Let’s get ready for WordPress 6.1, here’s BuddyPress 10.5.0 🍕. Please upgrade 🙏.
👋
Recent Updates
BP Dev-Chat summary : October 19, 2022
- See previously BP Dev Chat summary October 5
- In attendance: @dcavins @im4th
- Slack archive.
We’ve updated the 11.0.0 release schedule, delaying first beta to November 8. But we still plan to package the final release on December 14. This means, we’ll have less time to test and package new betas. RC is slated to December 1st.
11.0.0 last tickets to fix
- #8590: Cache improvements. @dcavins will work on including the improvements that are common with the buddyboss-platform.
- #8693: Site Members Invitations & configs using signups only. @dcavins has a patch almost ready and he should be able to attach it to the ticket very soon.
- #7614: Make sure the group members count routine is more accurate.
- #8052 Should we stop using an activity meta to retrieve the
new_blog_postactivity action? @im4th will take the risk to decide 🤫 - @im4th asked @espellcaste (once again 👮♂️) to try to make the list of the tickets he owns for 11.0.0 less bigger (selecting the tickets we absolutely need to include in 11.0.0 and punting others to a next release). Later after the chat, he said he will look into it during the coming week-end 👀
NB: although it would have been nice to include the global community visibility switch feature, we still need to discuss about the how: @im4th‘s personal opinion is “the later we make things invisible to not logged in users, the more issues we’ll be facing” which contrast with the idea of doing it just before rendering the BuddyPress content…
11.0.0 schedule reminder
- First beta:
October 19November 8, 2022. - RC: December 1st, 2022.
- Release: December 14, 2022.
10.5.0 Maintenance release
The Twenty Twenty-Three companion stylesheet probably won’t be included into this maintenance release but should be included into the 11.0.0 one. @im4th confirmed he will package this maintenance release at the end of October and before WordPress 6.1 final release.
Next Dev-Chat
It will happen November 2 at 19:30 UTC in #BuddyPress. If you have specific points or ideas you want to discuss about, don’t hesitate to share them in comments.
BP Dev-Chat Agenda October 19, 2022
Hi!
Our next development meeting will happen today October 19 at 19:30 UTC (today) and of course in #BuddyPress. Here’s our agenda:
- 11.0.0-beta1 should be released today, according to our initial schedule🚨but we still have 19 tickets into 11.0.0 milestone 😱 Let’s take some hard decisions about punting the tickets we think won’t make it soon enough.
- Trac tickets we should fix for 11.0.0 (imho) :
- 10.5.0 minor release to welcome WordPress 6.1 new default theme (see #8746).
If you have specific/additional points you need to discuss about, please share them into the comments area of this post.
👋
BP Dev-Chat summary : October 5, 2022
- See previously BP Dev Chat summary (September 21, 2022)
- In attendance: @dcavins @espellcaste @johnjamesjacoby & @im4th
- Slack archive.
We’ve started the meeting talking about the 17 replies our call for feedbacks got at the time of the meeting. There are great remarks, ideas and suggestions. Many thanks to the contributors who shared their very inspiring thoughts. We value them a lot 😍.
11.0.0 updates
- #8590: Cache improvements. The initial PR made by @nickchomey has been committed. We had a discussion about whether to include the other improvements that were added by a buddyboss-platform team member (This ticket was firslty added as a PR to the buddyboss-platform GitHub repository). The majority of the team thinks as code is open source & GPL compatible, there’s no reason not to enjoy these improvements as long as we properly credit its author and the buddyboss-platform project.
- #8734: we’ve discussed about @dcavins first patch about how to implement a basic “private community” feature. Although the patch is already doing a great job and is a very interesting first approach, @im4th agrees with @johnjamesjacoby : a better one would be to think of it as a community visibility “level”. As announced during the chat, @im4th had a closer look to the patch and started an alternative PR to suggest the introduction of a
bp_readcap which led to interesting new feedbacks on the ticket. Don’t hesitate to test it, and contribute to the ticket’s discussion. - #4184: being able to exclude a list of users from the activity stream is now possible in Core. This commit closed the ticket.
- @im4th reminded the team we had 2 weeks left before the date we initially scheduled 11.0.0 first beta and asked @espellcaste to try to make the list of the tickets he owns for 11.0.0 less bigger (selecting the tickets we absolutely need to include in 11.0.0 and punting others to a next release).
11.0.0 schedule reminder
- First beta: October 19, 2022 🚨 that’s tomorrow!
- Release: December 14, 2022.
10.5.0 Maintenance release
@im4th announced he will package this maintenance release shortly before WordPress 6.1 is released so that BuddyPress behaves the best way into the next WP Default theme (Twenty Twenty-Three). If he finds the time, he’d like to finish optimizing some CSS rules about it. Don’t hesitate to give him a hand contributing to this ticket.
Open floor
About the BuddyPress.org website @johnjamesjacoby really wants us to feel more comfortable iteratively improving it, and asked the team to think about how we want to contribute to it. @im4th volunteered to give John’s a hand and maybe try to work on the list of submitted tickets about the website. As @dcavins noted, some of their authors are first time contributors and it would be great to include their suggestions. @espellcaste wants to spend more time on developer.buddypress.org along with PHPDoc improvements.
The new & gorgeous BuddyPress theme has a name and a GitHub repository, don’t hesitate to contribute to it.
Next Dev-Chat
It will happen tomorrow on October 19 at 19:30 UTC in #BuddyPress. If you have specific points or ideas you want to discuss about, don’t hesitate to share them in comments, the agenda will be published shortly.
BP Dev-Chat Agenda October 5, 2022
Hi!
Our next development meeting will happen on October 5 at 19:30 UTC (today) and of course in #BuddyPress. Here’s our agenda:
- 2 weeks left before 11.0.0-beta1 🚨😱
- 11.0.0 Trac tickets needing some attention :
- #8590 this ticket about cache groups now has a patch which should improve BuddyPress performance.
- #8693 Site Members invitation & configs using the wp_signup table.
- #8734 Private community feature.
- #4535 Activity load more button & possible duplicate activity display.
- #7614 Group members count issues.
- 10.5.0 minor release to welcome WordPress 6.1 new default theme (see #8746).
- The next BuddyPress great looking theme
If you have specific/additional points you need to discuss about, please share them into the comments area of this post.
👋
BP Dev-Chat summary : September 21, 2022
- See previously BP Dev Chat summary (September 7, 2022)
- In attendance: @dcavins @espellcaste @johnjamesjacoby @dunhakdis @vibethemes @im4th
- Slack archive.
We’ve started the meeting talking about the latest discussions that happened since we’ve shared our concern about the active installs statistic negative trend into our September 7 dev-chat’s summary. There is some interesting conversations into this WP Tavern post and into these Slack threads here & here. On this subject, we’ve done what we wrote: we’ve published a post explaining the situation and also called for feedbacks and contributions to reverse this trend! We often say it, but it doesn’t hurt to always repeat it: BuddyPress is free & open source software, everyone is welcome to help the project various fields of improvements (documentation, beta testing, support and of course code!)
Our progress about 11.0.0 (next BuddyPress major release)
- #8734: a basic “private community” feature, instead of using a new option to switch between a public and a private community, we could use the BuddyPress WP Pages post status.
- #4184: being able to exclude a list of users from the activity stream is an interesting first step to help us building a “muting/blocking” member activity feature.
Both tickets are in need of a first patch, don’t hesitate to jump in!
BP Attachments / Activity block editor update
- The BP Attachments’ feature as a plugin is now adding a front-end users Media Library (screenshot on the left) as well as Media blocks (screenshot on the right) to use into the Post/Widgets Block Editor as well as the Activity Block Editor 👇.
- The Activity Block Editor feature as a plugin now includes a new Activity Admin area (to replace the current one) and users can now edit posted activities.
11.0.0 schedule reminder
- First beta: October 19, 2022 🚨 that’s in two weeks!
- Release: December 14, 2022.
Open floor (how to reverse the trend?)
Here are the various topics we’ve been talking about to start replying to what BuddyPress needs the most to reverse its usage trend.
- A “health community check” or a Diagnostic/Audit tool to improve security and help users fight against spam accounts, rude behaviors… Quoting @johnjamesjacoby: “A rudimentary and obvious set of global anti-spam settings that are used by every active component, too. Throttling requests. Keywords. Profile fields values. PMs. Group data. Status updates. And an admin-area inbox to funnel all of the failed attempts into, with some kind of crappy confidence score, might not be perfect, but an OK thing to as a new component that could be unplugged or replaced if something better comes along, AI etc…“
- A new & gorgeous BuddyPress theme block-based (👈 @im4th‘s preference) or not, @vibethemes shared a lot of interests about it and raised some concerns with BuddyPress’ registration area, current design, the lack of customizability, Block template based theme compatibility and… the
bp-core-catch-uri.phpfile which houses our legacy URL parser. @im4th and all the team share the same concerns about this last one, it’s the reason why the BP Rewrites plugin was published on the WordPress Plugin directory (to get more users testing it with their plugins to avoid potential missed back compatibility issues before merging it into BP Core)… @vibethemes even prepared a very interesting presentation. We talked about various stuffs related to theme design (CSS framework/library, webpack etc..). The BuddyPress Core team is totally in favor of building that new great looking theme and will help @vibethemes, @dunhakdis and any other contributors to make this come true asap.
Next Dev-Chat
It will happen tomorrow on October 5 at 19:30 UTC in #BuddyPress. If you have specific points or ideas you want to discuss about, don’t hesitate to share them in comments, the agenda will be published shortly.
BP Dev-Chat Agenda September 21, 2022
Hello BuddyPress contributors 👩🏽🤝👨🏻
Our next development meeting will happen on September 21 at 19:30 UTC (this coming Wednesday) in #BuddyPress. Below is our agenda:
- 11.0.0 & BP Attachments global progress.
- 11.0.0 Trac tickets needing some attention :
- #4184: @espellcaste did right including this ticket into this development cycle: being able to exclude activity based on their author is an interesting enhancement.
- #8734: we talked about it 2 weeks ago and we should really consider adding a BP Native way to set a site’s community as restricted to its members.
- Who’s in to build a new great looking BuddyPress theme? We had very interesting discussions lately into #BuddyPress about working on a BP standalone theme and why not one supporting block templates (in other words a “Full Community Site Editing” theme). We think it’s a great idea, let’s organize to make this happen 🎨
If you have specific/additional points you need to discuss about, please share them into the comments area of this post.
👋
BP Dev-Chat summary : September 7, 2022
- See previously BP Dev Chat summary (August 17, 2022)
- In attendance: @dcavins @espellcaste @im4th
- Slack archive.
BP Attachments / Activity block editor update
- @im4th has started working on templating to display single media on the front-end.
- He also made it possible to share media using the Activity Block Editor when the BP Attachements plugin is active. This means block developers could soon enjoy a new playground to express themselves.
- The BP Attachments Admin UI now includes an “Edit Item” view. See the screenshot below.
11.0.0 updates
- @im4th shared he was hesitant about #8052. Now the blog post title is directly included into the corresponding activity type’s content, we don’t need to use a blog meta to retrieve it inside the activity action string anymore.
- @dcavins suggested to request a feedback from @rayisme who worked on this part and should be the best of us to know whether it’s safe or not to make this move in 11.0.0.
11.0.0 schedule reminder
- First beta: October 19, 2022.
- Release: December 14, 2022.
Open floor
@im4th started discussing about the drop on the active installations stat we observed on the BuddyPress WP.org plugin’s page as it went down from 200k to 100k 😱. Thanks to @johnjamesjacoby we were able to get more precise numbers about this decrease and it turns out we’re around 190/195k active installs. But the trend since year 2017 is concerning as it’s 📉 not to mention the fact there are less and less contributors to the project 😭. We’ve discussed about the possible reasons for these bad results:
- lack of cool front-end things added to the plugin recently,
- hesitancy to install a big plugin like BuddyPress for a single feature,
- lack of privacy tools, of a media component,
- growth of the use of things like Teams and Slack,
- BuddyBoss’s commercial aggressivity (eg: Google Adwords) or their slick-looking theme attractivity,
- etc..
As the BP Attachments add-on should be available around the 11.0.0 release date, the first action we took was to open a ticket about including a basic private community feature into our next major release.
After some more discussions with @espellcaste we came to the conclusion we need more data from users. A new survey was suggested as well as asking the WordPress Marketing Team for help. We finally thought about posting into our support forum this simple question “what is the most important feature that BuddyPress is missing?“. We decided to test this last idea as soon as we have a text to explain why we are questionning ourselves about it. If you believe you have answers to share with us, don’t hesitate to comment this post 🙏.
Next Dev-Chat
It will happen on September 21 at 19:30 UTC in #BuddyPress. If you have specific points you want to discuss about, don’t hesitate to share them in comments.
BP Dev-Chat Agenda September 7, 2022
Hi!
Our next development meeting will happen on September 7 at 19:30 UTC (tomorrow) and of course in #BuddyPress. Here’s our agenda:
- 11.0.0 global progress.
- 11.0.0 Trac tickets needing some attention :
- #8052 this ticket was reopened and now have a wider perimeter. It questions the way we’ve delt with activity action formatting for blog post.
- BP Attachments & BP Activity Block Editor latest progress
If you have specific/additional points you need to discuss about, please share them into the comments area of this post.
👋
BP Dev-Chat Summary : August 17, 2022
- See previously BP Dev Chat summary (August 3, 2022)
- In attendance: @dcavins @espellcaste @im4th
- Slack archive.
11.0.0 updates
- #7228: using PHP Code Standards linter, @espellcaste plans to commit the code he worked on from this PR soon.
- He also requested feedbacks about this BP REST API issue, @im4th brought his!
- @im4th reminded the team about latest improvements about our PHPUnit tests suite.
- #8722: @im4th started working on the Activity templates and JavaScript for the BP reNouveau template pack. He’ll need to find a « no-jQuery » way to deal with live date and time updates as well as activity heartbeat refresh. He also decided this new template pack will have a dependency to the BP Attachments plugin to deal with profile and cover image features.
- The BP Attachments plugin now includes blocks for the Post Block Editor as well as the coming Activity Block Editor.
- #8693: site membership issue on Multisite configs. @dcavins is confident it will be pretty straightforward to fix.
- @dcavins will deal with #8713 to bring type meta to types registered using code.
11.0.0 schedule reminder
- First beta: October 19, 2022.
- Release: December 14, 2022.
Next Dev-Chat
It will happen on September 7 at 19:30 UTC in #BuddyPress. If you have specific points you want to discuss about, don’t hesitate to share them in comments.
BP Dev Updates 