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New BuddyPress plugins are being released just about every day, and once in awhile there’s one that stands out with the potential to be universally useful. That’s the case with the new BuddyPress Activity Privacy plugin. It gives users the ability to restrict who can see their activity posts.
Once installed and activated, BuddyPress Activity Privacy adds the following privacy controls to the post update box for members:
Anyone
Logged In Users
My Friends
Admin Only
Only Me
WordPress sites are tasty morsels for spammers. BuddyPress seems to be even more popular, because not only can users comment on blogs but they can also run wild in the activity streams, forums and private messaging inboxes with offers for pharmaceuticals and fashion handbags. Unfortunately, spam is an irritating problem for virtually 100% of BuddyPress sites.
BuddyPress now has 468 plugins listed as extensions for the platform. How would you ever know which ones are quality and which are no good if you’re a new to BuddyPress? You could spend hours researching all the options, reviews, support forums, installing and testing. Or, you could get some advice.
Get A Curated List of The Best BuddyPress Plugins From WordPress.org
Today’s tip is something that could benefit friendship interactions in any BuddyPress community. Just last week, BuddyPress developer Brajesh Singh released a new plugin. The BuddyPress Extended Friendship Request plugin takes friendship requests to the next level by supplementing the “Add Friend” button with a bit of personalization.
Once installed, this plugin causes a click on the “Add Friend” button to pop up a little message window, enabling a user to send a message along with the friendship request.
Here’s a screenshot of the plugin in action:
Liking is a feature that became wildly popular on Facebook as soon as it was introduced. BuddyPress does not have this ability built in, so if you want to add likes you will need to add a suitable BuddyPress plugin. The BuddyPress Like plugin is a common choice. However, if you want to add both Likes and Dislikes, you may want to consider the new BuddyPress Like Dislike plugin. It is a modification of Alex Hempton-Smith’s BP Like plugin.
Want BuddyPress private messages to work a little more like email? BuddyPress Message Attachment is a new plugin that gives your community members the ability to attach files to private messages. The plugin’s settings page lets site administrators customize the allowed file types for the attachments as well as the maximum size.
Here’s what your messaging compose screen will look like with attachments allowed:
Attachments are then shown on the recipient’s message screen:
BuddyPress spam is a perennial problem that can negatively affect your social network. At times it can seem like weeds taking over your beautiful garden. Everyone knows what it’s like to receive spam emails but when your members begin receiving spam messages through your community, they may feel as though their profile, participation and experiences are not secure. That is why, when building a community, it’s important to maintain good spam protection; a spam-free experience produces subtle confidence that will keep your users returning.
Want more control over how to display the content on your BuddyPress site?
Now you can show BuddyPress content anywhere on your site using simple shortcodes. Bowe Codes is a free plugin that allows BuddyPress users to display BuddyPress content wherever they can copy and paste a shortCode.
Bowe Codes currently has ten available ShortCodes :
Member / Members
Group / Groups
My Friends / My Groups
My Messages
Multisite Blogs / Multisite Posts
Up until now there really was no easy way to add birthdate or datepicker type fields to BuddyPress profiles, though this is a very common question to include in a social networking profile. The included date of birth field type in this plugin is just overall better than the default BuddyPress date selector, which includes future years. The BuddyPress core wasn’t meant to have everything and that’s why the community has made some very cool plugins to extend the platform.
BuddyPig sounds like a made up word, right? It’s actually a new plugin that was created during an Automattic hack day. PIG is an acronym for Personal Information Game. The BuddyPig plugin is a game designed to help BuddyPress group members get to know each other better by automatically generating questions and potential answers based on BuddyPress profiles.
