Join Blog widget is a very basic plugin. It allows you to enable your users join various blogs on a multisite install of WordPress. It simply adds the users to current blog if they click on Join Blog link.

What it does:-

• Allows users to join blogs on a multisite network
• Site Admin can choose the role they want the users to have
• Works with Multisite WordPress Install and is compatible with BuddyPress

I created this plugin to act as a companion for our other plugin, the BuddyPress Multi Network Plugin. You can encourage your users to join various networks on the Mutisite install using this plugin.

Here is a couple of screenshots.

Screenshots:-

Join Blog Widget Options:-

Join Blog Widget

On Successful Join

Download & Installation:-

Download: http://buddydev.com/plugins/join-blog-widget/
Github repo https://github.com/sbrajesh/join-blog-widget

This is a free plugin and I hope it helps some of you in building your network.  Please help us in improving this plugin by providing your valuable feedback in the comments section.

Related posts:

1. Introducing BuddyPress Multi Network Plugin: Create Multiple separate Social networks on a single BuddyPress Install
2. Recently Updated Blogs Widget for WordPress Mu
3. BuddyPress User Notifications Widget plugin

Have you ever wanted to create multiple social networks on a single install of BuddyPress. If yes, this plugin is for you.  You can turn your WordPress Multisite/BuddyPress Install to multiple separate social networks using this plugin just like Ning. BuddyPress Multi Network plugin enables you to create separate social networks on a single BuddyPress Installation.

Features:-

• It allows you to create Separate social networks on a single BuddyPress Install
• It separates the User base of one network from another(Each network can have different user base)
• A user can be part of  more than one network
• All networks can have their own user base, activities, groups, Profile data(xprofile fields) which can be different from other

Requirements:-

• WordPress Multisite 3.3+(should work with 3.1+ but I haven’t tested with that)
• BuddyPress 1.5+
• BuddyPress Multiblog Enabled( BP_ENABLE_MULTIBLOG defined true)
• BuddyPress Multi Network Plugin Network activated.

I am calling it BuddyPress Multi Network(Though I thought about calling it bp multisite but that seemed a lot confusing, suggestions for new names are more than welcome ).

BuddyPress Multi Network will enable you to create Multiple BuddyPress based social networks on a single Install of BuddyPress. It filters on various BuddyPress actions/filters and guides buddypress to treat each of the blog as separate network(Kudos to the BuddyPress core team for allowing filterabale meta keys/table prefixes ).

Basically, when you create a new network, All the BuddyPress tables are created for that network.  It helps to separate the data of one network from the other network.

This plugin in addition creates a table which tracks the users associated with various networks. Since we track the user for each networks, It allows us to filter the member directory/activity directory etc to show only the members associated with current site.

In the current version of the plugin, It does not filter users on your main site. Though, if you want you can enable that by commenting a few line in the plugin.  A user is considered to be associated with a network if he/she is added to the blog by any means or registers on that particular blog. I am going to put another plugin(widget) tomorrow to allow you to help your users join the sub  networks.

If you have an existing BuddyPress/WordPress multisite install and want to use this feature, please read the instructions here.

Download & Installation:-

Link: http://buddydev.com/plugins/buddypress-multi-network/

Github: https://github.com/sbrajesh/buddypress-multi-network

This is a free plugin. Please feel free to use it for your personal/commercial projects. If you like our plugins, please consider one of our membership to support us. Your support will help us keep building themes/plugins.This is a free plugin. Please feel free to use it on your personal/commercial projects. If you like our plugin, please consider one of our membership to support us. Your support will help us to keep building themes/plugins.

If you have an existing BuddyPress Based Social network and want to Run multiple Social network on this site. Please read here before updating.

Future:-

Though this plugin allows separation of users from one network to other network, there remains a few questions unanswered?

• What if a User deletes account on one of the network ? should he be removed from all the networks? what happens to his data on other networks ?
• What if a user is marked spam on a network, what should we do with his/her data?

Ok, In both these cases, we can delete all the data but I have not done that yet. I am looking forward to your suggestions before going into that direction.

Related posts:

1. Introducing Facebook Like User Activity Stream(Home activity feed) for BuddyPress Based Social Network
2. Introducing Cosmic Buddy Pro Theme for BuddyPress Based Social Networks
3. Introducing BuddyPress Facebook Connect+: Advance Facebook login/registration Plugin for your BuddyPress based Social Network

BuddyPress Simple Front End post plugin allows developer to create unlimited post forms for the front end posting. The current release includes support for custom posts type and categories but not the custom taxonomies. I will include custom taxonomy support in future.

I created this plugin to use with Blog categories with groups plugin as I could not find a nice solution for the purpose. Currently this plugin is aimed as developers. It has a simple api to create forms and to use them in theme. All the nasty works are handled by the plugin, so a developer does not need to dive into the code. Instead just use two lines of code to create a custom post form for any purpose they like.

Here is a screenshot of it being used with Blog Categories for groups plugin

Features:-

• Allows to create  any number of customized post forms
• supports custom post type
• supports including a list of categories
• has a very simple to use API for developers(I will show an example below)
• It is very very Light weight

How to Use It:-

The basic philosophy is to allow developers to create an Instance of  ’BPSimpleBlogPostEditForm’ class for each of their form. This class handles the view and behavior both. Once you create an instance, you will need to register it to the ‘BPSimpleBlogPostEditor’ class(which is implemented as singleton pattern). Ok, so that seems nasty, right? No worries, you don’t need to delve into that. There are two api functions which will do it for you. You just need to pass the form name(which should be a unique name, it can contain spaces etc) and the basic sdettings of the form(like post type, allowed categories, who can write, who will be attributed as the author of the post and the post status).

Registering a Form Instance:-

To create and register a post form(with settings), you will need to use the following code

$form=bp_new_simple_blog_post_form($form_name,$settings);

The above code creates an instanace of ‘BPSimpleBlogPostEditForm’ class and registers it to the editor. You can create any number of forms you want. The above code must be called on/before bp_init action priority 10.

Here is a working example with the details of allowed parameters.

add_action('bp_init','my_post_form',4);//register a form
//it will register a fomr
function my_post_form(){
$settings=array('post_type'=>'post',//which post type
'post_author'=>  bp_loggedin_user_id(),//who will be the author of the submitted post
'post_status'=>'draft',//how the post should be saved, change it to 'publish' if you want to make the post published automatically
'current_user_can_post'=>  is_user_logged_in(),//who can post
'show_categories'=>true,//whether to show categories list or not, make sure to keep it true
'allowed_categories'=>array(1,2,3,4)//array of allowed categories which should be shown, use  get_all_category_ids() if you want to allow all categories
);

$form=bp_new_simple_blog_post_form('my form',$settings);//create a Form Instance and register it

}

You can modify any  parameter as you like. Even you can set it to allow non logged in users to submit post and save it to another user account.

The above code will register a new form with name ‘my form’ and you can retrieve it later at any point and show the form anywhere using the following code. We need to register the form on/before bp_init priority 10 to allow the controller to have access to this form. If you register the form after bp_init action, the controller will be unaware of the form’s existance and can not handle the save action.

Once a form is registered, you can show it anywhere you like using the following function.

//now let us  find the form and render it

$form=bp_get_simple_blog_post_form('my form');

if($form) //if this is a valid form
  $form->show();//it will show the form

You can use above code anywhere in your template to render the form.

Though registering the form on/before bp_init action may seem like a bad choice to some of you, It allows for server side validation of the credentials/authentication and thus helps from any misuse of the form.

It is a free plugin, please feel free to download it and use it on your custom projects. The Blog Categoris for groups plugin version 1.0.4 supports this plugin. You will simply need to activate this plugin and the plugin will work as the form handler for Bp Blog Categories.

Download Link:http://buddydev.com/plugins/bp-simple-front-end-post/

Code Repository: https://github.com/sbrajesh/bp-simple-front-end-post

Looking forward to hear your suggestions for the improvement of this plugin

Related posts:

1. Introducing BuddyPress Simple Google Map Plugin
2. Blog Categories for Groups Plugin
3. BuddyPress Ajax Registration Plugin: Allow users to quickly register on any page of your website and increase participation

BuddyPress Group suggest widget is a small plugin which helps your users by suggesting them the groups of their friends. It works on the simple logic of finding the groups of friends of a user and then suggesting it. In the current release, I have limited the suggestion to the public groups of the friends only. My special thanks goes to @Gwu for nudging me constantly for the plugin

Like BuddyPress Friends suggest widget, this plugin allows users to hide the suggestions they don’t want to see in future.

Features:-

• Suggest new groups to User based on their friend’s groups
• Users can hide the suggested groups

Screenshots:-

Widget in the Available Widget section:-

Widget Settings:-

Download &Installation:-

http://buddydev.com/plugins/bp-group-suggest

Git Repo:

https://github.com/sbrajesh/bp-group-suggest

Please do let me know your thoughts and suggestions for the improvement. Looking forward to hear your comments.

Related posts:

1. BuddyPress Friends suggestions Widget:- Help your Users to Build Their Network faster
2. BuddyPress User Notifications Widget plugin
3. Exclude Users from Members directory on a BuddyPress based social network

Thanks to @Daniel for the suggesting this plugin. BuddyPress Simple Google Map plugin uses static google map api  to add the Maps to groups. It is tested to work with BuddyPress 1.2.9 as well as BuddyPress 1.3(bleeding).

In the current version, I have only added support for group and I am looking forward to your suggestion whether you will like to have the static map for User profiles too.

Features:-

• Adds Google Map to Groups
• Comes with Widget to showcase the map in sidebar
• Simple to Use
• Uses Google static Map, so no need for loading any extra javascript
• Allows to enable/disable per group
• You can set the basic settings in the admin panel.

Screenshots:-

Here is a screenshot of the map in action:-

Group Map tab

Admin Options:-

You can set the height, width, zoom level and the map type from BuddyPress->BP Simple Map admin options. Here are the two options to show it

Map Type:-

You can select from any of the four map types :- Roadmap, Terrain, Setellite, and Hybrid.

Zoom Level

You can select zoom level upto 21(highest) as shown below

Here is the widget settings screen

The widget will be visible on groups page only if the location is set and the map is not disabled.

The Location can be set from Groups->Group Name->Admin->Map as shown below

You can even disable the map for a particular group from admin->settings page

Ok, no more screenshots, now the time for action.

You can grab the plugin from below.

Download &Installation

http://buddydev.com/plugins/bp-simple-google-map/

Git Repo:-

https://github.com/sbrajesh/bp-simple-google-map

I am looking forward to hear your thought about adding support for user profile.

Related posts:

1. Introducing BuddyPress Message Privacy Plugin
2. Limit Groups Per User Plugin For Buddypress
3. BuddyPress Group Suggest Widget: Help your members to find new groups

Hi All,

I am sure most of you are busy building the social networks on BuddyPress. Well, here I am presenting another addon to help you a little more.

The BuddyPress notifications widget was suggested by @Reboot in the forum. There is one existing notification widget for BuddyPress but that does not allow multi instance or some other customizations. Reboot suggested to update that widget but when I checked the code, writing a brand new version seemed much better choice & that’s why I am presenting it here today

Some features:-

• Multinstance, means you can have as many instance as you want.
• Allows you to show/hide the notification count in widget title
• Allows   you to show/hide the message showing notification count (please see screenshots)
• Allows you to show/hide the notification list(well, I am not sure if you would like to use that anyway)
• Completely localizable, please use poedit/any other tool to translate

Let us see some screenshots

Ana an example of output(2 widget instances)

I hope some of you will find it helpful.

Download & Installation:-

http://buddydev.com/plugins/buddypress-notifications-widget/
Git Repo:- https://github.com/sbrajesh/buddypress-notifications-widget

Please do let me know your suggestions or any thing you want in the comments.

PS: Last weekend, I promidsed to write some of the tutorial tips/tricks for BuddyPress. So, I am going to put eaither one plugin each day this week or atleast one tutorial. Please do keep checking

Related posts:

1. BuddyPress Group Suggest Widget: Help your members to find new groups
2. Introducing BuddyPress Live Notification Plugin: A facebook like notification plugin for BuddyPress
3. BuddyPress Sitewide Activity Widget updates

Here is another plugin to spiceup your BuddyPress Based Social Network. I created this plugin a couple of days ago when I saw @findly.tk’s request on BuddyPress.org forum.

The plugin BP Custom Background For User Profile allows your users to set their own custom background image for their profile pages. It allows them to upload a new image and sets it as their background image. So, now every user on your network can have different background by using this plugin.

Features:-

• Allow users to Change their profile page background

Screenshots:-

With Cosmic Buddy

With BuddyPress default theme

Background Upload Page:-

Download &Installation:-

http://buddydev.com/plugins/bp-custom-background-for-user-profile/
You can follow the development on github.com here
https://github.com/sbrajesh/bp-custom-background-for-user-profile

.

This is just a basic plugin. I am looking for some ideas like:-

• Should we create a pool of custom styles and allow users to select one of them?
• Should we allow users to change css (Though, I have avoided it because we do not assume the user to be a web developer, instead a set of custom color schemes will be better)

So, what do you think ? which features we missed?  How can we improve this plugin further?  Please share your experience in the comments and help us to improve this plugin further.

Related posts:

1. BP Redirect to profile Plugin :redirect Users to their profile on Login on buddypress sites
2. Allow Your Users to Change their Username on your BuddyPress Based site
3. Show BuddyPress community(sitewide) activity on User Profile

Recently, I got a lot of request on our forum for supporting global forum with CubePoints BuddyPress Integration plugin by Tosh. I looked into the code of CubePoints buddypress integration plugin and it seemed like an interesting thing to do.

Though the current version of buddypress cubepoints lacked some hook to show the point form and update the settings, I am hopeful that Tosh will add it in next version of BuddyPress cubepoints integration plugin and open a new door for plugin developers to support their own plugin.

Here is what I did to support the global forum with cubepoints plugin.

1. Add a hook to BuddyPress CubePoints Integration plugin admin section to allow showing your form.

So, I put this code there

do_action("bp_cubepoint_main_settings"); //allow other plugin to hook and show their point poption here

That allows any plugin developer to put their own form elements in the CubePoints BuddyPress Integration plugin admin section.

2. Allow plugin developers to update their points/settings when the points table is saved.

Just adding one more hook in the function “cubebp_admin” and everything was setup.

Here is what I added, It may be different when Tosh updates his plugin.

do_action("bp_cubepoint_settings_updated");//allow other plugins to hook here and update their settings on save

Well, the base is ready now. We can easily extend the CubePoints plugin and support our own plugin now.

So, what functionalities we are interested in supporting, Obviously, It narrows down to these two

• Giving/Deducting point on some action performed in our plugin
• Logging the actions

CubePoints core proved a way for that

cp_points($type, $uid, $points, $data)

• $type: your unique action identifier (or let su say It identifies the purpose of the point)
• $uid: the user id to which points should be given
• $points: how many points you want to give
• $data: I am not sure the purpose of it. Perhaps It is used in saving logs

cp_points function adds the point and logs the action.

So, Now you just need to add a function to your action and give points.

Ex.

add_action("something_happened","give_point_on_something_happened");

function give_point_on_something_happened(){
global $bp;
$point=get_option("points_for_my_something_happened_action");//how many points you want to give

cp_points("hello_something_happened",$bp->loggedin_user->id, $point,"");

}

That will add point for your action. But wait you are not done yet. The cp_points already logs your event but to display it, CubePoints needs your help.

Here is what cube point does while displaying it

do_action('cp_logs_description', $result->type, $result->uid, $result->points, $result->data);

Just hook your function to show a meaningful message on the action  “cp_logs_description” and you are done.

Here is the continued code snippet.

do_action('cp_logs_description', "my_hellow_something_happened_log_message",10,4);//4 is for no. of args

function my_hellow_something_happened_log_message($type,$uid,$points,$data){

if($type!="hello_something_happened")//remember this is same as we used in cp_points

return;

echo  "The wonderful action happened";//well you may make it meaning full by using uid and making something like user x did action alpha beta and received $points point

}

Ok, That was for everyone who want to support cubepoints in their own plugin.

CubePoints For Global Forum

Here is the CubePoints global forum integration plugin.

Download & Install:-

http://buddydev.com/plugins/cubepoints-global-forum-integration/

Here is modified cubepoints-buddypress-integration/includes/bp-cubepoint-admin.php. Replace it in cubepoints-buddypress-integration/includes.

And a screenshot of cubepoints admin settings page

If you are using Global forum cubepoints integration plugin, please note there are four actions defined

• new topic create
• topic delete
• new post(or say reply)
• delete post

There is a bug in global forum, the delete actions are called twice, so points will be deducted twice(as of global-forum-v1.0.2). Please make sure to allocate only half of those point to the delete actions. Say, if you wanted to deduct 10 points for post delete, make sure you specify -5 in the admin option. This is a bug with delete option
(for topic/posts) in current global forum. I will update and fix it when the new release comes.

Looking forward to hear your comments

P.s: Special Thanks to Joey for asking me to do this plugin.

Related posts:

1. Introducing Global sitewide forums plugin for Buddypress
2. Introducing the first stable version of Global Forums Plugin
3. Creating The sitewide global/unified search Page for your Buddypress Theme

Hi All,

It has been more than a week since I lasted posted a new plugin. Well, I am back again with a simple plugin. Thanks to Greg for the Idea.

The plugin, BP Community Activity on profile shows all the community activity on user profile. It adds a sub nav in User activity with name “All Activity”. A logged in user can click on it to see what is happening across the network.

Features:-

• Show sitewide activity on user profile itself
• what more?

Screenshot:-

This plugin will help you to stream line your network on the lines of the popular social networks like facebook etc.

Hope it will help a few of you.

Download & Installation:-

http://buddydev.com/plugins/bp-community-activity-on-profile/

Customization:-
In case you want to show the post form on the All activity page, please open your theme

<?php if ( is_user_logged_in() && bp_is_my_profile() && ( '' == bp_current_action() || 'just-me' == bp_current_action() ) ) : ?>
	<?php locate_template( array( 'activity/post-form.php'), true ) ?>
<?php endif; ?>

and change it to

<?php if ( is_user_logged_in() && bp_is_my_profile() && ( '' == bp_current_action() || 'just-me' == bp_current_action()||BPCOM_ACTIVITY_SLUG == bp_current_action() ) ) : ?>
	<?php locate_template( array( 'activity/post-form.php'), true ) ?>
<?php endif; ?>

That will show the post form on the Community activity page.

Please let me know your suggestions for the improvement or anything you want to know.

Related posts:

1. Using activity as wire in Buddypress 1.2 themes
2. BuddyPress Global/Sitewide Unified search update for BuddyPress 1.5+
3. Introducing Facebook Like User Activity Stream(Home activity feed) for BuddyPress Based Social Network

Remember what I promised a couple of days ago in my last post. Well, I am warming up with some new plugins.

Today, I am presenting you the Bp Auto Login On Activation Plugin. It will automatically make the users logged in when they activate their BuddyPress account.

It’s simple, works flawless with Standard WordPress as well as WordPress multisite installs where BuddyPress is activated.

What is does:-

• When a user activates his account, it makes him logged in
• Once the user is logged in, It will redirect him to his/her profile

Well, that sounds simple but adds another usability feature to your site.

Some screenshots for the pleasure of eyes:-

The regular avatar upload page after registration

Then, the user clicks on the activation link in the email as shown below

And here is what the user sees if the activation link is correct(I mean if the key is valid)

And yes, this is a free plugin, so go ahead and download. Install it and let have your users better usability and registration experience

Download Link:-

http://buddydev.com/plugins/bp-autologin-on-activation/

Looking forward to hear your suggestions and feedback.

PS: Please do not use it if you are already using the BP Auto activate Auto Login plugin. This plugin is not required in that case.

Related posts:

1. Plugin BP Auto activate Auto Login-redirect to profile, automatically activate your new user signup, log them in and redirect to their buddypress profile on signup
2. Introducing Cosmic Buddy Pro Theme for BuddyPress Based Social Networks
3. Introducing Facebook Like User Activity Stream(Home activity feed) for BuddyPress Based Social Network