BuddyPress.org

To create a shortcode, you use the same function as in the mentionned topic and instead echoing, you return what you need. Like this:

function bpfr_message_shortcode() {	
$author = get_the_author();
$message = 'Login to send a message to this author !';

if( is_user_logged_in() ) {
	return '<a href=" '.wp_nonce_url( bp_loggedin_user_domain() . bp_get_messages_slug() . '/compose/?r=' . $author ) .' title="Private Message to Author" ">Contact the author</a>';
 } else {
    return $message;
 }
} 
add_shortcode( 'ksam', 'bpfr_message_shortcode' );

Add this to bp-custom.php or your child-theme functions.php.

Use the shortcode [ksam] at the place you want and you’ll see a Contact the author link.

Note that I tested it only within a post, meaning you need to be in a post loop to fetch an author.

@jordanboon0 – certainly there is more than one way to accomplish what you are proposing here.

My first thought upon reading this is is that you can create a “multi-user blog” with wordpress. Each new artist becomes a “contributor” or even “editor” upon sign up, and they can post a new gallery easily, then your admin(s) can choose what new galleries get published.

You go do all that with a single blog / wordpress install – and do it without buddypress, just make a cool custom author page for whichever theme you want to use.

There are many plugins and settings for things like front end uploads, post author profiles, wordpress gallery fancy stuff and all that.

You could also put buddypress into this mix and give your artists some extra social network stuff like private messages, groups and all that – however if you go with buddypress and and that layer to handle everything (without getting your users to submit posts / pages via standard wordpress) – then you have to get into a media plugin like rtmedia, mediapress, or – another one posted about a month ago.. anyhow – those media plugins are kind of their own “silos” – customizing how they work is not a few wp repo plugins away – and support for what you may want to do with them may be disappointing.

Of course you could take WP, add in BP if you really want the social layer, and still use the main site blog as kind of a “multi-user (or “group” blog) and do it that way.. you could get more complex and turn it into a multi-site install where each user get’s their own unique blog with gallery plugins – but moderation of posts and such with that setup may become more of a challenge – along with the extra headaches with running a multi blog network.

Anyhow – given the details you provided with your stated goals, I would forget about buddypress and multi-site – just install wordpress and do some searches in the wp-repo and themes section for “author pages”, “group blog” “post moderation” “front end uploads” and the various “Gallery” plugins – I think you can accomplish what you are going for pretty easily with lots of customization options.. without all the drawbacks and limitations of BP.

note sure if these work or not – never used them:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-invites/

https://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress-private-community/

Let me know if you try them and they fail or work!

@mattfl850 – this info will help with that journey:
bottom of the page: https://codex.buddypress.org/getting-started/installation-in-wordpress-multisite/

I am sure this is possible, it’s not the way I would do it… might also want to consider some of the info here: http://halfelf.org/2011/dont-use-wordpress-multisite/ (updated may 2015 😉

Others may agree or disagree, and you may be keeping your server tuned like a well oiled machine – hidden from the SE spiders and brute force attackers and all that.

Of course I am not an expert, or a bp dev or anything – just another user who has tried a few different setups and spent many hours trying to do what it “possible” and should be “simple” – and pulled my hair out trying to make things like that work well :))

Not sure if anything is changed in recent updates, but I will mention that when I did this kind of conversion; I had to install the role scoper plugin (now called press permit) – in order to hide people’s private pics they uploaded – as they were visible in the media gallery for other bp users on my sites who had signed up for a “blog” (not called “site” in multi-site) – that was a painful thing to find out the hard way – maybe things have changed with that and other issues – not sure.

Have fun with that and let me know how it works out for ya!

Hi, sorry if I ask a question here but it is also with regards to adding a Send Private Message button/link.

I would like to add it on the user profile. For example when a user views my profile, he/she can send me a private message through my profile page.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

@rebekahmeuir – this has just started happening to me too. All plugins, BP and themes up to date (with theme that’s specifically designed to work with BP).

On tesing the messaging works if you send it to a member by clicking on the ‘send private message’ in the All members section, but NOT when you compose a message in your own p[rofile section – with subjest line completed, and tested using the memebers’ Name and username. It shows an error message that the message can’t be sent.

Anyone else experiencing this?

I’ll check with other plugins and the theme and will update here if I find anything, but any info would be really useful!

Cheers.

That particular notification is for a private message. See where it says component_name. Post IDs won’t relate to messages

DanBp,
this helped me too. Thank you very much!

Is it possible to have something like that to put a “send private message” on product page (whoocommerce) to private message the User who upload product?
thank you!

Would it work if I would not connect the “members” page with BuddyPress in the settings, set the page to private and pull the dynamic content for the members list by a stortcode?

No, no, no. That page is core, must exist and should be blank. Just a (custom) title.

Do I need to learn to code to use BuddyPress?
No, but it’s better if you know some basics.

To make the member directory for loggedin users only, you have to:
– create a child-theme (is explained on WP and BP codex)
– copy/paste index.php from wp-content/plugins/buddypress/bp-templates/bp-legacy/buddypress/members/index.php
to
/wp-content/themes/your_child/buddypress/members/index.php

In this copy, right after <div id="buddypress">, in the existing php opening tag just after, you add if(is_user_logged_in() ):

At the end of the file, you’ll find the closing div tag of #buddypress.
Just before this closing tag, again an opening php tag, you add endif; before the do_action you’ll see there.

If you did it correctly, the directory is now only be visible for loggedin users.

Some basics:

open php tag <?php
closing php tag ?>

open html tag <div>
closing html tag </div>

Hi @nmschaller,

bbPress is a separate plugin and BuddyPress doesn’t manage bbPress. For questions about forum settings, you can use the bbPress support.

When you use BP groups component, you can add a forum to each of them. In this case only, you have to install bbPress. Of course you can also use bbPress as standalone on a BP install, or use bbPress with WordPress, without BP.

BP doesn’t use “pages” but templates, and the only pages created during installation are in for internal purpose. The “member” page is used to show the member directory, but also profiles or members activities. This dynamic content is displayed on different templates, depending the context, and using WP’s page system to fire all that via a same page slug (aka internal path).

your-site/members/some/thing/ where /some/thing/ is using his own template part displayed on “members page”.

So far i understand you use bbPress and now you want a members directory, and eventually some additionnal fields on user’s profiles. And most of this should be private or “members only”, right ?

The main problem is that you want some custom behave that need some knowledge (you seem to have), but you cannot edit functions.php Unfortunately, this is the place where to add customisation. And what to tell about bp-custom, which is another crucial cusmisation file.

You want to drive and have no steering wheel ! Annoying… 😉

The question is Do you need BuddyPress or can you use another solution ? 🙂

Depends your project, really. Members directory or extended profiles can be done with separate plugins.

Read here:
http://chrislema.com/best-wordpress-membership-plugin-2014/

Or digg into the Codex if you decide to use BuddyPress.

bbpress is the plugin, by type was meant site wide forum or group forum.

can I provide you a link via pm or mail?

No ! You’re on a free help support, maintained by volonteers.

If you want private assistance, use the job board forum where you can hire a freelancer or a dev, but probably not for free.

Which result when you use Twenty Fifteen theme ?
Do you use some custom functions on group page ?

Also, as of Codex https://codex.buddypress.org/administrator-guide/groups/
This is a private group

Options

Group content and activity will only be visible to members of the group.

The messages_mark_thread_read() function will mark a message thread as read. It accepts the thread ID. So, to mark read all new private messages if they have a given subject, you could do this:

function creativesinside_mark_read( $message ) {

    // Be sure we're working with an array.
    if ( is_object( $message ) ) {
        $args = (array) $message;
    } else {
        $args = $message;
    }

    // Mark as read.
    if ( $args['subject'] == 'comment on your post' ) {
        messages_mark_thread_read( $args['thread_id'] );
    }
}
add_action( 'messages_message_sent', 'creativesinside_mark_read' );

@jacipetersilie – best thing I have seen that is close to fbook like chat thing is the free “quick chat plugin” – however I do not use it to show as a widget on all pages and give a popup to users – as I think that would tax the server and web browser more than is reasonable if you have dozens of users – it might work, might not. I use quick chat for a single chat room on a single page.

From what you are describing however, I wonder if you really need a chat plugin to do what you are saying – one to many message – like the super-admin send a message to all users, kind of privately… I think there are some plugins in the wild that allow admin to send an email (Which I guess would be a buddypress inbox notification (?)) – to all users… that would “one to many” message – and give people a way to “message you back” privately I think.

I have also seen a plugin that will allow super admin to add a note to all dashboards – although I guess many bp users will not go to their dashboard when using most features –

I suppose you could also assign users to a group, and select settings for them to get a notice email when a new group message is sent. Which may achieve what you are describing.

If you just want one-to-many messaging chat with users who are actually logged into a chat room, I think it would be easy to do that with nusoft’s av-chat, there are settings in which you can make it so only certain users can post in the chat, have moderated chat, turn off pms and stuff like that – I guess I am not clear on what exactly you are trying to accomplish as I don’t use fbook and am not familiar with the kind of one to many fbook messaging you are talking about.

I can view anyones messages when logged out.

And you’re definitely talking about what BuddyPress refers to as private messages?

Can you try again after disabling all plugins, reverting to TwentyFifteen and removing all custom code? If you still get to see private messages when logged out then that shouldn’t be happening.

With standard buddypress (no modifications) you can freely view anyone’s messages without even logging in

That shouldn’t be the case for all users. Only users with admin capabilities should be able to do that. Are you able to see people’s private messages when logged in as a subscriber? If so, that’s a bug

With standard buddypress (no modifications) you can freely view anyone’s messages without even logging in. Personally I think that is not very good security/privacy, whatever you want to call it.

I made a ticket as I don’t think that “private messages” should be publicly viewable
(https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/6504#ticket)

What privacy/security checks would you recommend for people who don’t want users private data publicly viewable?