FR : Improve the What's New Experience

[rosyteddy]

The Whats New or Status box at the top of Activity / Profile page is very out of date compared to current social networks like Google Plus, FB etc or php social scripts like EasySocial, Oxwall, Elgg etc. See this forum discussion - ​https://buddypress.org/support/topic/switched-from-easysocial-on-joomla-here-is-my-feedback/

The modern Whats New box, like other sites, should provide the site member easy, intuitive way to add an image / album, post locations and events as well as at mention and hashtags. @ mention is present in buddypress but hashtag (with help of a plugin) is not Unicode compliant and thus defunct for many. More importantly Whats New box does not let users add an image, privacy, event or a location. This is not an issue of copying FB but integrating what users commonly expect.

Probably this can be done by a plethora of plugins but users like us, who are looking for already made solutions so that they do not have to look or run after the software and can straightway concentrate on contents and users, are disappointed. Waiting for months and years generate frustration and getting pushed to other platforms. BP can be a great building with really upcoming scientific architecture and pillars and columns inside but at the outside one needs an easy, attractive, useful, wide door to enter.

Just think Email. It needs an Inbox, Sent folder and Compose at minimum. Social net Whats new box, similarly at the minimum, needs ability to post an image/images/album, post a location, post an event and choose privacy at the time of submission. Please have a look at this screenshot ​http://s28.postimg.org/fr4rnd34t/frm.png

Maybe we should aim at providing this first (along with 2 way liking / favoriting which is present in *all* socials) before doing anything else, with whatever codes, patches or whatever is available. Code improvements can be done in iterations slowly. This will attract more users at the first place, some of them will be budding coders who can then contribute and expand more the Buddypress inner stuffs.

Thanks

[DJPaul]

We all agree with you. :) Thanks for taking the time to write a good trac ticket about it.

This would be a lot of work to do in one go, I envisage it being gradually built and implemented in small parts over several BuddyPress releases.

I have one question:

@ mention is present in buddypress but hashtag (with help of a plugin) is not Unicode compliant and thus defunct for many.

Ignoring hashtags for now, are you saying there are unicode issues with BuddyPress' current @mentions implementation? If there are, please would you open a new, seperate ticket, and put details/examples of how to recreate this? I would be interested in fixing this as soon as possible.

[rosyteddy]

Thanks DJPaul.
No, I did not say Unicode issues about @mentions. I have tested %mentions only with English. I said hashtag is not Unicode compliant. @mentions and hashtag are two *different* things.

Justice delayed is Justice denied :)
If it takes a long time to have that, it will mean more loss ....
Why not then a plugin that takes care of it till 'that' time ? There is already

• Media plugins that put an upload icon around Whats New Box
• BP activity plus can provide link thumbnails
• there is already BP Privacy that puts Privacy selector icons around Whats New Box
• there is already Location selector icon by BP checkins that puts its icon in the Whats New box
• the only significant missing bit here is Events - which the Event Manager can provide
• the current trend to put a post "with so and so user" can be done by @mentions

All that we need to do is put these together in an integrated way around the What's new box and recommend this plugin at the BP installer screen. Can Automattic sponsor this? Can it be crowd-funded? If its a sticky on the frontpage or in the forums we will know.

Waiting for future has serious drawbacks

• it will mean losing more users and some of them are bound to be "useful" users (=contributors)
• more platforms will come up like EasySocial, Elgg2, Drupal 8's Drupal Commons, Oxwall
• there will be more things to develop in future with moving times and the "lag" by BP will be even more hurting

Hack, workaround, patch, do whatever - do it now. Code tidiness, code cleanup, code robustness, api goodness can follow. Iphones were released thus, and iterated with each release.

Extend the Wordpress philosophy to buddypress
""Anyone can set up a blog on WordPress and be up and running in a few hours....It’s easy enough that a hobbyist can start their own website or blog in a weekend. It’s easy enough that an old-school marketing firm can set up a website in house and, just as importantly, understand how to use it without reading pages of manuals.
WordPress is committed to serving non-technical users who want to communicate easily and effectively. So, its appeal makes sense when you consider that people who go into communications fields tend not to be introverted technologists.
And because of ...., WordPress never had the luxury of being able to tell its users to RTFM, nor could it shrug and say, “It works for me.” Rather, the features of WordPress were driven by content people, not techies. Every feature had to be usable by bloggers, including non-technical ones.""

Thanks

[DJPaul]

Closing most tickets related to BP-Default and BP-Legacy, since the upcoming BP-Nouveau template pack (planned for 3.0) will make these redundant.

[DJPaul]

Closing most tickets related to BP-Default and BP-Legacy, since the upcoming BP-Nouveau template pack (planned for 3.0) will make these redundant.