What is New In BuddyPress 4.0
BuddyPress 4.0 was released a few days ago and today we are going to review what is new in BuddyPress 4.0.
In short, this release focuses on compliance with EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and improving BP Nouveau(anyone using it must know the pain it caused in 3.x release).
Let us take a detailed look at things BuddyPress 4.0 does. The major changes you may notice are:-
- Front end data export and data erase request option for users
- Privacy Policy Integration in registration process
- Restoring behaviour of BP_DEFAULT_COMPONENT
- Improvements to Template Packs(BP Nouveau Mostly)
There are other changes too but our interest mostly lies with the above.
BuddyPress GDPR Compliance with front end data export and data erase request option for users
BuddyPress 4.0 adds an "Export Data" page under each user's account settings page.
This page allows user to
- Request their personal data export
- Guides to erase/delete account if account deletion is enabled.
The personal data export screen lists all the data exporters available with WordPress. The default list looks like this
- WordPress User
- WordPress Comments
- WordPress Media
- BuddyPress Extended Profile Data
- BuddyPress Activity Data
- BuddyPress Friends
- BuddyPress Friend Requests (Sent)
- BuddyPress Friend Requests (Received)
- BuddyPress Group Memberships
- BuddyPress Pending Group Membership Requests
- BuddyPress Pending Group Invitations (Received)
- BuddyPress Pending Group Invitations (Sent)
- BuddyPress Messages
- BuddyPress Notifications Data
- BuddyPress Settings Data
There may be more or less item depending on what plugins/settings you are using.
If you are wondering where is this option, It is under user account settings menu as ashown below.
Want to disable the user's personal data export settings? You can do so.
Privacy Policy Integration in BuddyPress registration process
One of the notable change in BuddyPress 4.0 is the support for privacy policy integration in registration. If you are on BuddyPress 4.0 and you have the WordPress Privacy Policy Page setup, BuddyPress will add a checkbox on registration screen as shown below.
If you don't see it, you are most probably using BP Legacy template pack or your theme does not support it. Want to enable it or need more control ? No worries, We are bringing tutorials on it next week.
Restoring the behaviour of BP_DEFAULT_COMPONENT
BP_DEFAULT_COMPONENT constant is used to specify the default landing page on a user's profile when their profile link(http://example.com/members/username/) is opened.
In BuddyPress 3.0, when user front page(home screen) was added, the behaviour changed. If the front page was enabled, this constant did not work. To make it work, you had to disable the user front page. BuddyPress 4.0 restores the suprimacy of BP_DEFAULT_COMPONENT again. Now, It will work as expected.
Improvements to BP Nouveau:-
If you ever used BP Nouveau, you must be knowing all those escaped html strings appearing everywhere. Well, that is fixed for now.
There are some other changes too. If you want to see more, here is the list of all the tickes closed for BuddyPress 4.0.