Activity
The BuddyPress activity stream as a native feed.
Before you start
Section titled “Before you start”| Plugin | BuddyPress, with the Activity Streams component enabled — or BuddyBoss Platform, where it is called Activity Feeds |
| Endpoint group | BuddyPress Activity |
| Plan | Every plan |
Place Activity Thread (BuddyPress) on the Background tab, or tapping a post’s replies does nothing.
Posting a photo uses a switch of its own in the BuddyPress Activity group, bp_activity_upload. It follows the switch for posting updates until you set it separately, so a site that lets members post lets them add photos too. It needs the Memberside plugin 2.70.0 or later.
Add it to your app
Section titled “Add it to your app”- Drag Activity onto a navigation bar.
- Choose the scope.
- Decide whether to show the composer.
Settings
Section titled “Settings”| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Activity scope | Which stream to show | All |
| Activity compose | Whether members can post from this screen | On |
| Title, Description | Shown at the top | Empty |
| Open member profiles in | Which Profile feature a tap on a member’s photo or name opens, or Don’t link. Lists every placed Profile, plus Member Profile (BuddyPress) | The first Profile placed |
| Restrictions | Which roles see the tab | Everyone |
| Suggestions | Carousels of people, groups, jobs, forums, products, posts or events between posts — see Feed suggestions | Off |
| Feed sizing | The avatar, display name, action icon and action text sizes on posts and replies | Avatar 48, action icon 16, the rest from Typography and Layout |
| Full-width cards | Posts run edge to edge, with no rounded corners and a line between each. Off: inset, rounded cards | Off |
| Gap between posts | The space between one post and the next. 0 lets them touch | Wrapper gap from Typography and Layout |
Scope decides whose activity appears — the whole site, or one of the narrower streams BuddyPress defines, such as a member’s friends or their groups.
A sitewide stream is the right default for a small community. In a large one it scrolls faster than anyone can read, and a narrower scope is more useful.
How the feed is laid out
Section titled “How the feed is laid out”Feed sizing, Full-width cards and Gap between posts shape the stream without touching the rest of the app. Leave a size empty and it keeps the default in the table.
Full-width cards suit a feed that is the whole screen: posts read like one continuous page, the way the News Feed draws by default. The suggestion carousels stay inset either way, so they still read as something set apart from the posts.
A group’s Activity tab, inside Groups, is drawn with this tab’s settings when you place Activity, and with the defaults when you don’t.
What your members see
Section titled “What your members see”A scrolling stream of activity, drawn as cards. Each post takes favourites and replies, and replies nest up to five levels deep. The author’s photo and name open their profile — see Tab settings for which profile screen that is.
A link inside a post or a reply opens what it names — another post, a member, a group, a forum topic — or the in-app browser when the app has no screen for it. See Links in posts.
Not every item is somebody’s words. Becoming connected, joining a group or changing a photo produces an entry with no message of its own, and those show the sentence BuddyPress writes for them.
New events. With Post new events to the news feed on in Create Event or Events, each newly published The Events Calendar event is posted to the activity stream. The app draws it as a card with the event’s image, date and venue. View opens the Event screen, and Going answers its RSVP in place when the event takes RSVPs and they are open. On BuddyBoss with Posts in Activity Feeds switched on for events, BuddyBoss’s own post is drawn as the same card, and no second post is added.
The card’s corners, the colour it is painted and the page it sits on all come from Appearance — see Card corners and Page colour there.
With the composer on, members post from this screen directly. The composer is a card at the top of the stream: the member’s own photo beside What’s on your mind? — Post to this group… in a group — the text field, and a bar with Add to your post, a photo button, an emoji button and Post.
Photos. The photo button picks one image from the phone. It shows as a thumbnail with a button to take it off before posting. A post can be a photo with no words. Photos show on the post’s card and on its own screen, and tapping one opens it full screen. They show on your website’s activity stream too, under the post.
A photo is saved to your site’s media library under the member’s name. It is deleted when its post is deleted, or when the member edits the post to change or take the photo off. JPEG, PNG, GIF and WebP are accepted, up to 10 MB or your site’s upload limit if that is lower.
Emoji. The emoji button opens a picker and puts the keyboard away. The reply box has the same button. Tapping back into the field, or typing, closes the picker.
Posts and replies can @mention members by their username and carry #hashtags; a tapped tag opens Search on it. In a group, mentions offer the group’s members. See Mentions and hashtags.
Not the same as News Feed
Section titled “Not the same as News Feed”News Feed is Ultimate Member’s wall. This is BuddyPress’s activity stream. They are different systems with different data.
Place one or the other. Placing both shows your members two unrelated feeds.
When it does not work
Section titled “When it does not work”| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| The card is greyed out | BuddyPress is inactive, or Activity Streams is off | Enable the component |
| The stream is empty | The BuddyPress Activity group is off | Enable it |
| Tapping replies does nothing | Activity Thread (BuddyPress) is not placed | Add it on the Background tab |
| No composer | Activity compose is off | Turn it on |
| A scope shows nothing | That stream is genuinely empty for the member | Try the sitewide scope |
| Two unrelated feeds | Both News Feed and Activity are placed | Remove one |
| Favourites always show zero on BuddyBoss | Plugin older than 2.53.0 | Update the Memberside plugin — BuddyBoss keeps favourites somewhere BuddyPress does not |
| Some posts are blank cards | Plugin older than 2.53.0 | Update the Memberside plugin |
| No photo button in the composer, or the photo fails to post | Plugin older than 2.70.0, or the bp_activity_upload switch is off | Update the Memberside plugin, or turn the switch on under BuddyPress Activity in Memberside → REST API |
| “Photos must be a JPEG, PNG, GIF or WebP image” | The file is another format, such as HEIC, or is not an image at all | Pick a JPEG, PNG, GIF or WebP photo |
| “That photo is larger than the … limit” | The photo is over 10 MB, or over your site’s upload limit | Pick a smaller photo, or raise the upload limit on your server |
| A photo is gone from the media library | Its post was deleted, or the member changed or removed the photo | Working as intended |
| The group Activity tab looks different from Activity | Activity is not placed, so the group tab uses the defaults | Place Activity, or accept the defaults |
| The cards do not stand out from the page | Page colour is unset, so the page is painted the card colour | Set Page a shade away from Background under Appearance |
| Tapping a member’s photo does nothing | No Profile feature is placed, or the setting is Don’t link | Place a Profile feature, or pick one in the setting |
| Every new event is in the stream twice | An older plugin, or a plugin other than BuddyBoss also posts events | Update Memberside, or switch off the other plugin’s event posts |
| An event card has no Going button | The event takes no RSVP, its RSVPs are closed, or the Event RSVP group is off | Add an RSVP to the event, or enable the group |