[snark]

Running BP 1.2 with WP 2.9.1 single-user. Ok, I’m working to clarify this family of issues related to Forum / Activity stream integration:

1) When deleting posts in the Activity stream, they are not deleted in the Forum. Any way to accomplish this? It used not to work in the other direction either (deleting Topics/replies in Forum was not deleting them in the Activity stream), but this has finally been fixed with the final release of BP1.2 (see http://buddypress.org/forums/topic/forum-topic-delete-doesnt-delete-activity-feeds ).

2a) If a user posts a reply to a Topic in the Forum, it shows up in the Activity stream, as it should. But if a user replies to a forum Topic or Topic Reply in the Activity Stream, it doesn’t show up in the Forum.

2b) You can “reply to a reply” to a Topic in the Activity stream, which is then threaded, but you cannot “reply to a reply” to a Topic in the Forum itself.

2c) For any replies to a post in the Activity Stream, an email notifier is sent to the creator of the post being replied to, but for replies to the same post in the Forum, an email notifier is not sent.

3) You can “Favorite” a post in the Activity stream, but you can’t “Favorite” that same post in the Forum. (See my trac ticket — http://trac.buddypress.org/ticket/1883)

There seems to be a split personality going on between the Forum and the Activity stream, and I’m looking for ways to close the gap. This, I believe, is precisely the function of Buddypress, to merge WordPress with bbPress and add new social networking features.

Basically, it’s a one-way street from the Forum to the Activity stream, and I’m looking for a way of making it a two-way street, so that anything you do in the Activity stream shows up at the source in the Forum. Adding the Activity stream feature of threaded replies to the Forum would be great as well — if you can have these threaded conversations in the Activity stream, why not in the Forum too, where it should be more full-featured?

[Paul Wong-Gibbs]

1. You are deleting activity stream comments, not forum posts.

2a. Because it is a activity stream reply, not a forum post.

2b. Because it’s a forum post, not an activity stream comment.

3. See above (you get the idea, I’m sure).

There was a lengthy discussion around this. I think on a Trac ticket. The resolution so far was to create a new option on the BP admin settings, “Disable activity stream commenting on blog and forum posts?”

Can anyone remember the ticket number?

[r-a-y]

Added back in 2189:

https://trac.buddypress.org/changeset/2189

I had a ticket about it:

https://trac.buddypress.org/ticket/1419

But there are probably a few others in Trac.

DJPaul – I think you’re referring to this long discussion thread:

https://buddypress.org/forums/topic/new-12-swa-and-blogforum-syncing-feedback-needed

Man, Akismet is loving me today!

[snark]

Ok. I found the General BP setting to “Disable activity stream commenting on blog and forum posts?”, which I set to “disable”. I think this is a good solution — users can reply to Group or Activity posts, which are synced in both places, but now if they want to reply to a Forum post that they are reading in the Activity stream, they have to click through to the Forum post and reply there. This will keep the site from generating two sets of conversations.

As to my point #3, I’m still hoping for a site-wide “Favorites” option, but especially for Forum topics and replies. This is why I have filed a trac ticket for it, which others seem to agree is an issue to be fixed.

Thanks for the tip!

[snark]

Thanks for the links, @r-a-y — those discussions were helpful, and I can see that this has been an ongoing discussion for at least the last couple months.

For now I’ve disabled Forum replies in the activity stream, to avoid the “forked conversation” issue of having some topic relies in the Forum and some in the AS. I’m still wrestling with the whole Groups thing and the Groups comment box at the top of each Groups page — I know for a fact that when I open this up to 10k+ members of my current forum, many, many of them will just start posting their topics in the Group page, rather than creating a Topic in a Group Forum. Maybe I should just open it all up and let it be chaotic, and let the user community figure out how to self-regulate?

The other thing I’m still looking for is a sitewide Favorites option, so users can mark Forum Topics, Group AS posts, or blog posts as Favorites — currently you can only do that with Group AS posts. It looks like @JohnJamesJacoby is working on such a plugin — see https://buddypress.org/forums/topic/favorite-button-available-on-singlephp — which hopefully will be ready soon and solve this particular issue.

[willbernard]

I’d still love to see some functionality added that syncs up activity stream replies with forum replies. Is that a possibility? For now I just turned replying off but it would be hugely helpful to have the option of replying on a forum which then shows up on the activity stream or vice versa.

Am I dreaming? Or is that a remote possibility?

[rich! @ etiviti]

i was dreaming about it last night and had a few moments this morning between meetings….

so how about something like this?

http://files.etiviti.com/misc/buddypress/buddypress-activity-stream-on-forum-posts.gif

Pulls in the activity-comments for a forum post

[kriskl]

@etivity YES!!

this is good stuff

please make it reality

[rich! @ etiviti]

I’ll get something added into group forum extras development in the next day or so

– the functionality is basic – no replying but there is a activity permalink, and probably some css work is required

[kriskl]

you are a star!

[abcde666]

@etiviti

check the screenshots within the following TRAC-tickets:

https://trac.buddypress.org/ticket/1559

https://trac.buddypress.org/ticket/1505

https://trac.buddypress.org/ticket/1473

https://trac.buddypress.org/ticket/1431

https://trac.buddypress.org/ticket/1396

https://trac.buddypress.org/ticket/1389

[rich! @ etiviti]

uploaded to the development version:

https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-group-forum-extras/download/

requires a theme edit (details on the forum extras admin page after activating the subplugin)