Introducing BuddyPress User Profile Visibility Manager: Give the Users Control to manage their account privacy
Are you looking for privacy plugin for BuddyPress? Ok, your search ends here(almost).
BuddyPress User Profile Visibility Manager is a plugin that allows you to give control to your users to manage their account privacy.
This is the first release and I have covered only basics at the moment, based on the feedback I am looking forward to take it to the next step though.
The BuddyPress User Profile Visibility Manages gives following controls to the users.
Features:-
- A user can show/hide his profile in Members Directory
- A user can hide/show his profile in directory searches
- A user can hide/show his last active time
- A user can make set his/her account to following status:-
- Everyone: Everyone can see his/her profile
- Logged In Users Only: Only logged in users can see his/her profile
- Friends Only: Only his/her friends can see/access his account
- Only Me: That's private. Only the user and the super administrator can access his/her profile
- A user can allow/block friendship requests
So, that is a mix of privacy + visibility or you can say, it allows your users to have preferences over what they want.
Here is the Profile Visibility Settings:-
Here is an example of hidden last active time:-
In its next update(depending on your feedback), I plan to include the following:-
- Message privacy( Who Can send him/her messages). We do have a plugin that allows this at the moment
- Mention privacy( Who can mention this user)
- Activity Privacy (Still hoping to manage who can see the activities, do you think, we should include it).
Download & Installation:-
This is a premium plugin and I hope that you all will use it to empower your users and give them more control over their profile. Please do let me know if you want some modifications or
Great job @sbrajesh! This is just awesome! Thank you for all the hard work!
Thank you Ben.
I am glad that you found it useful 🙂
Amazing!!! Glad to be premium member!!!
Your work is awesome!!
Please include the activity privacy (who can see a member's activity).
Hi Nick,
Thank you. I appreciate your support. Will certainly add the activity privacy. Please do suggest if you want other features too 🙂
Hi Brajesh,
I just located a bug I think. I have WordPress MultiSite installation and I activated the plugin per site (where I have the buddypress installation).
After enabling any option of the profile visibility I can't access my profile again. I click on my name and I am redirected to the homepage.
Hi Nick,
You are right. There was a problem when you selected Friends only option. I have fixed it now.
Please use version 1.0.1.
All other options will work without any issue.
@sbrajesh
+1 for activity privacy, I would also like to see message privacy, and @mentions. That would be awesome! 🙂
Just noticed my membership ends june 7th though 🙁
Hi Ben,
Thank you. I am looking at the suggestions. No worries about the subscription. you have been a valued member and I appreciate your suggestions and contributions. will be upgrading your account tomorrow 🙂
Excellent Brajesh!!!
Thank you Nick 🙂
Thanks alot @sbrajesh I appreciate it the upgrade and the kind words. I enjoy helping when I can here and on buddypress.org I just feel it is good to pay it forward and pass knowledge along. Again, thank you for the awesome work you do! 🙂
Hi @sbrajesh I was just wondering if the membership subscription will be upgraded when you have the time. Thank you again for everything! Have a great day! 🙂
Got it @sbrajesh thank you so much once again! 🙂
Hi Brajesh,
I've translated all the strings of version 1.0.1 – most of them are not visible (not translated) in the frontend (only "yes" or "no" and "Would you like to hide your last active time?" are de_DE in my case – all other strings are still english).
Hi Hans,
Thank you. Got your mail too. Will be putting an update in the morning and uploading here and will be mailing you.
Thanks
Brajesh
This is a awesome plugin. The most important feature missed in Buddypress is Privacy. I am glad we now have some option. Activity privacy will undoubtedly be the best plugin.
Thank you so much.
-gwu
Thank you for this great plugin!
Brajesh,
Let's take this one step further, privacy of individual existing profile pages (page groups) and by leveraging the Custom Profile Menu plugin code. http://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress-custom-profile-menu/
and BuddyPress custom profile data that is merged in these pages. Very powerful!
Here's how it would work;
– A Page (or Custom Post Type) is created that displays a User's Profile data.
(In my case this data is stored in custom mySQL tables, not BuddyPress but it could include standard Xprofile fields.)
– This page is added to the BuddyPress Profile menu with the Custom Profile Menu plugin.
– With the User Custom Page Profile Visibility Manager the user then has the ability to control who can see each page the appears on the menu (front the front-end as you have it now) with the following options
– anyone
– logged in users
– friends
– followed (with the BuddyPress Follow plugins) Allows a user to choose individuals that can see their profile page(s).
– groups (members of the selected BuddyPress groups) Very important and powerful!
Let me know your thoughts….
~eric
I like Eric's suggestions would be nice… Brajesh I get weird behavior
When a userA tries to see a non friend's user B's profile – it seems to redirect userA to our home page? UserA in my opinion should get a message or a pop up alert saying you cannot see UserB Profile, as you are not friends and then possibly give them an ADD FRIEND button?
We get no message, just a cold redirect to our home page
A universal BP plugin is needed that is one plugin that can control all the privacy of all BP items, profiles, groups, activity, etc…. I am using at least 4 plugins just to achieve this
> BP Profile Privacy
Allows users to hide profile sections and "permissions" to be set for xprofile fields.
> BuddyPress Activity Privacy
BP Activity Privacy add the ability for members to choose who can read his activity before it posted !
> BuddyPress Message Privacy
Give users fine grained control over who can send private messages to them
>BuddyPress Profile Visibility Manager
It allows users to hide themself from members directory/searches and hide their profile from anyone who can see
and then i tried BP Wall as i use Activity Plus, but wanted the ability to allow a friend to post directly on your wall as they do in FB, which would require a setting as well… so that would be nice to have
I will PAY for a universal solution
Brajesh,
Here a some suggestions for improving this great plugin.
1) Admin menu for setting the default settings for new users. This is a biggie!
2) Change the wording on the Settings>Profile Visibility screen to remove double negatives;
Do not list in members directory > List in members directory? Y or N
Do not list in members search > List in members search? Y or N
3) Ability to protect individual menu items (including custom menus). This does make the plugin more complicated but gives the user fine grained control.
4) When a users Profile Visibility is set to Friend Only, Allow for making a Friend request on the notification page.
5) Add a setting to "Who can see your profile?" to allow multi-selecting Groups (maybe check boxes) that the user is a member of.
Brajesh,
Some questions and more ideas…
1) I can see in the plugin code where the defaults are set. What is the syntax for setting 'bp_profile_visibility'=>'public' to Friends Only and the other options?
3) How does Member Search work? When a user has "Do not list in members directory?" set to Yes and "Do not list in member search?" set to No, a searched for user does not show up in the results.
More development ideas;
1) Allow for selected Roles, other than Super Admin, to view hidden profiles. In our sites we have a role called "Site Admin", which has limited wp-admin access. It would be nice to be able to allow this role to be able to view private profiles without making them Super Admins.
2) Allow Admin's (and specified roles) to search for and display users in the member directory even when a user has "Do not list in members directory?" set to Yes and "Do not list in member search?" set to Yes
Thanks,
~eric
Hi Brajesh!
I just saw this plugin and had to sign up again to play with it!
Finally a working privacy plugin for BP. Yay!
Eric & Greg have made some great suggestions above too. +1 from me 🙂
Hi Patrick,
Welcome back old friend 🙂
I will certainly look at the suggestions again. Nice to see you back again 🙂
I want profile visibility manager to be accessed by admins only…& all the fields should be set to 'no' until admin changes those options.I just want a new user to be appeared in the search list after some verification of his/her profile manually.
Let me know is it possible or not?
How can make BP Profile Visibility plugin's "Would you like to hide your last active time" question's default value as "Logged in Users Only" so that all of our existing and new users have hidden profiles?
Thanks..
Hello, any reply pls. ?
Hi there, Does this plugin have an admin/default setting that can make all member profiles private? Basically preventing members on level 1 from seeing/interacting with each other? But members on level 2 to see everyone
Hi Mark,
currently that is not supported by this plugin. I have seen a lot of interest in that feature recently and I am planning a release around 22nd-25th August.
Thank You
Brajesh
why can i not buy this? I am logged in !!! I click on buy, i get cart empty, i tried to renew membership, i get cart empty…. i deperately need the latest version as i am having issues with Version 1.1
ok sorted – chrome wont work – tried firefox – all ok
I need help on my site please… In Profile menu (front end) of user I have a link that says PROFILE PRIVACY which seems to load the page as per image as above for this plugin, i ALSO have a link called PROFILE VISIBILITY which loads nothing at all,,,
Hi Greg,
I am sorry I missed your comment. Profile Visibility tab is added by BuddyPress and should list any xprofile fields(if you allow custom visibility).
We have updated this plugin to use "profile privacy" where you will see all the options.
Hi,
On our site people are notified but cannot see pending friend requests on site/members/member/friends/requests/ when the sending user has "List in members directory?" and "List in member search?" set to "No".
This is a multisite with Buddypress and Privacy plugins network enabled if it matters. I sent a friendship request from Administrator and the user got it but when clicked on it the filter said no pending requests, though it shows up as a count in the BP menu. I tested setting those two options to yes and then the request was visible on the requests page.
Would you please let me know if we can troubleshoot this to show the friend requests pending if the sending user has those two options to no, or let me know if this seems like a plugin conflict.
thank you!
Hi A,
you are right about the issue. I have updated the plugin.Please download version 1.2.1 that fixes the issue. From now on, Friendship requests and Friends will always be visible in the friend list/request list.
Please do let me know if that works for you or not?
Thank you
Brajesh
I apologize for the delayed response. That worked perfectly. Thank you!!
I am seeing a new issue I think. I am testing "Who can see your profile" and the profile of the user I am testing is still visible under the "siteurl/members/user" url for public even when I set the user to "Friends only", though I am testing from an unauthenticated session. Does it matter that we are using a custom url for the members "folder". We use site/usr/username instead of site/members.
The current settings I am testing are "List in directory=no, List in search=no, Who can see profile=friends only". I am testing from a public, unauthenticated session in Opera, and see the member in the search and can click on their profile site/usr/username.
Thank you
Hi A,
I am not sure why It is happening but the url structure should not cause this issue at all. I will be testing it tonight and get back to you.
Thank you
Brajesh
Maybe it is a cache issue or something with my site. I tried to search this morning and the member did not show up on search. The profile still shows up under members when clicked from the main nav but you cannot click on them. It just redirects so their profile is being protected now. I will play with and test the settings more as well as it seems to be working. I have buddypress and the plugin network activated. I need buddypress network activated for some plugins but should this one be activated network or just on the bp blog? thank you for your help and a great addition to the bp system!
Hi,
You can keep it active networkwide or just on the main BuddyPress site. I will lean in favor of keeping it to the main site only.
"This User’s privacy settings does not allow you to view the profile."
it should be .. This User's privacy settings do not allow you to view the profile or
This User's privacy setting does not allow you to view the profile.
Minor thing, but it counts.
Thank you Dan. Updating.
Please upgrade to 1.0.5. I have updated the message and fixed the button on directory listing.
Also, The exclusion/inclusion will work if you have used comma to separate user names.
To disable custom settings, you can use css. Please check for the ids/classes i have added to them.
Hope that helps
Hi Brajesh, thank you. The issue I still have is testing with only one user in Banner Users box, Hes "banned" and messages still go through. Also how do I upgrade i dont see upgrades in my buddypress admin menu.
Is that message related to the Message Privacy?
For upgrade, currently, please download the zip file and use WordPress installer to install.
Hi Brajesh , no the message from member to member just went through, but I think I know what my problem is, you are supposed to enter usernames in that banned box, and I was entering fullnames from my extra profile field which I set up myself. Since I turned off my activity system I dont even see the usernames on my profiles and so do not my users, thus its impossible for them to enter the right values in that banned box.
Hi there. I recently updated this plugin and have it network activated but it has caused a major problem on every subsite (but NOT the main site). On every site when trying to visit the profile of a friend I get the message "This User’s privacy settings does not allow you to view the profile." Even though I tried network deactivating the plugin the issue is still there – my users can't get to other user profiles. What to do? I need this fixed urgently because it is causing a break down in communication.
I am sorry for the later reply.
You need to deactivate the plugin network wide( The issue will go as the plugin is disabled, try clearing cache if it is still there).
Then , please activate it on the main site only.
HI Brajesh, can you please release an update with updated text for this one as well?
This User’s privacy settings does not allow you to view the profile.”
it should be .. This User’s privacy settings do not allow you to view the profile or
This User’s privacy setting does not allow you to view the profile.
Hi Dan,
I am updating the plugin today and will have this text updated .
A cool new feature you could add to this is who can see my friends. Right now they either hide their entire profile or are visible, there is no option to just hide your friends list from visitors.
Hi Brajesh,
Just passing along these notices incase they are helpful for future development.
Strict Standards: Non-static method BP_Profile_Visibility_Manager::get_instance() should not be called statically in /nas/wp/www/staging/username/wp-content/plugins/bp-profile-visibility/bp-profile-visibility.php on line 277Thanks!
Hi Carl,
These notices are fixed in current version. It occurs due to incompatibility with php 5.4 and I fixed it for all plugins in last 6 months.
Hi,
Is it possible to hide pending members from the members directory page in any way.
Or is admin can hide the members also with this plugin.
Many thanks.
Hi Sabuj,
A member can hide his/her profile from directory by visiting his profile->settings->Profile Privacy tab.
Currently, only user can do it. If you need that functionality, please let em know and I will update the plugin. I believe, that will certainly help others too.
Definitely that will be a great features of the plugin.
Please let me know, when you are able to update that. I am eagerly waiting to buy that.
Thanks a lot.
Hello Brajesh,
Does the plugin now have the activity privacy feature?
Can it be configured to be enabled only for admins?
Hi wbfz,
1. No, activity privacy is not part of it. It will be too much for this plugin to include activity level privacy. we have left that to the current BuddyPress Activity Privacy and hope that BuddyPress will have the activity level privacy in future.
2. Yes, with version 1.2.7, Now you can enable the settings that only admin can set default privacy and update users settings.
Hope that helps.
Thanks Brajesh,
Wrt the 2nd clarification, i meant if its possible to enable profile privacy for specific accounts only e.g admin accounts. I'll try it out and explore the options.
Hi,
Is it right that Admin can set the default Settings for privacy for new members.
I need this function but just the admin can set the privacy not the members inself.
I want a memberdirectory but you can See just the workers of the buisness and the clients become total private and cant change this .
I Need this Plugin bunt just Admin cought set privacy not the member ist ist possible.
Thanks
Hi Peter,
Thank you for the comment.
I have added the option to allow admins to set the default privacy for new users and restrict the settings to admin only. Now, If you set the plugin admin only, a user will not be able to update their settings and their settings will be what admin has set.
As admin, you can still go and edit the settings for individual users if you wish so.
Hope that helps.
Thank you
Brajesh
Hi Brajesh. Got your excellent plugin. I too want only admins to set the default privacy for users.
I have set the plugin settings to:
Only site admin can update user settings? – Yes
Now if I want to edit an individual user's settings, I can't seem to do that from ~site/members/username/settings/profile/
I don't see the options for the
Hide Last Active, Exclude from Member search,
Exclude Users from Members directory, etc in the individual user settings
I only see the profile Visibility and I cannot change it.
Hi Alan,
Thank you for using it and I am sorry for delayed reply here. Please allow me to update the plugin by tomorrow and I will make sure it ads the 2 features as suggested by Peter and you.
Hello! Will this plugin allow members to remove their profile from the Buddypress Members widget under the 'Newest', 'Active' and 'Popular' tabs?
Hi Martin,
Thank you for asking.
If a user sets his/her profile to be hidden in Member directory, It is hidden from all the widgets(yes, clicking on tabs will not load them).
Hope that clarifies.
Thank you
Brajesh
This looks like a very useful plugin.
One question:
Is it compatible with BuddyBoss Wall? http://www.buddyboss.com/product/buddyboss-wall/
One suggestion:
Add SSL to your site checkout form. When a user enters information on this site it can potentially be monitored by a third party as it is now.
Best regards,
Michael
Hi Michael,
Thank you for the comment. This plugin is not tested with the wall plugin. It works with profile privacy, so i don't see any reason why it won't work with the wall plugin.
About checkout, thank you for the suggestion. At the moment, a user does not enter any details on our checkout and we do not store any personal information(like address etc). The payment is processed via PayPal website(on paypal site and not on BuddyDev) so non https is not an issue.
We are still planning to move just because of the perception and hopefully by the end of this month, we may be able to move all or site/sub sites to ssl.
Thank you
Brajesh
Thanks. I am testing the BP Visibility plugin now and have found one conflict with BuddyBoss Wall:
I found that the Sitewide Activity Stream is not visible if ‘News Feed’ is selected from BuddyBoss Wall Settings in WP Backend (see attached image for details) when BP Visibility plugin is also activated.
I hope this feedback is useful.
Best regards,
Michael
Here is the image (mentioned in previous post):
http://imgur.com/JEonaxA
I have also informed BuddyBoss about this minor conflict:
http://www.buddyboss.com/support-forums/topic/compatibility-with-bp-profile-visibility-plugin/
Best regards,
Michael
Hi Michael,
Thank you.
Does it only happen when Both the plugins are active? Can you disable the BP Profile Visibility Manager and check if the activity stream works? Need some pointer to have an idea what might be causing it.
Hi Brajesh,
Thanks for the quick response.
I have done some further testing and found that the problem likely lies with the BB Wall plugin. I will contact them about the issue.
If I find any other issues related to BP Visibility Manager I will contact you via the support forum. So far your plugin is looking stable 🙂
Best regards,
Michael
Thank you Michael,
Hoping that it works without issues. In case of any problem, we are always around 🙂
hi,
I use BP Member Types, is it posible to add an option in users profile to hide from a specific member type? for example man that don't want that other man see their profile, posts or activity…
Hi Nacho,
Thank you for asking.
You can pass member_type in bp_has_members to list only members of a particular type. you can use that to hide users from listing. Hiding the activity will not be that easy. You will need to filter on the activity query and remove users when the belong to a particular member type(BP_User_Query can be used to find all members of a type).
Hope that helps you.
Hello,
This plugin is what I need, except I don't want to give my users the control: I want, as a site admin, to hide certain users last active time, "who's online", profile… Would this be possible with 'User Profile Visibility Manager'?
Thank you
Hi Javier,
Yes, It is possible and Profile Visibility has a setting which if enabled, allows the admin only to change privacy of other users.
Hope that helps.
Thanks Brajesh, purchasing now
Thank you 🙂
Hi! I'm very interested in this plugin, but I have a single site (not multi-site) and therefore don't have a Super Admin. Will this still work for my purposes?
Thanks in advance for your reply.
Hi Laura,
Thank you for posting.
yes, It works with Non multisite and multisite both without any issue. On non multisite WordPress, Admin accounts have same privilege as super admins.
Hope that clarifies.
Thank you
Brajesh
Just purchased the plugin and it works very well. Just what I needed as not happy with default buddypress security.
But Is there anyway to change the redirection if the user isn't logged in? The behaviour at the moment is if a nonlogged in user attempts to click on a profile they get thrown to the home screen. Is there anyway to direct such a request to wp-login.php ?
Hi Simon,
Thank you for purchasing.
Please see the documentation here for redirection options(Examples 1 & 2 there)
https://buddydev.com/docs/guides/plugins/buddypress-plugins/bp-profile-visibility-manager/redirect-users-to-specific-page-when-they-can-not-view-the-profile/
Please do let us know in the BuddyDev forums if you need further help.
Thank you
Brajesh
Pre Sales Questions:
1. We would like to be able to set some member profiles private but we don't want the members to have that functionality themsevs… Is that possible?
2. when an account is private will it also prevent the member from showing in all activity feeds and the members widget…
Hi Rick,
Thank you for the questions
1. yes, There is an option in admin settings to do it. You can disallow the users to change their settings and do it for them by visiting their account as admin.
2. Yes. In fact, we have two options. private profile means inaccessible but not hidden. To hide, please set the Hide from directory listing option and the user will be hidden from everywhere(widgets/shortcodes/any BuddyPress loop).
Hope that helps.
Regards
Brajesh
Hi, I'm looking for a plugin to make a profile private to specific user types/roles. Does yours have this functionality at all??
Hi Michelle,
The current version does not do it. We have an alternative for this plugin lined up around July 2-7. That plugin does it and will replacing it.
Regards
Brajesh