It would be great if users were able to post messages directly into the activity stream of someone else (instead of only their own activity stream). That way the activity stream will basically have the wire built into it, which would offer a clean and unified solution to this problem.
What do you think?
It’s not gone just radically altered?
It’s part of the activity stream now?
I think if you want it exactly as before you need to use this plugin provided to maintain backwards compatibility:
https://codex.buddypress.org/getting-started/upgrading-from-10x/
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-backwards-compatibility/
But someone more versed in these matters may provide a better answer.
Maintaining this backwards compatibility does not seem straightforward though, and a better step by step guide would be useful, and I’m not sure that in reality 1.1.x and 1.2 are such different beasts that 1.2 ought to be considered a separate branch at least it doesn’t really feel as though 1.2 is an upgrade from 1.1 less a point release than a milestone almost a 2.x?
@hnla How do you mean that it’s part of the activity stream now? As far as I know it’s impossible to post a message directly to the activity stream on someone’s profile (unless it’s a reply to an activity, which is very limiting).
@xspringe
hnla is correct.
If you want the wire, install the backwards compatibility plugin.
All wire messages are converted to activity items. Check out http://testbp.org as an example.
You’re correct that the only way to post a message is to mention them or by replying to an update the user already wrote.
I’ll try using the compatibility plugin, because many users will get confused with “@” and the wire is a great way to keep in touch. Thanks for your help guys.
Ok this doesn’t seem to work out, I have installed the plugin (Backwards Compatibility), but when I click other links, such as a profile link, I just get redirected back home. Any suggestions?
@r-a-y Thanks for the clarification. Do you know why it was decided to implement it this way?
It feels very counter intuitive that you’re able to post replies into the user activity stream, but to post a direct message into the activity stream you have to use a completely different component (which is disabled by default) to have your message show up in the user activity stream in a roundabout way. And to add even more confusion, posting messages directly to the site wide activity stream conversely is possible without having to use any tricks.
I don’t mean to sound harsh, because I love buddypress and it’s an amazing piece of software, but it does feel like it’s a bit counter intuitive and inconsistent in this specific instance.
What’s disabled by default?
I don’t think I found anything disabled by default. The ‘what’s New’ textarea window allows me to post updates to ‘My Profile’ or groups and when submitted it does appear in the general activity stream, logging in as a different user I can then directly reply to the comment left from within the general activity stream. I did have to kick things into life a bit though.
Overall the methodology of the new activity stream does feel a lot better and I am getting used to it, however it has been a fair bit of work working it into an existing layout, buts that’s another issue that I touched upon briefly as a footnote to my earlier post – I’m still of the opinion that upgrading to 1.2 but attempting to maintain backwards compatibility is not straightforward due to inherent changes to markup and class tokens which throws up a bit of confusion, and am finding that major features implemented such as ‘Events’ plugin are not compatible which cause one to have to think carefully about upgrading a live site where this sort of feature is in regular use.
Testing further a bit one thing that appears apparent is that with compatibility plugin enabled and all legacy components selected one can still access and post to the wire in ones profile while also having the newer ‘Updates’ approach available, however posting on your wire does not appear in main activity stream -is it supposed to? I’ve disabled the legacy component ‘Wire’ and what is apparent is that I can still read older comments made via ‘Wire’ so am thinking that it’s perhaps better to disable further use of the ‘wire’ in favor of ‘Updates’ . The issues being though how would members take to that and the Twire plugin at present is broken but would it work anyway with the ‘Wire’ disabled and it’s a feature that is liked.
@DJPaul The Wire is disabled by default. Personally I believe this would be a good thing, were it not for the fact that there is no longer a direct and easy way to leave a comment onto someone’s profile (other than using the indirect method of mentions, which is quite confusing to the user). You’d expect to be able to post directly into someone’s activity stream, as is possible with the site wide activity stream, but for some reason you can only reply to activities on the user profile and not directly post a message into it.
