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Organizing/categorizing many groups with group tags plugin


  • Dwenaus
    Participant

    @dwenaus

    I have a programming question about how to implement this. I’m about to build a medium size BP install for an existing community where their groups are semi-structured. I was thinking the best way to provide them the ability to organize their groups would be with group tags. Just like is done regular wp with tag clouds and on this forum as well.

    My question is should I use the skeleton component to create a new BP groups class and do everything in there? During group creation I would have a separate ‘Tags’ panel. OR should I simply extend the existing group class and put the tag creation code under the current place for Group Description.

    I’m guessing the first is the way to go, but I’m looking for some advice about how to do this. In the end it will be a plugin an hopefully helpful to others with many groups.

Viewing 18 replies - 1 through 18 (of 18 total)
  • Although I have no answer on how to implement this (I’m not a programmer) a similar option to tags would be to use a custom taxonomy. It’s a new feature that was added in 2.8. That way your group taxonomy is not mixed in with normal tags. Only caveat might be that the documentation for taxonomies isn’t great right now.


    Dwenaus
    Participant

    @dwenaus

    Thanks for the comment David. I agree for a very robust solution a custom taxonomy would fit the bill. However a bare bones implementation might just use the group meta table.

    I checked out this older plugin: BuddyPress Contents (https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bpcontents/installation/) which has serious tag and category support however it is no longer in development. But maybe i’ll dig in the code and see how he implemented it and try to salvage the parts i need.


    Dwenaus
    Participant

    @dwenaus

    OK, I’ve written the code that allows the user to enter the tags, edit the tags, and creates a tag cloud on the main group page. I did this by just using groupmeta fields. simple.

    But I’m at a loss as to how to display specific list of groups (the ones for that tag). Should I be filtering bp_has_groups or should I create my own loop using while ( bp_groups() ) : bp_the_group(); ?


    Dwenaus
    Participant

    @dwenaus

    well I got it to work, but it’s a bit of a hack, and I had to add an extra action in the default template to get it to work. but if anyone wants it, let me know. If someone were to help clean it up and make it more standardized, then it could be released as a plugin.


    schwooba
    Participant

    @schwooba

    I’m interested but I’m not a programmer :(


    Dwenaus
    Participant

    @dwenaus

    when I get it cleaned up I’ll send publish it. Right now it is not using ajax like all other group directory controls. I just hacked it to pass the variable in the url. I’m tinkering with the ajax now, to see how it can work.


    designodyssey
    Participant

    @designodyssey

    Definitely interested. As we’ve discussed before, member and group types are something I need for my implementation.


    neobabs
    Participant

    @neobabs

    Yeah, thx for this work i’m interested too ! I need to find a way to categorize groups and can’t wait the possible implementation in bp 1.3

    I also wonder if someone can make the bp content plugin work with bp 1.2 … ? it was a good plugin.

    Also interested :o)


    Bowe
    Participant

    @bowromir

    Very very very interested! :)


    Dwenaus
    Participant

    @dwenaus

    sounds good. I’ll put some more effort into refining it and post a link to the code here. Then once it is more refined, I’ll post it as a plugin.

    Anyone out there know much about how the ajax works in the groups listing screen. Where and how it is being called, and examples of how to insert my own ajax calls. this would make the plugin much better.


    Bowe
    Participant

    @bowromir

    I’ll point MrMaz and Brajesh to this thread.. they seems to know a lot about the AJAX stuff :)


    Dwenaus
    Participant

    @dwenaus

    OK, I’ve worked out some of the issues, and have something to share:

    the eventual url will be here: https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-group-tags/

    but for now it is : http://bluemandala.com/bp-group-tags.zip

    any and all feedback is appreciated.


    Plugin Description:

    This plugin will allow you assign tags to groups. You can then show a clickable tag cloud above the group listings or use the Group Tags widget.

    Known Issues:

    This plugin does not integrate with the ajax group Search, Order By or My Groups functionality.

    Everything works fine, however the url from the group tag remains in the browser.

    I have no idea how this works with paginated groups.

    TODO: look into making this work with ajax calls to fix url display

    ensure the do_action hook is added to default theme *request has been made*

    show common tags in the tag adding interface

    create links for tags when displayed under group description

    IMPORTANT INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS

    For this plugin to work, you need to edit /bp-themes/bp-default/groups/groups-loop.php in the buddypress folder

    on the 6th line, right below this code:

    <?php if ( bp_has_groups( bp_dtheme_ajax_querystring( ‘groups’ ) ) ) : ?>

    ADD this line:

    <?php do_action( ‘bp_after_groups_query’ ) ?>

    If it is already there, then ignore this note.

    Future versions of the buddypress default theme hopefully will include this line.


    Dwenaus
    Participant

    @dwenaus

    the lastest version of the plugin is available at https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-group-tags/

    if anyone knows much about how to integrate this withe the groups ajax (order by, search, my groups) then help me out. adding this functionality to the plugin would take it from a slight hack to something that could eventually be incorporated into core.


    Bowe
    Participant

    @bowromir

    Looks cool, and I’ll try to test it asap!

    Thanks for creating this, and I hope that you get the ajax stuff working :) Maybe someone in the BuddyPress Dev. chat can help you out!


    designodyssey
    Participant

    @designodyssey

    Thanks. If someone hasn’t solved the ajax thing, I’ll work on it when I get to that stage in my project.


    Dwenaus
    Participant

    @dwenaus

    all the rest of the code is clean and conforms to how buddypress is coded. The only funky part is the lack of ajax integration. (However there is a small upside to the current implementation in that it can easily be bookmarked.)

    The lack of ajax is OK for my project, but if anyone can help, I’ll dive in again and fix it. all i need are some pointers as to where to begin and how it flows in the code.


    atburi
    Participant

    @aburi

    @Dwenaus

    thanks for putting the effort in on this for all of us…

    I will definitely look forward to using it… I will have many groups so it will be essential to organize them.

Viewing 18 replies - 1 through 18 (of 18 total)
  • The topic ‘Organizing/categorizing many groups with group tags plugin’ is closed to new replies.
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