rtMedia: A Comprehensive Media Plugin For WordPress, BuddyPress and bbPress

A quick search through the plugins at wordpress.org will turn up several photo plugins for BuddyPress but none with the comprehensive list of features offered by the rtMedia plugin. Previously known as BuddyPress Media, it has been completely re-written and has re-launched with the new rtMedia branding.

The most important change in the 3.0 release is that rtMedia no longer requires BuddyPress. It has all the same media features but can now be used on WordPress installations with or without BuddyPress, which opens the door for more varied ways of using the plugin. First let’s take a look at the basic structure of rtMedia and see how it can be used.

rtMedia Core Components: Uploader and Gallery

rtMedia contains two core components: rtMedia uploader and rtMedia gallery. Both can be placed anywhere in your WordPress theme via a shortcode or a template tag.

Anywhere Uploader – provides a drag-and-drop uploader for any WordPress post, page, custom post type, etc. All uploads are integrated with the context of where the uploader is placed. For example, context can be BuddyPress profiles/groups, WordPress posts/pages, custom post types or another plugin. rtMedia will try to guess the context for WP, BP and bbPress areas. For use with other plugins, it provides an API so that a developer can define the context.

Anywhere Gallery – displays images added via the uploader, ie from a page, post, post type, in a BuddyPress Activity post, via a BuddyPress Profile or Group. In most cases, gallery can be accessed by simply appending /media at the end of a WordPress URL. If it’s a valid context, media uploaded from the rtMedia Uploader will show up automatically.

WordPress Integration

New in the 3.0 release of rtMedia, you can now display media on WordPress author pages (eg: http://example.com/author/admin/media/). Very soon they will be adding media attachment support for WordPress comments on posts and pages.

BuddyPress Integration

rtMedia 3.0 offers a powerful array of new BuddyPress features, all of which are now optional and not dependent on BuddyPress being activated:

• Adds media tab to BuddyPress Profiles and Groups.
• Attach media to activity status updates.
• Create activity on upload and sync comments on them with WordPress comments.
• Liking, commenting, etc will work even if BuddyPress activity is disabled

bbPress Integration

bbPress features were the latest to be added to rtMedia. Expect more in the very near future:

• • bbPress profile integration
  • Attachment support for topics and replies (coming soon)

Responsive Features

• • rtMedia was built with a mobile-first philosophy and it plays nicely with devices, ie. iPhone/iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, etc. Its responsive features include:
    • • Mobile friendly uploader and player makes it easy to share and view photos/videos from anywhere
      • Lightbox/Album Slideshow works on mobiles & tablets.
      • Video player resizing is also supported.
      • Swipe gestures (coming soon)

Privacy

Privacy is of the utmost importance when sharing media. That’s why rtMedia has built in privacy controls to allow users to make item-specific decisions about who sees their content:

• • • • Allows different privacy levels for each media item at the time of upload
      • Bonus Allows true privacy on regular BuddyPress activities
      • Privacy works with BuddyPress friends disabled. Also works with standalone WordPress.

rtMedia is positioning itself to be one of the most flexible gallery options for WordPress sites as well as community sites using BuddyPress and/or bbPress. Download the plugin for free from the WordPress repository.

Tags:

• buddypress
• media