Dev Chat Summary for April 29, 2015

BuddyPress 2.3.0 Schedule Update

• BP 2.3.0 Beta 1 release has been postponed to next week because some features are not done yet (see trac tickets below). Deadline to complete feature for inclusion in BP 2.3.0 has been set this Saturday, May 2nd.
• BP 2.3.0 RC 1 is scheduled two weeks before release ~ May 12th.
• Target release date for 2.3.0 is May 26th, three days before BuddyCamp in Miami, Florida.

Star Private Messages

• (#6331) @rayisme has a patch and is “just re-testing everything, but would appreciate some feedback on the general approach.” @johnjamesjacoby said he will be reviewing and testing the patch.
• Update: @im4th and @boonebgorges have tested the patch and have given their feedback.

XProfile fields used for signup should be configurable

• (#6347) @johnjamesjacoby mentioned that this still needs unit tests. He will get the tests in Friday “with a commit-ready patch for review.”

Attachment Library

• (#6278) @im4th would like to commit the latest patch on this ticket. This last patch contains a back compatibility fix for versions of WordPress < 4.0.
• Dev feedback needed.

Avatar UI

• (#6290) @im4th mentioned that he would need to check for WP version compatibility since this UI requires Plupload 2.1.1 to maximize cross-browser compatibility. This version of the script was introduced in WP 3.9. While the general mantra is to check for feature compatibility and not version compatibility, @boonebgorges and @johnjamesjacoby gave thumbs up for the version check since this was the better course of action for this feature.
• Update: This ticket is now a done deal. Testing and feedback welcome.

Update about the Blogs single items

• (#6026) While this ticket was not discussed during this dev chat, it was previously tagged for 2.3.0 and bears mentioning. The team has decided to postpone it to 2.4 dev-cycle because of the sheer scope of the improvements suggested by @im4th in the patches.

Slack log: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/buddypress/p1430333988003331
(You need a Slack account to view the logs.)

#activity

#6026, #6278, #6290, #6331, #6347, #dev-chat

Dev Chat Summary for April 22, 2015

BuddyPress 2.2.3.1

• @johnjamesjacoby packaged and released BP 2.2.3.1 last Tuesday, April 21st. This is a maintenance update.

BuddyPress 2.3.0 Schedule Update

• BP 2.3.0 Beta 1 is scheduled for this coming week.
• BP 2.3.0 RC 1 is scheduled two weeks before release.
• Target release date for 2.3.0 is May 26th, three days before BuddyCamp in Miami, Florida.

Avatars, an extensible UI

• (#6290) @im4th has tested the new Avatar UI on the BP Default theme and @hnla has done the same for WP Twenty-* themes. Both are working on improving the current UI. @johnjamesjacoby recommended testing as well on popular BP-compatible premium themes and can get copies of such themes to help the authors make the necessary adjustments.
• @rayisme suggested adding back informative text on the screen: “In trunk, there is a “Delete” button in the nav (Upload, Camera, Delete), but it isn’t as clear that a user has a current avatar. “ @rayisme will work on a patch for this.

And if the Blogs component had Single items?

• (#6026) This ticket contains major enhancements to the blogs component. @im4th indicated that he was ready to work on the “site logos” (Avatars for sites) and sought advice on the best placement to add this new feature. @johnjamesjacoby noted, “The code should live in the Blogs component, with whatever graceful degradation is necessary. And the avatars themselves, probably in the same structure as members and groups avatars.”
• With the placement of the new features resolved, @im4th stated, “I can work on #6026 + (blog) creation steps and see where we arrive in the next 2 weeks.”
• Update: @im4th added a patch for review and tagged this ticket for BP 2.3.0 in case we can quickly decide whether to include it or not.

Option to disable Group avatars

• (#4677) @boonebgorges has been adding and updating patches for this feature request. The latest patch has revisions for 8 core files (activity, core, groups), three bp-legacy group templates, and the buddypress.css file.
• @im4th is waiting for this feature to be committed to core to tie in the Avatar UI with uploading avatars for user profile, single groups (if not disabled), and for user blogs on multisite installations.

Groups single item home: improve the way we deal with custom front and activity component

• (#6388) @im4th has also been working on improving this feature: custom home pages for single groups and had uploaded a patch for review. This ticket is tagged for future release but if group templates are going to be changed in ticket #4677 above for 2.3.0, it’s best to work on this group enhancement at the same time.
• Feedback welcome.

BP Companion Stylesheet for Twenty Fourteen Theme

• (#9784) @hnla has committed his first pass on the companion CSS and SASS files for the theme to trunk. Styling for the BP groups component in both the Twenty Fifteen and Twenty Fourteen themes will be added sometime soon. Testing and feedback welcome.

Slack log: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/buddypress/p1429729300002739
(You need a Slack account to view the logs.)

#4677, #6026, #6290, #6388, #9784, #dev-chat

Dev Chat Summary for April 15, 2015

BuddyPress 2.2.2.1

• @djpaulgibbs packaged and released BP 2.2.2.1 last Sunday, April 12th. This is a maintenance update.

Avatars, an extensible UI

• (#6290) … and the feature’s committed to core! Thank you @im4th 🙂
• In addition to the improved profile photo uploader, a new camera feature using the device’s webcam video stream to take a snapshot of one’s profile photo has been added as an option for members using Firefox, Chrome, and Opera browsers. Browsers like iOS Safari, Opera Mini, and Internet Explorer which do not support getUserMedia can still be used to upload profile photo using the improved uploader.
• More testing and feedback welcome.

Improve bp_core_check_avatar_type() and introduce a function to get the allowed avatar types

• (#6336) In relation to the new Avatars UI, @im4th added checks for the allowed avatar and mime types. This has been committed to core.

XProfile fields used for signup should be configurable

• (#6347) @johnjamesjacoby continues the major overhaul of the XProfile component and has gotten addicted to unit tests, Boone’s boon.

BP Core Hooks Documentation

• (#5940) @tw2113 has completed the inline documentation for /bp-core files. What’s next: /bp-template/bp-legacy files.

BP Companion Stylesheet for Twenty Fifteen Theme

• (#6291) @hnla has committed the CSS and SCSS files to core. Testing and feedback welcome.

Slack log: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/buddypress/p1429124553002195
(You need a Slack account to view the logs.)

#5940, #6290, #6291, #6336, #6347, #dev-chat

A good way to shape the future of BuddyPress Attachments is to take care of Avatars

As you never miss the great dev-chat summaries @mercime is posting with love, you already know the core team has been working on a new BuddyPress Attachments API for the 2.3 release.

You should know 2.3 will bring a new class, BP_Attachment, developers will be able to extend to manage user uploads. In core we are using it to take care of avatar uploads. We will soon write a codex page about it, but if you’re eager to play with it, you can already observe what we’re doing in the BP_Attachment_Avatar class (see #6278).

You should also know, we’ve been working on a richer user interface to upload / crop / set a profile photo for a user or a group. It landed in trunk yesterday, we’re very excited to have it in our next release and we hope you are too 🙂 (see #6290)

The Upload view of the Avatar UI

Members will be able to use their computer’s webcam to set their profile photo if they are using a browser supporting getUserMedia.

Camera view of the Avatar UI

It will be possible to edit a member’s avatar from his extended profile in WordPress administration.

Crop view in wp-admin/extended profile

A few notes:

• It’s not removing the legacy screens, it’s actually using them as a fallback if javascript is disabled.
• Although we’re convinced it’s a great improvement, some of you might feel better with the legacy interface. If so you will be able to disable the new UI by using this filter add_filter( 'bp_avatar_is_front_edit', '__return_false' ) in your bp-custom.php file for instance.
• For the first introduction of this feature, we wish to “keep some control” over the Backbone templates. These templates will be organized in an “_attachments” folder. The underscore prefix means : “we advise you to avoid overriding this folder’s templates from your theme”.
• About theme compatibility: the “avatar” templates of the template pack we ship with the plugin (bp-legacy) will use a new template tag to display the interface. If you are overriding these templates from your theme and if by the time 2.3 will be released you forgot to update them, we will try to load the interface using one of these template hooks :

template hook	template file
do_action( 'bp_after_profile_avatar_upload_content' );	buddypress/members/single/profile/change-avatar.php
do_action( 'bp_after_group_admin_content' );	buddypress/groups/single/admin.php
do_action( 'bp_after_group_avatar_creation_step' );	buddypress/groups/create.php

#6278, #6290

Dev Chat Summary for April 8, 2015

Avatars, an Extensible UI

• (#6290) @im4th has been moving fast and furious with updated patches for this new feature. Patches 6290.08 and 6290.09 fixed some issues with Internet Explorer which he has gotten quite fond of 🙂 Thanks to @hnla for testing with their favorite browser.
• Update: Within the last 48 hours, @im4th uploaded two new patches 6290.10 and 6290.11 to address other issues. At this stage he’s ready to commit to trunk.
• Testing and feedback welcome.

BP Companion Stylesheet for Twenty Fifteen Theme

• (#6291) @hnla has uploaded new patches with CSS and SASS stylesheets.
• Testing and feedback welcome.

Improving XProfiles Component

• (#6341, #6340, #6346, #6347, #6318, #5733) @johnjamesjacoby has been working at improving xprofile field querying, adding caching, adding a new BP_XProfile_Meta_Query class, and building out tests, among others.

Directories Filtered by Member Roles

• (#6286) @boonebgorges is ready to commit the first pass for this new feature. The patch introduces the new bp_register_member_type action action, where plugins should register member types.
• Update: The feature has been committed to core.
• Testing and feedback welcome.

Group Membership Cache

• (#6327) Behind the scenes for the past week and a half, @boonebgorges has been working on the maximal caching of group memberships on a per-user basis. Patches have been uploaded including unit tests.

Message Caching

• (#6221) @rayisme has uploaded a patch which introduced new methods for message caching and included unit tests. The patch handles the majority of uncached message DB queries. * @boonebgorges has been working on this ticket as well and posted some directions on cache keys and groups.

BP 2.2 (and 2.2.1) feed is no longer protected by Wishlist Member

• (#6230) @rayisme has uploaded a patch which proposed to use page ID zero on BP single pages only. There are other approaches mentioned in ticket which have repercussions as well. Sticky situation, this.
• Dev feedback requested.

2015 BuddyPress Survey

• (#5980)The survey ended Wednesday afternoon PST. Results will be posted at BuddyPress.org. Many thanks to everyone who participated in the survey.

Custom Post Type Support for Activities

• (#6306) @im4th has uploaded patches plus unit tests to address the issues including comments for post types. He’s requested for dev feedback (special mention to @rayisme 😀 ) .

Relationships API

• @djpaulgibbs mentioned that he has made progress with exploring the idea of many-to-many relationships, but will move it later from the 2.3.0 milestone to 2.4.0 since he doesn’t think this could be finished in time.

Paul’s Addenda

Belated Thanks to BP Volunteers at WCLDN Contributor Day
@djpaulgibbs gave special mentions to @pollyplummer and marion for improving the BuddyPress.org/about/ pages two weekends ago. e.g. https://buddypress.org/about/activity/

BuddyPress.org Site Assets Included in meta.svn.wordpress.org VVV
@djpaulgibbs reported that with a little help from his friend @netweb, it’s now possible to set up the buddypress.org themes/plugins locally in a VVV install: https://github.com/iandunn/wordpress-meta-environment/pull/10. He’s waiting for Ian Dunn to merge the pull request but you can try with the branch right now and it all just works.
It’s now much easier for anyone who knows how to set up VVV to contribute towards improving bundled theme/s and plugins for BuddyPress.org, codex.buddypress.org, es.buddypress.org, and codex.bbpress.org. Just create a ticket and upload patch(es) at https://meta.trac.wordpress.org.

Slack log: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/buddypress/p1428519711001398
(You need a Slack account to view the logs.)

#5733, #5980, #6221, #6230, #6286, #6290, #6291, #6306, #6318, #6327, #6340, #6341, #6346, #6347, #dev-chat

Dev Chat Summary for April 1, 2015

2015 BuddyPress Survey Ends Next Week

• (#5980) Help guide the direction of BuddyPress plugin development in 2015. There are only a few more days left for you to take the Survey which will be closing this coming Wednesday, April 8th, at 23:00 UTC. Countdown.
  

Avatars, an extensible UI

• (#6290) @imath had added a patch to bring Avatar UI in wp-admin/Extended profile and move the templates in bp-legacy.
• Discussions included clarifying what was the best approach to improve the architecture of this UI per @imath’s latest post in ticket: location of administration panels, backbone template location in bp-legacy or in bp-core. Decisions re localization of the javascript template, naming of template elements, among others, are pending.
• To top it off, @im4th is already working on using the Avatar UI to upload Logo/Avatar for multisite installations.
  
• Update: Based on the feedback from WCLDN contributor day and Dev Chat last Wednesday, @im4th has a new post in ticket moving forward with the Avatar UI.
• Feedback welcome.

BP Core Hooks Documentation

• (#5940) @tw2113 has almost completed the inline documentation of bp-core/ files.

Directories filtered by Member Roles

• (#6826) @boonebgorges has added a patch and unit tests for this new feature which introduces a new ‘bp_register_member_types’ hook, added changes in bp_core_set_uri_globals(), and a new ‘has_directory’ syntax for Member Types.
• Feedback welcome.

Star Private Messages

• (#6331) @rayisme introduced a new feature he mentioned as one of his priorities in this dev cycle and which he has created as a plugin first. This feature has been greenlighted for inclusion in core for BP 2.3.0.
• Feedback welcome.
  

Companion Stylesheets for WP Default Themes

• (#6291) @hnla has posted the latest patch for a BP stylesheet to address theme compatibility issues with the Twenty Fifteen Theme.
• (#6338) He has also posted a patch for the BP stylesheet for the Twenty Fourteen theme. Before testing this stylesheet, apply the patch from Twenty Fifteen above which also adds the necessary patch in bp-legacy/buddypress-functions.php to enqueue the BP companion stylesheet/s. Update 2014-04-04: @rayisme‘s patch to enqueue BP companion stylesheets to respective WP Default themes has been committed to core https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/9694
• Feedback and testing welcome.

Slack log https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/buddypress/p1427914764000734
(You need a Slack account to view the logs.)

#5940, #5980, #6290, #6291, #6331, #6338, #6826, #dev-chat

Dev Chat Summary for March 25, 2015

Avatars, an extensible UI

• (#6290) @im4th reported that he gave a demo of the new Avatars UI at WordCamp London last weekend.
• Discussions touched on where special templates would be included in backend administration, from where to include the UI templates so that this feature would be theme-independent and could still be overridden by theme or plugin authors like they do with template parts.
• @im4th also said that if the BP Attachments API (#6278) is aimed to help us then help them deal with attachment, maybe we should try to help them with the UI Part.
• @johnjamesjacoby: While it may not make sense for v1, I would like for this to be something all components could lean on in some way: sending attachments in a Private Message, attaching one to a friend request, etc.
• @im4th thinking about : 1/ Put attachments UI in bp-legacy: BuddyPress is making sure everything is fine for the introduction of the feature and 2/if everything is ok, then open UI to the plugins world.

Update XProfile UI to better match current WordPress design

• (#6318) @johnjamesjacoby updated the Profile Fields UI in the backend using the recent improvements done to the WordPress administration area. Design feedback is welcome.

BuddyPress Companion stylesheet for Twenty Fifteen

• (#6291) @hnla has posted the initial patch and screenshots for the companion stylesheet taking on the challenging member navigation links, among others. Feedback included avoiding vertical navigation within content area. Additional feedback and participation, welcome.

Create New Invitations API

• (#6210) @dcavins reported that he’s just about has the group invite tests written. He continued, “Have the API pretty much written. Once all the tests are in place, I’ll update the group functions to use the API and see what I got wrong.”

2015 BuddyPress Survey

• (#5980) The survey deadline has been extended to April 8, 2015. Participation in the survey and promotion are welcome.
  https://twitter.com/buddypress/status/580822590266044416

Slack log: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/buddypress/p1427313681000039
(You need a Slack account to view the logs.)

#5980, #6210, #6278, #6290, #6291, #6318, #dev-chat

Dev Chat Summary for March 11, 2015

BuddyPress 2.3.0 Schedule

• Target release date: May 26, 2015
• Beta1 to be released ~four weeks before release date and RC1 ~ two weeks before
• There are 73 tickets currently open for this milestone. Patches welcome.

BP 2.3.0 Progress Report

New Notifications Meta (#6275)
@johnjamesjacoby reported that within the last two weeks, he worked on the new notifications meta table with accompanying database and caching routines, new template functions and filters, among others. These have been committed to trunk. Needs unit tests.

Attachments API (#6278)
@im4th has been working with @boonebgorges and @johnjamesjacoby on this new feature and it’s moving along quite rapidly. Feedback is needed on the lastest patch.

Avatar Upload UI (#6290)
@im4th has posted screenshots of the the UI for this enhancement in ticket. The Attachment API needs to be completed first as this feature requires AJAX and other methods to be introduced in the new API. Possible blavatar addition if there’s time.
@johnjamesjacoby noted that get_avatar has a bevy of new filters and functions in WP core now and added, “Eventually we might be able to ditch a bunch of our avatar code as a result. get_avatar_url() & get_avatar_data().”

Invitations API (#6210)
@dcavins commented that he’s making good progress on this new API,” but slowing down to see how the real world works (group invitations) and finding some strange things.” He needs to finish writing test coverage before attempting to use the new API functions for group invitations. @boonebgorges has been giving him advice on unit tests and looking over his proposed changes.

Improve representation of blog posts in the Activity Stream (#6177)
@djpaulgibbs has added screenshots and patches for this enhancement. Feedback is needed on the lastest patch re architecture.

Relationships API (exploration stage)
@djpaulgibbs is also “trying to make more progress on some kind of many-to-many object relation API. It’s proving pretty challenging. My original approach was to try to port as much of post2posts as possible, but it’s increasingly looking like it’s not a great fit without modifications, so I’m still trying to see where to go with it.”

Inline Documentation (#5940)
@tw2113 is currently documenting BP Core Hooks as scheduled.

Correct the values returned by bp_format_time (#2693)
@johnjamesjacoby has committed patches to resolve the issue. He also noted, “We should probably use smarter time elements and let the front-end handle timestamps in a more sane way.”

Fixes for title-tag /wp_title (#6107)
Full steam ahead and plenty of beer to resolve page/site title issues.

Companion Stylesheets for WP Default themes (#6248)
@hnla reported that he was in the process of building and iterating on the stylesheet for the companion theme tasks.

2015 BuddyPress Survey (#5980)
A friendly reminder to take the survey at https://buddypress.org/2015/02/2015-buddypress-survey/

Daylight Savings Time

Our dev chat is scheduled at 20:00 UTC until after March 29th when DST starts in Europe. For those in North America, this means that dev chats will be held one hour later than usual for the next two weeks at 1:00 P.M. Pacific / 4:00 P.M. Eastern until further notice.

Slack log: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/buddypress/p1426104240000980
(You need a Slack account to view the logs.)

#2693, #5940, #5980, #6107, #6177, #6210, #6248, #6275, #6278, #6290, #dev-chat