I’ve just made available a super-simple plugin that disables BuddyPress 1.6′s Activity Stream integration with Akismet. Most cool kids will never ever want to disable Akismet. And this plugin has an even more limited scope, because it requires BuddyPress 1.6, which isn’t out yet. Doh!
You may have heard of my BP Labs plugin for BuddyPress, which contains my own unofficial and experimental BuddyPress features for testing and feedback.
I’ve just got a new feature to the proof-of-concept stage; a Like button. It works similarly to all social networks’ like buttons. Right now, I’ve hooked it up to appear in the toolbar when you’re reading a blog post. Big thanks to Tammie Lister for contributing the button graphic.
I’m not sure when this new version of BP Labs will be out, but if you’re running BuddyPress 1.6-trunk, you can download BP Labs trunk here, and check it out. I’ve put a gallery of screenshots below.
It’d be really handy to get some feedback on this early version; do you like the idea? Is it implemented in a useful manner? What other features would you consider core to such an implementation?
Right now, it’s proof-of-concept, so only blog posts. If I decide to put more time into this feature, the plan is to try to get it to work for any content on your website.
It should only be used with BP 1.6-trunk. This is because we’ve put in a lot of optimisations around memory use and caching in 1.6, and this takes advantage of that. Without those changes, this could slow down your server.
This is an nice concept, and could potentially replace the functionality of the “favorite” button on the activity stream. Would it make sense to be able to view items that users have “liked” via their Profile?
Yep, it would. It’s built with that in mind, though that isn’t done (yet — it’s surprisingly tricky).
Very handy, I like this.
The ability to Like individual comments and to display the number of Likes per comment would stimulate participation and reward good commenters.
Integration with Achievements would compound that effect.
The option to limit the ability to Like to logged in users or certain categories of user could be useful, although I think I would generally prefer to allow everyone to express their approval, whether logged in or not.
A matching Dislike option could lead to a lot of interesting uses, especially if Likes and Dislikes could be weighted differently.
If integrated with BuddyPress Moderation, a large number of dislikes and zero or very few Likes could trigger a flag.
Great ideas. Thanks for sharing.
I might need this feature sooner than later, so I might spend some time helping to get this working with group forum posts… as soon as BP 1.6 drops that is! 
I’d love to work with you or, indeed, anyone on this, or any other cool Experiments that they’ve had.
Hi Paul,
I’m very interested in a Like/Add to Favorites feature and would love to be part of any testing. I’m creating a BP site for writers to share, edit, and react to one another’s work. Like a flickr or 500px.com but dedicated to more constructive, less fanny-patting (if you will) feedback. Anything I can do to help?
Thanks! Jack
During development of BuddyPress 1.7, I’ll be revisiting the Like in BP Labs.
Amazing Paul! It just amazing! 
Thanks for the plugin. Is it possible yo add the like button under each post? along with the avatars of the members who liked it?
Not right now. It was only a proof-of-concept. I’ll build on it in future.
Cool!! I found another plugin that you might want to look into:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/gravatar-like/
Available now at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/welcome-pack/. Fixes:
I’m still tracking a known issue with internationalisation and hope to have that addressed in the next version.
Welcome Pack 3.1 is now available!
It is a minor update to fix a bug reported by Simon Kartar involving error handling when the welcome messages could not be sent. I have also re-added the i18n .pot file to the package for easier localisation.
Hi Paul,
Great plugin !
I try to set your welcome pack and it seems you can and ad html to “Welcome message” in settings panel :
” When a user logs in to your site for the first time, send them a message:”
Is it true or do I miss something ?
Lamine
BP Labs 1.2.2 is now available. BP Labs contains unofficial and experimental BuddyPress features for testing and feedback.
This is a minor release to improve compatibility with BuddyPress 1.5 (which is now a requirement). Some of the internals have been updated, and the @mentions autocomplete now works correctly with BP Default 1.5 theme.
Thanks a million! You may want to update the WordPress plugins page for this plugin, too – it still says for BP v1.3.
Thanks – I think wp.org is just lagging behind a bit. It looks okay in the repository so hopefully it will update itself, soon.
Welcome Pack 3.0 is available immediately.
When a user registers on your site, Welcome Pack lets you automatically send them a friend or group invitation, a Welcome Message and can redirect them to a Start Page. You can also customise the emails sent by BuddyPress so that they match your site.
In this release, I’ve updated the admin page design, and totally overhauled the email customisation options. Using post types and easy-to-theme HTML templates, Welcome Pack 3.0 is BuddyPress emails done right.
Big thanks to Tammie Lister of Logical Binary for contributing both email templates that are included in the release. If you need awesome design done, you’d do well to talk Tammie.
Be sure to check out the new documentation for Welcome Pack to learn how you can create your own email templates; ever wanted to use short codes, or even WordPress’ Loop to show your recent posts in your emails? Now you can.
Congratulations Paul, you’re really firing on all cylinders these days.
Awesome, can’t wait to install and use Has this been tested for bugs and stuff? Or is it stable?
Pfft, of course I’ve tested it. What are you saying? I can never guarantee it is bug free, however.
Well done Paul, your involvement in BP community is awsmoe
Thank you!
The plan is to get a beta release of Welcome Pack (3.0) out early next week. To show what’s new, I’ve recorded a brief screencast:
That’s really cool, Paul!
Welcome Pack will give a lot more options to customize the community.
Whoop! Now turn that email stuff into a BP patch
I certainly intend to propose changes to how BuddyPress sends emails; will have to see what people think about the post type approach, however, before I can try making a case for that in core
Last week, I went to my first WordPress London meetup, hosted at and by Headshift Ltd. I enjoyed the talks and catching up with Jeff Ghazally, Todd Halfpenny, Peter Westwood, and meeting Shakur Shidane and Emily Webber. Emily uses BuddyPress on yeah! Hackney, so check it out if you live in Hackney!
I gave a talk introducing BuddyPress 1.5, which was released the day before. I think it went pretty well, and I’ve embedded my slides and a YouTube recording of yours truly below.
The Telegraph‘s hosting the next meetup on October 20th, so why not come and say hi?
I’m super excited that we got BuddyPress 1.5 out; to mark the occasion, I’ve recorded an impromptu one-take audio to share some details of what’s new in BuddyPress 1.5, and a little bit about the development of the plugin. It’s about half an hour long, and you can download it right here: Introduction to BuddyPress 1.5 (audio)
p.s. I have difficulty pronouncing “features”, it comes out as “futures” — I try to avoid the word as much as possible but I walked right into it out several times, so go easy on me
This is wonderful, it has been exciting watching this one approach the finish line and now it is here, thank you so much for all your hard work.
I am listening to the audio right now and, Jesus, you really say “features” as “futures”, that’s hilarious!
I was sorry to hear that you won’t be able to make it up to Edinburgh for the WordUp, that’s a pity but you’re quite right, it is a long way. Having said that, if you ever do make it up here you will always be more than welcome to stay at my place.
Thanks again and I am literally buzzing with excitement about the next version of Achievements.
I have to sort of stop, and think about it. Then I’m ok!
Mr. Gibbs, you need an audio player plugin on your website
Hi Paul,
I recently downloaded your excellent welcomepack plugin for buddypress but I have a problem.
New user registrations seem to be getting ignored while the plugin is active.
I am using wordpress 2.1.1, buddypress 1.2.10 and welcompack 2.2.1
I see in your changelog that you had fixed the problem in an earlier release but the problem is also present on my site.
Am I doing something wrong? I only started using buddypress a couple of days ago and i haven’t been using wordpress for very long.
Thanks for any advice you can give me
Paul
Hi,
As far as I know, it should work. It’s easiest to have this discussion on http://buddypress.org/community/groups/welcome-pack/, and we can try to figure it out.
Great to finally “hear” you in action Paul – and once again, awesome-awesome work. 800+ tickets is mind blowing – you guys have done a magnificent job!
After an epic development cycle, BuddyPress 1.5 is available immediately! There are so many new features and fixes, be sure to read the changelog for details, and the official release post over on BuddyPress.org. If you need support getting started with BuddyPress 1.5, please start at the Support Forums.
Hello Paul,
I have been following your briliant acheivements plugin for some time now. Today I installed it on my site and I am getting the following error on the ‘create acjhievement’ page:
Warning: in_array() [function.in-array]: Wrong datatype for second argument in wp-content/plugins/achievements/includes/achievements-core.php
will deeply appreciate if you can help me
Thanks for your time.
Amen!
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Hello Paul! Cool idea – I love it! Will the liking work for individual activity items or only blog posts? Is it backwards compatible or only working with the trunk? Thanks!