In 2013, BuddyPress introduced its first template pack, BP Legacy, in the 1.7 release along with theme compatibility. This major project milestone made BuddyPress compatible with nearly every WordPress theme, freeing sites from the requirement of using a BuddyPress-specific theme. BP Legacy has served theme developers well in customizing BuddyPress, but contributors are working on…
BuddyPress lead developers have decided to bump the minimum PHP requirement for version 2.8 of the plugin to 5.3+. The new guidelines for BuddyPress’ PHP version support, authored by Boone Gorges on behalf of the team, states that the plugin will offer full support for all stable versions of PHP officially supported by the PHP…
Development for the BuddyPress 2.7 release cycle kicked off this week led by @mercime. Contributors chimed in during this week’s meeting to identify their wishlist items for 2.7. Beta 1 is expected September 21 and the official release is scheduled for October 12. During last week’s meeting, lead developers John James Jacoby, Boone Gorges, and…
BuddyPress 2.6.0 “Espejo” was released today, named for the owners of an obscure restaurant named Pizza & Subs in Rock Island, IL. Pizza & Subs is known for its excellent pizza and taco calzones, a Quad-City original. Introducing Activity Embeds One of the most visible and exciting new features of 2.6 is the ability to…
Three weeks ago, a discussion about the possibility of adding emoji reactions to BuddyPress core turned into a heated conversation in the #BuddyPress Slack channel. The topic was inspired by the new BP Reactions plugin, which recently landed on WordPress.org. This experimental plugin, created by BuddyPress core developer Mathieu Viet, adds an API that allows…
BuddyPress core developer Hugo Ashmore announced a new trial initiative this week that aims to create a library of CSS and JavaScript snippets to help users customize their communities. The Style Modules project will aggregate community-submitted code that enhances BuddyPress components in a plug-and-play manner. Developers who want to contribute to the project can submit…
BuddyPress 2.5, released in March, introduced customizable emails via a new BP Email API. This new feature allows community managers to easily edit BuddyPress-generated emails in the admin and make design changes in the customizer. It didn’t take long for developers to think of bringing this same customizability to bbPress emails. Brandon Allen has just…
In an exceptionally well-documented commit message, BuddyPress lead developer Boone Gorges introduced a new API to manage single item navigation, thanks to contributions from core developers Mathieu Viet and Raymond Hoh. Gorges summarized the changes to how BuddyPress will handle navigation in the upcoming 2.6 release: The new BP_Core_Nav overhauls the way that BuddyPress registers,…
The BuddyPress codex has a long list of internal configuration settings that are not exposed in the plugin’s admin settings page. These are short definition lines that can be added to a site’s bp-custom.php file to make changes to BuddyPress default settings. BuddyExtender is a new plugin from the development team at WebDevStudios that aims…
Development on BuddyPress 2.6 began this week with a meeting to set the schedule and scope for the release. The BuddyPress project recently moved to adopt release leads as part of the core development process. “The release lead gets a sense at the beginning of the dev cycle what he/she would like to accomplish, as…
Spam is one of the most discouraging things about managing a BuddyPress-powered social network. Since WordPress itself is already a magnet for spam signups and comments, BuddyPress is subject to the same and then some. With an ordinary WordPress site you can block most of it fairly well, but with BuddyPress you often have to…
BuddyPress 2.5.0 “Medici” was released today, named for Medici on 57th, a Chicago restaurant famous among BP contributors for its “Garbage Pizza.” The new BP Email API is the highlight of the release. It allows users to edit BuddyPress emails in the admin and change their appearance in the customizer. The placeholder text in curly…
BuddyPress 2.5 beta 1 was released this week with a list of new features and improvements to test, including a brand new BP Email API. The new API allows users to easily customize any email that BuddyPress sends, without having to leave the admin or write any code. The ticket to overhaul BuddyPress emails was…
Developers interested in contributing to the creation of a BuddyPress REST API met for the first time yesterday to discuss a path forward. Bronson Quick is leading the project with the help of Ryan Fugate. Quick works for Human Made and is a WordPress core contributor. He is also the lead contributor on Chassis, a…
BuddyPress contributors met last week to discuss the scope of the 2.5 release, which is slated for the beginning of March. Lead developer Paul Gibbs opened the meeting with a call for tickets that contributors are working on for 2.5. Core developer Mathieu Viet will be working on comment syncing between activity and post comments…