BuddyPress 2.0 Development Kicks Off, Release Set for Mid-April

BuddyPress 1.9.2 was released today. This maintenance release includes two important security fixes related to group creation. It also adds a few improvements to WordPress menus integration, bp-default theme switching and theme compatibility.

Today is also the beginning of the BuddyPress 2.0 development cycle. The plugin’s core contributors have finalized dates for beta 1 and the release:

Development starts (today): Wednesday, February 4, 2014

Beta 1 (8 weeks from today): Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Release (3 weeks after beta): Wednesday, April 16, 2014

What’s Coming in BuddyPress 2.0?

Today’s BuddyPress development meeting focused on setting goals and exceptions for the 2.0 release. Here’s a quick overview of what you can expect to see in mid-April, barring any major roadblocks:

bp-forums will be retiring

WordPress Rewrite Rules API integration

Move XProfile visibility from each field into Settings

last_activity usermeta improvements

Activity comment sync for comments

Ticket triage and general maintenance

BuddyPress Profile editing within the WordPress admin

New template pack

The newest addition to this roadmap is the ability to edit BuddyPress profiles directly within the admin. Administrators will appreciate not having to navigate to the front end in order to view/edit profiles. Performance improvements are also a major focus in this release, as Boone Gorges is working on refactoring the Activity query and implementing persistent caching for the components.

The BuddyPress documentation team is gearing up for another push to expand codex articles and refactor the “Getting Started” section into a “User’s Manual.” Boone Gorges is also heading up an initiative to improve BuddyPress’ inline documentation coverage. If you can help document the plugin’s many action and filter hooks, please get in touch.

BuddyPress 2.0 is shaping up to be an exciting release. There’s a lot going on under the hood that will help the plugin perform better. Community management within the admin is on track for big improvements as well. What are you looking forward to in the upcoming 2.0 release?