June 9 Dev-Chat summary & June 23 Dev-Chat agenda

Hi everyone, sorry this summary is published very late (the day before we’re having another development meeting).

June 9 Dev-Chat summary

• See previously BP Dev Chat summary (May 26, 2021)
• In attendance: @vapvarun @im4th
• Slack archive

• 8.0.0 was released on June 7.
• Download spike for it happened on June 8 and reached ~27.000 downloads, but I believe we can include the 12.000 packages that were downloaded on release day. The total amount of downloads just after release is 39373.
• As @vapvarun said: “We did not break anything big” 😅.
• First issues are about the brand new Members Invitations feature:
  • It looks like some BuddyPress plugins are running some code before BuddyPress is fully ready.
  • It looks like some template overrides made by plugins or themes forgot to update their template pack to include this feature new templates.
  • The 2 above points could have been avoided if their plugin/theme authors had tested our beta/RC releases… That’s why we always ask you for help during our pre-release periods. The more we all test, the best will be the final release.
  • Thanks for @dcavins investigations about these first issues.
• There will be a 8.1.0 release soon, unless we do a short 9.0.0 release cycle. @im4th would like us to try to have our legacy Widgets migrated as blocks as soon as WordPress 5.8 is released (it is slated to July 20). He’s been working on these 8 new blocks form our BP Blocks GH repository. So far 4 legacy widgets have their corresponding blocks, you can follow his progress (and of course help him) from this GH issue.
• @vapvarun & @im4th discussed about the BP Attachments Plugin: the goal is to include the User Attachments feature or build a new plugin by the end of the year. The new plugin path is an option considering the various plugins playing into this area.
• @im4th would also like to progress on migrating BP’s custom URI parser to use WP’s Rewrite API (#4954) from a plugin: if you’re interested about it, let’s team up! Let him know you want to join this project pinging him on WordPress Slack (@imath).

June 23 Dev-Chat Agenda

So here’s the question we need to reply to during tomorrow’s development meeting:

So here’s my plan: July 16 is my birthday and WP 5.8 is slated to July 20. What about releasing BP 9.0 on July 16 with only blocks (and some other fixes of course) ?

@im4th on June 9

It will happen on June 23 at 19:30 UTC and of course in #BuddyPress.

If you have specific/additional points you need to discuss about, please share them into the comments area of this post.

#8-0-0, #9-0-0, #agenda, #dev-chat, #summary

BP Dev-Chat Agenda June 9, 2021

Hi!

Our development meeting will happen on June 9 (tomorrow) at 19:30 UTC and of course in #BuddyPress.

Here’s our agenda:

• Feedbacks & results about « Alfano » 8.0.0.
• BP widgets & the Widget Block Editor.

If you have specific/additional points you need to discuss about, please share them into the comments area of this post.

👋

#8-0-0, #agenda, #dev-chat

BuddyPress 8.0.0

Hi,

Meet “Alfano” our first major release for 2021!

BuddyPress 8.0.0 “Alfano”

#8-0-0, #release

BP Dev-Chat summary: May 26, 2021

• See previously BP Dev Chat summary (May 12, 2021)
• In attendance: @vapvarun @johnjamesjacoby @dcavins @im4th
• Slack archive

8.0.0-beta2 feedbacks

@im4th noticed the only feedback we got from this beta release was about the BP Beta Tester plugin. The issue about this testing tool was fixed in 1.2.0. Does it mean everything’s fine with 8.0.0? We’ll see with the release candidate that was published 4 days ago: if you haven’t tested it yet, please do so 🙏.

BuddyPress 8.0.0 Release Candidate

8.0.0 remaining tasks

• @vapvarun has been working on the 8.0.0 changelog. He found a bug with the script we’re using to generate it. He shared a fix during the chat. @im4th suggested to build a PR out of it on @rayisme‘s GH repository.
• @johnjamesjacoby and especially @dcavins copy reviewed the Hello BuddyPress screen text on (#8468). Thanks to them we were able to clean the open tickets about the 8.0.0 milestone.
• We agreed it was time to package RC and decided to leave less than 2 weeks of string freeze to polyglots. The goal was to avoid postponing too much the 8.0.0 final release date. As you can see above, the RC was released on May 27.

8.0.0 final schedule

• ✅ 8.0.0-beta1: April 29,
• ✅ 8.0.0-beta2: May 20,
• ✅ 8.0.0-RC1: May 27,
• 8.0.0 stable release: June 7 👀

Open floor

We’ve been talking about the BuddyPress code reference. It’s still under construction and we really need to make it available asap. @vapvarun had the opportunity to test the parser tool and the only thing we need to make sure is to avoid parsing the BP REST API controllers to avoid some kind of duplicate information with the BP REST API documentation. As it was getting late @im4th suggested to have a specific dev-chat about it.

@dcavins shared a proof-of-purpose plugin that adds some limitations on who can send site membership invites.

Screenshot of the Proof of purpose plugin @dcavins built.

If anyone has ideas for limits to add, please let @dcavins know adding issues to this GitHub repository.

Next Dev-Chat

It will happen on June 9 at 19:30 UTC and of course in #BuddyPress. We’ll probably talk about the first results/feedbacks about the 8.0.0 stable release but If you have ideas or questions, feel free (and we are strongly encouraging you) to comment this summary to share them!

PS: we count on you to test the 8.0.0 release candidate!

#8-0-0, #dev-chat, #release-candidate, #summary

BP 8.0 Introduces Site Membership Invitations

With the release of BuddyPress 8.0, your BuddyPress community can grow organically by referral, attracting new members with personalized invitations from existing members. This feature is deactivated by default but can easily be enabled by visiting the BuddyPress Options screen at WP Admin > Settings > BuddyPress > Options. Enable membership invitations by ticking the checkbox labeled “Allow registered members to invite people to join this network.”

When invitations are enabled, users can accept an invitation and register for your site even if “Anyone can register” is disabled. This means you can disable public registration and enable invitations to create a site with membership by invitation only. Or, enable public registration and use invitations as just another way to spread the word about your community.

Once invitations are enabled, your members will have access to an Invitations tab in their member profiles. Simply enter a valid email address and optionally add a personalized message to send an invitation to the new potential member via email.

Once invitations are sent, a member can view a list of pending invitations and resend the email or cancel the invitation.

The invitee receives an email that includes a link to the registration form (with a customized acceptance key that allows access even if public registration is disabled). The message also includes the personalized message from the inviting user and an unsubscribe link which allows the invitee to opt out from future invitations from your site. The email’s content is customizable via the BuddyPress Emails admin interface.

If the invitee chooses to accept the invitation, he or she can follow the customized link to the registration form.

When a new membership is the result of an invitation, the activity item will be expanded to include the name of the inviter.

Administration Tools

BuddyPress site admins can also view a list of all invitations and opt-outs from the WP Admin dashboard. The new screens are available at Tools > BuddyPress.

On the “Manage Invitations” screen, site admins can view pending and accepted invitations and choose to resend the email or cancel the invitation.

On the “Manage Opt-outs” screen, site admins can see opt-out requests, with a record of what type of email resulted in the opt-out request, and who sent the email. This screen can be used to see if any particular component or plugin or user is abusing the system to send unwanted emails that result in many opt-outs. It is also possible find a specific opt-out by searching for an email address, which is useful, for example, in the case where a user who has previously opted out changes his or her mind and would like to have the opt-out request deleted. Note that the email addresses associated with an opt-out request are hashed before being stored in the database.

We hope this new feature enriches your BuddyPress commmunity by attracting new, engaged members!

#8-0-0, #invitations, #members

BP Dev-Chat Agenda May 26, 2021

Hi!

Our development meeting will take place tomorrow (May 26 at 19:30 UTC) in #BuddyPress.

Here’s our agenda:

• Feedbacks about 8.0.0-beta2
• Ticket needing attention: the Hello BuddyPress & Credits screens (#8468)
• RC & string freeze.

8.0.0 release schedule’s reminder

• 8.0.0-beta1: April 29 ✅
• 8.0.0-beta2: May 20 ✅
• 8.0.0-RC: 🤔
• 8.0.0 stable release: early June.

If you have specific/additional points you need to discuss about, please share them into the comments area of this post.

👋

#8-0-0, #agenda, #dev-chat

Nice! 8.0.0 will include a BP Email to welcome your new community members

If registrations to your site are open, your new members will now receive a warm welcome email once they activated their account.

By default its content is very simple, it contains:

• a link to the user’s profile page,
• a link to reset their password.

But as you probably know BP Emails are customizable emails, so you can edit this content and make it very unique to your community. Let’s remind ourselves how to achieve this.

First, from the Emails menu of your WordPress Dashboard, look for the [{{{site.name}}}] Welcome! BP Email, mouse over its title and click on the “Edit” link as shown above.

Then edit the content of your email with the text of your choice. I chose to use one containing a link using a custom email token: <a href="{{{groups.url}}}">. In order to replace the groups.url token with the Groups directory permalink before the email is sent, I need to make sure this token is defined using the bp_send_welcome_email_tokens filter. The code below shows you an example of how you can do it.

/**
 * Add the Groups directory URL to the welcome email's tokens.
 *
 * @param array $tokens  An associative array of email tokens.
 * @param int   $user_id The ID of the user who activated their account.
 * @return array An associative array of email tokens.
 */
function bp_custom_code_add_groups_url_to_welcome_email_tokens( $tokens = array(), $user_id = 0 ) {
	// I known, as the Admin of the site, the Groups component is active, let's include a link to its directory.
	$tokens['groups.url'] = bp_get_groups_directory_permalink();

	return $tokens;
}
add_filter( 'bp_send_welcome_email_tokens', 'bp_custom_code_add_groups_url_to_welcome_email_tokens', 10, 2 );

And.. It’s working 🙌 See the screen capture below 😇

Tada!

#8-0-0, #bp-email, #welcome

BuddyPress 8.0.0-beta2 is ready for your tests !

Here’s the announcement post about it we just published on BuddyPress.org:

BuddyPress 8.0.0-beta2

😘

#8-0-0, #beta, #release

BP Dev-Chat summary: May 12, 2021

• See previously BP Dev Chat summary (April 28, 2021)
• In attendance: @vapvarun @johnjamesjacoby @espellcaste @im4th
• Slack archive

8.0.0-beta1 feedbacks

@vapvarun checked our support forum and hasn’t found concerning feedbacks relative to this release.

@im4th replied to one of the comments that was posted on the announcement post about the next WordPress Full Site Editing (FSE) & Widgets Block Editor features. He tested the first one before our meeting and told us about his concerns during the chat. In short it’s a breaking change for the BuddyPress Theme Compat API. A pretty long discussion took place between @johnjamesjacoby @im4th and @vapvarun about it. We finally decided to open a very important ticket on our Trac to decide whether it’s on BuddyPress or FSE to adapt. If you have an opinion about it, please take a few minutes to share it with us.

8.0.0 tickets needing attention

• About the bp_core_new_nav_default()function ticket (#8471), we decided we were too close to release date to do the necessary tests to be sure the patch doesn’t introduce some regression
• About the BP Directory pages ticket (#8470), we think it’s best to split the ticket in 2 and deal with admin information on the Registration/Activation page during 8.0.0
• @im4th wants to finish his audit regarding #8459 before packaging a new beta release.
• @espellcaste reminded us about the GitHub Actions ticket (#8421). He agreed with @im4th about only committing the PHP Unit tests part.
• We also punted the ticket about including PHPCS to our build tools (#7228) to leave us the time to discuss more about it as we don’t agree all about when to check WP PHP code standards (before committing or as soon as patching). The latter could possibly discourage people to submit patches in @im4th‘s opinion. Feel free to give us your opinion about it, commenting on the ticket.
• Finally about the remaining release tasks (#8468). @vapvarun will take care of the changelog and @im4th will prepare the credits update.

8.0.0 updated schedule

We agreed to build a new beta release before our release candidate. @im4th will take care of it next week.

• ✅ 8.0.0-beta1: April 29,
• 8.0.0-beta2: ~ May 19,
• 8.0.0 stable release: June 2.

Next Dev-Chat

It will happen on May 26 at 19:30 UTC and of course in #BuddyPress. If you have ideas or questions, feel free (and we are strongly encouraging you) to comment this summary to share them!

PS: we count on you to test the 8.0.0 beta release!

#8-0-0, #dev-chat, #summary

BP Dev-Chat Agenda May 12, 2021

Hi!

Please join our development chat tomorrow (May 12 at 19:30 UTC). It will happen in #BuddyPress.

Here’s our agenda:

• Feedbacks about 8.0.0-beta1
• Tickets needing attention (#8471, #8470, #8459)
• RC or beta2 release date.

8.0.0 release schedule’s reminder

• 8.0.0-beta1: April 29 ✅
• 8.0.0 stable release: June 2.

If you have specific/additional points you need to discuss about, please share them into the comments area of this post.

See you 🔜

#8-0-0, #agenda, #dev-chat