BuddyPress 2.3 “Livio” Released, Features the New BP Attachments API

photo credit: Chez Livio on TripAdvisor.com

BuddyPress 2.3 “Livio” was released today, named in honor of Chez Livio, a famous Italian restaurant and pizza joint in Paris. Development on the 2.3 release cycle began in March with contributors prioritizing work on new APIs alongside improvements to BuddyPress’ existing APIs. Here’s a quick overview of what’s new:

BP Attachments API

The highlight of this release is the BP Attachments API, a new library that enables developers to create components that have the ability to manage uploads. You can see it in action in the greatly improved avatar uploads UI, which now supports drag-and-drop uploads and includes mobile integration with phone/tablet/laptop cameras.

Companion Stylesheets for WordPress Default Themes

If you want to test BuddyPress and you’re not sure which theme to use, check out one of WordPress’ most recent default themes. Version 2.3 of the plugin ships with companion stylesheets for Twenty Fourteen and Twenty Fifteen, which tidy up the appearance of BuddyPress components and UI elements when the default themes are active. The stylesheets also introduce vertical menus that eliminate the crowding often seen in the horizontal user/group navigation.

Better Excerpts for Blog Post Activity

Version 2.3 has better support for blog post activity items. If the Site Tracking component is activated, BuddyPress will now display better excerpts in the activity stream for posts containing images or other embedded media. This improvement pairs nicely with the custom post type support that was added to the activity stream in the 2.2. release.

Other highlights in BuddyPress 2.3 include:

Member Type Directories – Create directories of member types on your site using the Member Type API.

Star Private Messages – Mark important messages in your inbox with a star.

Notification Meta – Notifications are now more extensible with an additional metadata table.

Overall this release offers an excellent balance between new features and improvements upon existing features, which combine to make BuddyPress more extensible and more enjoyable to use. It includes hundreds of bug fixes and enhancements from 40 volunteer contributors. For a full list of changes, check out the BuddyPress codex page for version 2.3.