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?
Paul Gibbs 
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!
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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.
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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?
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Yep, it would. It’s built with that in mind, though that isn’t done (yet — it’s surprisingly tricky).
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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.
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Great ideas. Thanks for sharing.
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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! 🙂
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😀 I’d love to work with you or, indeed, anyone on this, or any other cool Experiments that they’ve had.
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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
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During development of BuddyPress 1.7, I’ll be revisiting the Like in BP Labs.
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Amazing Paul! It just amazing! 😉
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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?
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Not right now. It was only a proof-of-concept. I’ll build on it in future.
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Cool!! I found another plugin that you might want to look into:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/gravatar-like/
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Paul:
My thoughts on parts of this are here.
http://buddypress.org/community/groups/how-to-and-troubleshooting/forum/topic/display-number-of-times-an-activity-feed-entry-has-been-favorited/
Was unaware of your Labs plugin – very nice.
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What has happened to this plugin? Is it still a work in progress?
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It’s an experimental plugin; it is never finished. The features are going to stay as-is — I am not going to develop them further in this plugin — but I will release any required compatibility updates for BuddyPress 1.6, and of course, any future ideas I want to implement.
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Would multisite compatibility fit into the realm of compatibility updates? I’m running version 1.3 and can’t enable or disable any of the beakers due to the admin area not appearing in the Network Admin/Settings area.
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Hi I love the plugin and have been looking for a like butten for a long time the only thing is it dose not import the thumnall with the link the would be cool is there a way is setting that up on the current version
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Not now, but maybe in future.
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