BuddyPress 2.3 Development Kicks Off, Contributors Prioritize Work on New APIs

The BuddyPress 2.3 development cycle is now in full swing, following a successful 2.2.1 maintenance release that broke the plugin’s one-day download record with more than 10,000 downloads in just 24 hours. More minor fixes are on deck for inclusion in the forthcoming 2.2.2 release.

This week contributors identified priorities for new features and improvements to work on for the 2.3 development cycle. Updates to BuddyPress’ existing APIs and work on the following new APIs commenced this week:

New Invitations API – a flexible API to create/retrieve invitations across components

New Attachments API – a new component to manage BuddyPress attachments

Possible new Relationships API – for the Favorites/Likes features

Improvements to Member Types API – ability to create member-type-specific xprofile fields, fixes for existing bugs

Notifications API – add a metadata table – useful for storing additional data outside the available notification table’s schema

New APIs would make it possible for BuddyPress developers to build extensions that bring in more exciting features, such as a core-supported way to manage media/user galleries, local avatar management, invitation capabilities for groups, sites, blogs, docs, etc. The APIs give developers a way to custom tailor those experiences for their communities.

While none of these APIs and improvements are yet guaranteed to make it into 2.3, contributors have hammered out the tickets they will be investing in during the next three months. The official release is currently targeted for the end of May, 2015. To follow progress on tickets for the 2.3 milestone, check out the roadmap on BuddyPress trac.