatars for site users.
Enabled Disabled

I would suggest you set up a test install so you can check the features for yourself.

“Of course, activity filters, profile page, friends page, settings page, etc, would also need to be migrated to display in the backend.”
Why? If you want to make the BP Activity section private, you can add conditional tags for is_user_logged_in …

Ok got this back to the right section…
Original patch worked time wise the first time, then didn’t allow me to receive messages…
Tried altering the 7 files in the the 002 .diff file here: https://trac.buddypress.org/ticket/2203
It ended stating that the messages sent were 10 years 6 months ago… Double checked to make sure I applied code correct.
Removed Code and now it’s back to saying private messeages, just sent, were sent 5 hours ago.

@piphut

Yes private messages… using the included ticket “patch”