BuddyDev

Brajesh Singh in BuddyPress Tricks 41 Comments

Hi All,
It has been a long time since I updated the code for BuddyPress Activity as wire tutorial.

For those, who don't know the purpose of it,  This code allows to use activity as wire using the @ mention.

This updated code handles a couple of issues that we had. The following issues are fixed:

• Double Posting Bug: – The activity was being posted twice. The code in this post fixes that
• Status updated issue: – The status of the user who posted the message was being updated. It is fixed

There are a couple more minor issues fixed and the code is tested with BuddyPress 1.6.4 and BuddyPress 1.7 Trunk. This will work with BuddyPress 1.5+ without any issue though.

So, let us get started.

Thoughts:-

Since we want to use activity as wire, we will use the @mention feature of BuddyPress to allow us do that. The @mention feature allows us to send public messages to other users and appear in the activity/mentions tab of the user whom we have mentioned. So, It makes perfect sense to use it as wire.

What we need to do:-

1. Allow User to post when they are visiting other users(to give the feeling of wire)
2. Use that post as the public message(using @mention feature)

Here is what is actually needed programatically:-

1. We will need to bypass the BuddyPress default activity posting routine/function and write our own to accomplish the task
2. we will need to tweak the activity screen(using members/single/acivity.php) to show the form
3. We will need to tweak the activity posting form to ask the logged in user to post something to the other user when he is visiting the profile

Ok, so we need to write the code now.

Step1:- Making activity form visible on other user's profile

For this, we will need to edit the members/single/activity.php and change the following line

[sourcecode language="php"]

if ( is_user_logged_in() && bp_is_my_profile() && ( !bp_current_action() || bp_is_current_action( 'just-me' ) ) )
locate_template( array( 'activity/post-form.php'), true );

[/sourcecode]

It is around line 63-64 to

[sourcecode language="php"]

if ( is_user_logged_in()&&( " == bp_current_action() || 'just-me' == bp_current_action() ) )
locate_template( array( 'activity/post-form.php'), true ) ;

[/sourcecode]

That will make the form visible on other user's profile like this

Step2:- Customizing Activity Post Form

You can find it in bp-default(or your theme)/activity/post-form.php

Let us remove the group drop down. To do that, we will need to change this line in post-form.php

[sourcecode language="php"]
<?php if ( bp_is_active( 'groups' ) && !bp_is_my_profile() && !bp_is_group() ) : ?>

[/sourcecode]

to this

[sourcecode language="php"]

<?php if (  function_exists('bp_has_groups') &&!bp_is_member() &&!bp_is_group() ) : ?>
[/sourcecode]

So, the dropdown that shows where to post(group/my profile) gets removed.

Now, we need to change the title box for the post form.

The current title looks like this

We will need to modify the activity/post-form.php again.

Look for the code block which looks like this

[sourcecode language="php"]

<h5><?php if ( bp_is_group() )
printf( __( "What's new in %s, %s?", 'buddypress' ), bp_get_group_name(), bp_get_user_firstname() );
else
printf( __( "What's new, %s?", 'buddypress' ), bp_get_user_firstname() );
?></h5>

[/sourcecode]

and change that to this

[sourcecode language="php"]

<h5>
<?php if ( bp_is_group() ) : ?>
<?php printf( __( "What's new in %s, %s?", 'buddypress' ), bp_get_group_name(), bp_get_user_firstname() ); ?>
<?php elseif(!bp_is_my_profile()&&bp_is_member()): ?>
<?php printf( __( "Write something to %s?", 'buddypress' ), bp_get_displayed_user_fullname() ) ;?>
<?php else : ?>
<?php printf( __( "What's new %s?", 'buddypress' ), bp_get_user_firstname() ) ; ?>
<?php endif; ?>

</h5>

[/sourcecode]

and we are done.

So, the final thing that we need to do is bypass the BuddyPress activity posting routine and create our own routine.

It involves removing the BuddyPress function attached to wp_ajax_post_update and attaching our own.

Step3:- Rewriting the Activity posting routine

Here is the final code. You can put it in your theme's functions.php or bp-custom.php

[sourcecode language="php"]

//remove the BuddyPress hook that saves the posts to activity stream
add_action('init', 'bpdev_aawire_fix_activity_posting_hooks');

function bpdev_aawire_fix_activity_posting_hooks() {
remove_action('wp_ajax_post_update', 'bp_dtheme_post_update');
}

//add our own handler for activity posting

add_action('wp_ajax_post_update', 'bpdev_aawire_post_update');

/* AJAX update posting */

function bpdev_aawire_post_update() {
global $bp;

/* Check the nonce */
check_admin_referer('post_update', '_wpnonce_post_update');

if (!is_user_logged_in()) {
echo '-1';
exit(0);
}

if (empty($_POST['content'])) {
echo '-1<div id="message"><p>' . __('Please enter some content to post.', 'buddypress') . '</p></div>';
exit(0);
}

if (empty($_POST['object']) && function_exists('bp_activity_post_update')) {

//this is what I have changed

if (!bp_is_home() && bp_is_member())
$content = "@" . bp_get_displayed_user_username() . " " . $_POST['content'];
else
$content = $_POST['content'];

//let us get the last activity id, we will use it to reset user's last activity
$last_update = bp_get_user_meta(bp_loggedin_user_id(), 'bp_latest_update', true);
$activity_id = bp_activity_post_update(array('content' => $content));

//reset the last update

bp_update_user_meta(bp_loggedin_user_id(), 'bp_latest_update', $last_update);

//end of my changes
} elseif ($_POST['object'] == 'groups') {
if (!empty($_POST['item_id']) && function_exists('groups_post_update'))
$activity_id = groups_post_update(array('content' => $_POST['content'], 'group_id' => $_POST['item_id']));
} else
$activity_id = apply_filters('bp_activity_custom_update', $_POST['object'], $_POST['item_id'], $_POST['content']);

if (!$activity_id) {
echo '-1<div id="message"><p>' . __('There was a problem posting your update, please try again.', 'buddypress') . '</p></div>';
exit(0);
}

if (bp_has_activities('include=' . $activity_id)) :
?>
<?php while (bp_activities()) : bp_the_activity(); ?>
<?php locate_template(array('activity/entry.php'), true) ?>
<?php endwhile; ?>
<?php

endif;
exit(0);
}

[/sourcecode]

That's it.

hope it helps you to implement the wire feature on your BuddyPress 1.6/1.7 network.

Please do let me know your feedback/enhancement or anything I missed 🙂

PS: Will be releasing the BuddyBlog plugin tomorrow and there is a huge surprise coming this weekend 🙂