BuddyPress 1.9 “Sammy” Released With New Notifications Component

BuddyPress 1.9 was released to the world today thanks to many volunteer contributors who worked hard to make it happen. This release pays tribute to Sammy’s Pizza in Providence, Rhode Island, where lead developer John James Jacoby has enjoyed many fine pizza pies.

Here’s a quick tour of the three main highlights of this release.

New Notifications Component

BuddyPress is introducing a new component for the first time in two years. The 1.9 release has moved notifications to its own component so that they’re all centralized in one place.

BuddyPress Notifications

Notifications also have an improved API in 1.9 so that developers can easily tie their extensions into them.

Dynamic Menu Items

BuddyPress site admins will be thrilled to find that 1.9 includes dynamic menu links. It’s now easier than ever to build menus with dynamic links such as “My Profile” or “Settings” that are specific to logged-in users. Dynamic menu items are separated into logged-in and logged-out user links.

Dynamic BuddyPress Menus

If you previously used a plugin to generate dynamic menu items, you can now delete it and use the built-in BuddyPress links at Dashboard > Appearance > Menus.

New Widgets

BuddyPress 1.9 introduces three new core widgets to help you customize your social network:

Friends Widget

Friends Widget: A list of recently active, popular and newest friends of the displayed member.

Log In Widget: Adds a simple “Log In” form and/or “Log Out” link

Sitewide Notices Widget: Displays Sitewide Notices from the Private Messaging component.

Developer Goodies

BuddyPress 1.9 reinstates the bp_redirect_canonical() functionality. phpDoc inline documentation has been improved as well as compatibility with the develop.svn.wordpress.org unit-test suite.

On top of all that, the BuddyPress Codex has been completely revamped with a design refresh and loads of new tutorials and guides.

The BuddyPress core team is already cooking up new ideas for the 2.0 release but will take some time off for the holidays before getting started. The team will be sending out a brief questionnaire after the beginning of the new year to get community input before setting the goals for BuddyPress 2.0. If you’re keen on shaping the future of BuddyPress, watch for that questionnaire and make sure to voice your opinion. In the meantime, enjoy all the new goodies packaged into 1.9. It’s already fully compatible with WordPress 3.8 so you’re safe to upgrade to the very latest.