Interesting. When I put the shortcode in a sidebar text widget like you did, it works as intended.

Originally I put it within a text module in Divi. Other BP shortcodes were working there, so I assumed this one would to – but for some reason it doesn’t (at least the specific thing I needed).

Thanks for testing this. I will have to display avatars with a Divi sidebar widget now, which seems odd – but I guess whatever works, right?

Hi Brajesh. Thanks for your reply.

I looked up PressCrew, but apparently they are no longer in operation.

When I googled for BuddyPress Shortcodes (or looked in the WP repository), the only ones I could find were:
1). BuddyPress Shortcodes (https://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress-shortcodes/) — over three years old and no longer maintained. Also, it would have been too limited for my needs anyway.
2). Shortcodes for BuddyPress (https://wbcomdesigns.com/downloads/shortcodes-for-buddypress/) — This is more recent (only 6 months old). However, it doesn’t really work well for what I need. When it’s used with a page builder (like the Divi theme), it creates an error message on the backend. Also, no matter where I place the shortcode within the page builder’s contents, the BP content always moves to the very top of the page, above all other content. This makes the plugin useless for me. I contacted them about this a while ago and have received no reply.

Basically, I want to have the freedom to design a page to my liking (with a pagebuilder like Divi), while still having BuddyPress functionality to view, placed wherever I like within my design. This would be a HUGE gamechanger for the BuddyPress community. The biggest weakness of BuddyPress has always been that the default styling is very basic, generic and unprofessional. And there is no way to customize the look of it easily. You either need to be super advanced at modifying templates, or rely on a theme specifically designed for BuddyPress (but they are expensive, and very limited).

If there was a BuddyPress shortcodes plugin that really worked well, and played nice with pagebuilders like the incredibly popular Divi, it would be a dream come true. You would be opening the doors to a lot of designers who would like to use BuddyPress, but don’t because of how bad it looks (and then end up using something like Ultimate Member or PeepSo instead).

I hope you reconsider creating such a plugin, as I know your plugins are well built and maintained.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by Rojo. Reason: correcting mispelling

I never got an answer to this, and we ended up not using the blog feature because the activity mentions were so generic it wasn’t worth it.

I would LOVE for this to eventually work, though…

Hi again. Just checking in on this.
We’re currently determining whether or not we should continue with the member blogging feature, as we think having it will be pointless if people end up ignoring the generic activity posts that get generated from it.

If the solution seems impossible, please let us know. But if it’s able to be fixed, we may hold off and wait for the solution — as it will be a really great feature to have!!
Thanks

Hi. Thanks for the reply.

There is a problem with that way featured images are handled in BuddyBlog, they get attached too late and by that time the activity recording is already complete, so including the Featured thumbnail will require some other trick,

That’s what someone else that looked into this said — that the order of how things are being triggered is what’s making it not work correctly. Unfortunately I only had this person’s help for a limited time, and he could not figure out a solution while he was with me.

I just wanted to know if this is very important for you or not?

It’s VERY important.
Like I mentioned, my entire BuddyPress site revolves around the activity feed (as many BuddyPress sites do). The activity feed mentions need to be distinct — otherwise there’s no point in having them. And if you don’t have them…then how do people know about new things that have been added?

You have a typo in your code

I didn’t write this code, but others helped.
I’m not sure it was a typo, though. I changed it to your version (new_blog_post), but then the activity didn’t show up at all after publishing! I changed it back to “blog_post” and now it shows in activity again.

However, this is what it looks like when publishing from the front end:

As you can see, it’s very generic and boring. If there were a bunch of these type of activity posts in a row, you would not be able to distinguish any of them from each other — and no one would want to have to click through all of them to see if there’s something of interest to them or not. In reality, the typical behavior of most users would probably be to just ignore them all. And if that happens…why have the mentions at all?

If I publish a BuddyBlog post through the back end, however, then I get an activity post like this:

Now THAT is way more interesting, no? It gives the members some context at least.
It’s showing an excerpt (instead of title which I was hoping), but that’s fine. (Title AND excerpt would be even better).
As long as it’s SOMETHING, as well as the featured image, then that would make it perfect. This gives people an idea of what the post may be about, and gives them a reason (or not) to click on it and find out more.

This version only appears if a post is added in the back end — OR — if an already published post gets “updated” in the back end.
Neither of which is an option, as members will NOT have access to the backend at all on my site.

If there’s ANY way to allow for a better activity feed mention, then that would make adding the BuddyBlog function worthwhile! I also think others who use this plugin would benefit a lot from this.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by Rojo.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by Rojo. Reason: fixing typos