BuddyPress.org

Hi @julia_b

As @durkk mentioned, @-mentions work on username and not on display name. So going on what you have in the screenshot, sending a public message to @ Julia Buckley will actually send the message to a user with username @ Julia. This probably isn’t want you want.

@julia_b

be patient ! The upcoming BP 2.1 version brings huge improvement to mentions handling, with auto suggestion.

BP 2.1 About page excerpt:

With BuddyPress 2.1, type a @ when leaving a status update or commenting on an activity item or blog post, and the new suggestions panel will open.

https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/3278

Maybe I’m misunderstanding how @-mentions work. The way I see it, if your username is (note the space):

Jane Doe

…and I want to mention you in an update, then I’d write:

@Jane Doe

But, as you can see there is a problem with that. Jane Doe won’t get the notification because somebody with the username @Jane got it instead.

Perhaps @danbp can shed some light on this?

i’m not a mention expert @henrywright 😉

in wp_users table we have 3 cols related to name
user_login | user_nicename | display_name

in the members admin we have 2 cols related to name:
username | name |

Frontend
On the SWA we see
@username

in the member directory we see
@username

on the member profile
@username (near avatar) and first name, last name as page title.

As example:
New account for Jane Doe

if you create the account in the wp admin, you have to enter
username, first name, last name

The default registering on frontend
wp part: Username (aka pseudonym) = Jenny
bp part: Name (aka first name and/or last name) Jane Doe

in both case, the db will contain
user_login | user_nicename | display_name
jenny | jenny | Jane Doe

According to bp_activity_get_user_mentionname function, the appropriate user name for @-mentions is user_nicename or $userdata->user_login

Without forgetting to mention this comment, in bp-activity-functions.php

	// In username compatibility mode, hyphens are ambiguous between
	// actual hyphens and converted spaces.
	//
	// @todo There is the potential for username clashes between 'foo bar'
	// and 'foo-bar' in compatibility mode. Come up with a system for
	// unique mentionnames.

But don’t ask me what is the username compatibility mode, i don’t know ! 😉

@danbp

Let’s be honest here. Bbpress is designed to be ok with most themes.

So yeah you are right, in absolute terms. A forum is just a grit. But if we go that route all of this is just 0 and 1’s. It’s not that productive to think like that imo 😉 Most people like to have something that looks better than ok for most themes.

https://devpress.com/?attachment_id=6504 is a theme that is just a regular forum but completely fine tuned to the theme. This is a rarity. Sadly. Some perspective on why this is I guess… https://devpress.com/tickets/social-buddypress-theme/

Standalone forums most of the time have themes, although indeed phpbb always looks very much like…phpbb 😀 BUT, it’s a standalone forum and therefore coherently themed throughout.

That is the BIG question ! If you read the comment i mentionned, it says “converted space”.

In fact, as stated before, @mention use $username combined with $user_id
This works in almost every situation, i think.
If your username (pseudo) is henrywrigth, first name henry, last name wright, the display name would be automatically henrywright. As display_name is the first and last name, not the username.

Same thing if you chosee HW102 as username (pseudo) and first name henry, last name wright, the display name would be automatically henry wright.

On frontend, we’ll see HW102 and on mouseover, we’ll see henrywright. (with converted space)
On backend, we have HW102 (username) and Henry Wright (NAME)

NAME is the BP combination of WP’s first+last name on a profile.
And you always mention somebody by the username.

Glad you saw it @henrywright ! Fingercrossing that it wouldn’t became a little nightmare 😉

see https://codex.buddypress.org/themes/theme-compatibility-1-7/theme-compatibility-2/

Hi Julia_B

To alter the templates for activity you need to do the following:

Create a page called buddypress in your root folder.
Inside the buddypress folder you create another folder called activity and in there another folder called single.

Now you need to access your existing plugins folder.
Open buddypress -> bp-templates -> bp-legacy -> buddypress

Here you will find 5 folders, one is activity, inside this are some php files and a folder called single, inside this single folder is the index.php file that runs the activity.

I copied all 5 folders to my new buddypress folder in my root and all the files in those folders, with them able to control/change the buddypress layout as I would with a child theme.

To have an activity wall on homepage you only need to customize the appearance of wordpress in the admin area/backend.

Go to “appearances” then “customize”, here you can change “front page” to activity and it should work.

Good luck