BuddyPress 2.4.0 “Pietro” Contains Major Improvements to Accessibility

BuddyPress 2.4.0 “Pietro” named after an authentic Italian restaurant in Paris, France is available for download. This release includes support for cover photos that users can add to their profile or a group.

BuddyPress Cover Photos

Cover photos are built on top of the BuddyPress Attachments API meaning they should seamlessly integrate into themes. If you need to fine-tune the output for your site, check out the following Codex article.

Initially added in BuddyPress 2.2.0, Member Types allows developers to categorize the members of their community in a variety of ways. If you use this feature in your community, you can now specify that profile fields be made available to either one, some, or none of the registered Member Types.

Member Type Fields

Two companion stylesheets are included with 2.4.0 to make sure content looks great on both the TwentySixteen and TwentyThirteen themes.

Companion StyleSheets

This release also includes major accessibility improvements to front-end templates and the Dashboard screens. According to BuddyPress developers, accessibility is a major focus of the project and there is a concentrated, ongoing effort to make the software more accessible to users of all abilities.

Thanks to a new template hierarchy, groups can now have unique header images and layouts. Simply use the new front.php template inside the single groups templates directory.

Unique Homepages for Groups

In addition to all of the improvements listed above, 2.4.0 has over 100 bug fixes. It also contains the security patch applied in 2.3.5. BuddyPress is available for free from the WordPress plugin directory and if you run into any issues, you’re encouraged to report them in the support forums.