Wordpress Programming tips and tricks from a Wordpress Development company in London

Mar 25

Hide Buddypress members pages from guests ( also hide BBpress forum posts)

By louie171 | PHP, Website Development, Wordpress | No Comments

The code below is to hide sections of a WordPress website from guests (hide certain pages or groups of pages on a WordPress , so they are only available for logged in users).

In this case we’re hiding all the Buddypress members pages from guests ( so hiding all pages that start with /members such as member profiles and so on). We’re also hiding BBpress forum topics ( but they can still view the forums and forum post / topic names ).

If a guest is trying to view a page (that we’re not allowing them to, they are sent to the homepage).

add_action( 'template_redirect', 'hf_test_if_user_can_view_this_page', 0 );

function hf_test_if_user_can_view_this_page()
{
    $logged_in = is_user_logged_in();

    if($logged_in !== true){    

        if_guest_trying_to_view_private_page_redirect_them();
    }
}



function if_guest_trying_to_view_private_page_redirect_them(){
    
    $urly = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];    

    $trying_to_view_private = false;
    
    if( startsWith($urly, "/members/") || startsWith($urly, "/forums/topic/") ){        
        $trying_to_view_private = true;         
    }
    
    if($trying_to_view_private === true ){
        redirect_to_homey();
    }
    
}

function startsWith($haystack, $needle)
{
     $length = strlen($needle);
     return (substr($haystack, 0, $length) === $needle);
}

function redirect_to_homey() {
    
    wp_redirect(home_url());
    exit();
  
}

add_action( 'template_redirect', 'hf_test_if_user_can_view_this_page', 0 );

function hf_test_if_user_can_view_this_page()

{

$logged_in = is_user_logged_in();

if($logged_in !== true){

if_guest_trying_to_view_private_page_redirect_them();

}

function if_guest_trying_to_view_private_page_redirect_them(){

$urly = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];

$trying_to_view_private = false;

if( startsWith($urly, "/members/") || startsWith($urly, "/forums/topic/") ){

$trying_to_view_private = true;

}

if($trying_to_view_private === true ){

redirect_to_homey();

}

function startsWith($haystack, $needle)

{

$length = strlen($needle);

return (substr($haystack, 0, $length) === $needle);

}

function redirect_to_homey() {

wp_redirect(home_url());

exit();

}

Sep 29

Buddypress – How to add group types

By louie171 | Buddypress, PHP, Wordpress | No Comments

It can be useful to have group types sometimes for example, maybe a University might want to have 2 group types for staff and students. So they could have staff groups and student groups ( and a directory for each eg staff would list the staff groups and student groups would list the Student Groups ).

This is easy todo in Buddypress:

function my_bp_custom_group_types() {
    
    bp_groups_register_group_type( 'staff', array(
        'labels' => array(
            'name' => 'Staff groups',
            'singular_name' => 'Staff group'
        ),
 
        // New parameters as of BP 2.7.
        'has_directory' => 'staff',
        'show_in_create_screen' => true,
        'show_in_list' => true,
        'description' => 'some description (maybe better to just wp page content instead of this)',
        'create_screen_checked' => true
    ) );
    
    
    
    
    bp_groups_register_group_type( 'student', array(
        'labels' => array(
            'name' => 'Students',
            'singular_name' => 'Students'
        ),
 
        // New parameters as of BP 2.7.
        'has_directory' => 'students',
        'show_in_create_screen' => true,
        'show_in_list' => true,
        'description' => 'some description (maybe better to just wp page content instead of this)',
        'create_screen_checked' => true
    ) );
    
    
    
    
}

add_action( 'bp_groups_register_group_types', 'my_bp_custom_group_types' );

function my_bp_custom_group_types() {

bp_groups_register_group_type( 'staff', array(

'labels' => array(

'name' => 'Staff groups',

'singular_name' => 'Staff group'

// New parameters as of BP 2.7.

'has_directory' => 'staff',

'show_in_create_screen' => true,

'show_in_list' => true,

'description' => 'some description (maybe better to just wp page content instead of this)',

'create_screen_checked' => true

) );

bp_groups_register_group_type( 'student', array(

'labels' => array(

'name' => 'Students',

'singular_name' => 'Students'

// New parameters as of BP 2.7.

'has_directory' => 'students',

'show_in_create_screen' => true,

'show_in_list' => true,

'description' => 'some description (maybe better to just wp page content instead of this)',

'create_screen_checked' => true

) );

}

add_action( 'bp_groups_register_group_types', 'my_bp_custom_group_types' );

you can then have links like this to view the group directory:

/groups/type/staff/

/groups/type/students/

Jan 13

Why link your website to your CRM

By louie171 | Customer Relationship Management - CRM, Forms, HubSpot, Marketing Automation, Web Design, Wordpress | No Comments

This post runs over why you would connect a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system ( such as Hubspot) to your website.

Many CRMs now allow you to capture form data on your website and pull this into the CRM, this has the following benefits to you:

store users information in your CRM
be able to follow up in CRM and have all the interactions in CRM so you can see the history of interactions with that person
see what the user has been looking at on your website

The are 2 main ways of taking the users details from your website:

a form (standard or popup)
a chat box

An example form might look something like above ( this is one I’ve generated in Hubspot , but you can customise and generate your own forms in many ways in Hubspot, manually with HTML or with a tool such as Gravity forms for WordPress, or with other tools). Also remember to make sure you are GDPR compliant if your in the EU.

When the user submits the above form, this is what is will look like in Hubspot.

As you can see the data from the form is recorded in the activity section above and a new contact (Beavis) has been generated in the CRM contacts database. Where you can record all your interactions with this contact ( email , phone and so on ). Emails can also be automatically logged into your CRM and you can automate replies to emails with Marketing Automation sequences. This can be very useful when you have a large number of users (for example your supporters contacting your Charity or Not for Profit Organisation).

I’ve been using Hubspot in this article but the same can be done with others such as Salesforce ( and many others ). I haven’t gone into much technical detail in this post, only why and what are the benefits of this.

CRMs are great for following up and interacting with your supporters, customers, leads and so on. I hope I’ve shown you how you can easily ( and automatically ) put form contacts from your website into your chosen CRM, to make this process easy and save you time.

I plan to write another article on the technical aspects of how todo, what I’ve described briefly ( integrate your WordPress website with a CRM like Hubspot) in the coming months, but if you’d like help with doing this then please contact us below.

Jul 19

Buddypress how to sort Groups page alphabetically by default

By louie171 | Buddypress, PHP, Wordpress | No Comments

In this short blog post I’ll run over how you can sort the Groups index page in Buddypress alphabetically by default (i.e. on first load of page they will be ordered by group name).

Edit or override 2 of the Buddypress templates

You’ll need these in your theme:

wp-content/YOUR_THEMENAME/buddypress/groups/index.php

and

wp-content/YOUR_THEMENAME/buddypress/groups/groups-loop.php

If these templates don’t exist in your theme you’ll need to make copies of the 2 templates from the Buddypress plugin ( find in buddypress/bp-templates/bp-legacy/buddypress ) and pop into your theme directory in a folder called buddypress. You might need to copy from your parent theme if they are used there ( this is because of the buddypress / wordpress template hierachy – you can look that up if you don’t understand this).

Changes in groups-loop buddypress template

Before the bp_has_groups function call you need to add:

if ( bp_ajax_querystring( 'groups' ) ==""){  
    // default to ordering alphabetically 
    $queryString = "type=alphabetical&action=alphabetical&page=1";
    //$queryString ="";
}
else {
    $queryString = bp_ajax_querystring( 'groups' );    
}

if ( bp_ajax_querystring( 'groups' ) ==""){

// default to ordering alphabetically

$queryString = "type=alphabetical&action=alphabetical&page=1";

//$queryString ="";

}

else {

$queryString = bp_ajax_querystring( 'groups' );

}

and then change the bp_has_groups function to:

<?php if ( bp_has_groups(  $queryString  ) ) : ?>

1	<?php if ( bp_has_groups( $queryString ) ) : ?>

Changes in index groups template

find this section and change to have alphabetical first ( you could also use the selected attribute ):

<select id="groups-order-by">
    <option value="alphabetical"><?php _e( 'Alphabetical', 'buddyboss' ); ?></option>
    <option value="newest"><?php _e( 'Newly Created', 'buddyboss' ); ?></option>
        <option value="active"><?php _e( 'Last Active', 'buddyboss' ); ?></option>
        <option value="popular"><?php _e( 'Most Members', 'buddyboss' ); ?></option>



        <?php do_action( 'bp_groups_directory_order_options' ); ?>
</select>

<?php do_action( 'bp_groups_directory_order_options' ); ?>

</select>

And thats it job done. Remember Buddypress can save your select choices in the session, which can be confusing – so clearing the cache will help in this scenario.

Feb 20

How to override the comments form in a child theme

By louie171 | Custom Wordpress Theme Development, PHP, Programming, Theming, Wordpress | One Comment

This is a quick post on how to provide your own comments template in your child theme ( overriding comments.php in your parent theme). You can just as easily use the same code to override comments.php if you aren’t using a child theme.

Todo this you need to you need to use the filter ‘comments_template’ ( see the wordpress codex on this filter here)

function greenbox_override_comment_template( $comment_template ) {
    
     global $post;
     if ( !( is_singular() && ( have_comments() || 'open' == $post->comment_status ) ) ) {
        return;
     }
     
     
        
        // your full path and name of comments file to use
        return dirname(__FILE__) ."/my-comments.php";
     
}

add_filter( "comments_template", "greenbox_override_comment_template" );

function greenbox_override_comment_template( $comment_template ) {

global $post;

if ( !( is_singular() && ( have_comments() || 'open' == $post->comment_status ) ) ) {

return;

}

// your full path and name of comments file to use

return dirname(__FILE__) ."/my-comments.php";

}

add_filter( "comments_template", "greenbox_override_comment_template" );

A handy thing you might sometimes want todo is to have a custom comments template, for various custom post types. If you did want todo this you could just add in an if to encase the returned path and filename. e.g.

if($post->post_type == 'my_custom_post_type'){

         return dirname(__FILE__) ."/my_custom_post_type-comments.php";

}

if($post->post_type == 'my_custom_post_type'){

return dirname(__FILE__) ."/my_custom_post_type-comments.php";

}

Hope someone finds these snippets for how to override comments.php useful.

Feb 09

How to engage your staff using your Intranet

By louie171 | Buddypress, Intranet, PHP, Web Design, Wordpress | No Comments

In this article, we’ll look at some ideas for useful things to have on your intranet and how to use these to help engage your Employees, members or Volunteers.

What are the benefits of engaged staff ?

Happy workforce ( productive workforce, helps business be more profitable)
Low Staff turnover ( saves money in recruitment and training)

Useful Intranet features for employee engagement

Employee Recognition Section

Make your staff feel engaged by recognising them and their achievements ( both personal and professional ). A section on your homepage for this would really make people feel valued, and a good way for other employees to spark up a conversation with the recognised individual ( or team) Some ideas of the kind of thing to recognise:

An employee has a work anniversary
An employee is doing a Marathon for charity
A employee or team have delivered a great project that will help company save money
The works Football team are doing well

“Our Intranet features a news feed with stories of employee honors and work anniversaries, volunteering, company sponsorships and other news with links to more details. It can be a challenge sharing our culture across four states in a regulated industry. But people love reading about and seeing images of colleagues they know as well as those they’ve never met. By far we’ve gotten the most engagement posting photos of employees in Halloween costumes and celebrating Ugly Sweater Day. In a regulated industry, the simple, silly things unite us and we laugh together. ” – An Intranet Manager I interviewed that wishes to remain anonymous.

New Employees Section

Welcome your new employees, with a section on the homepage, linking to their staff profiles.

Suggestions

Have somewhere, that employees can easily post suggestions, to save money, to make staff more engaged, to make money and so on. Your staff are your businesses greatest asset ( often the ones on the shop floor close to certain areas of the business can deliver great insights – that might otherwise never come to light). You could incentivise with a monthly prize for the best suggestion.

Personalisation

Display relevant content to the Intranet visitor based on one or a number of criteria ( or even let users pick what they want to see).

Displaying content based on a Persona

E.g. one type of persona could be ‘New Starter’ , are there any important documents they need to read, are their specific forms they might need to fill ( eg bank details so they can get paid on time).

If your a large organisation (with multiple locations across the globe) you might want display things based on the location, or the team ( maybe HR need to see something different to IT and so on).

Allowing Users to pick content they are interested in

You can let users pick some of the content they are interested in and have it displayed prominently for them.

Wordpress

Hide Buddypress members pages from guests ( also hide BBpress forum posts)

Buddypress – How to add group types

Why link your website to your CRM

Buddypress how to sort Groups page alphabetically by default

How to override the comments form in a child theme

How to engage your staff using your Intranet

What are the benefits of engaged staff ?

Useful Intranet features for employee engagement

Employee Recognition Section

New Employees Section

Suggestions

Personalisation

Are you looking to have an intranet developed or would like to upgrade / improve your existing Intranet ? Get in touch we’re experts in this area.

Archives

Find it here

Fresh from the blog

Recent Comments

Follow us on Twitter

Wordpress

Hide Buddypress members pages from guests ( also hide BBpress forum posts)

Buddypress – How to add group types

Why link your website to your CRM

Buddypress how to sort Groups page alphabetically by default

How to override the comments form in a child theme

How to engage your staff using your Intranet

What are the benefits of engaged staff ?

Useful Intranet features for employee engagement

Employee Recognition Section

New Employees Section

Suggestions

Personalisation

Are you looking to have an intranet developed or would like to upgrade / improve your existing Intranet ? Get in touch we’re experts in this area.

Archives

Tags

Find it here

Tag Cloud

Fresh from the blog

Recent Comments

Follow us on Twitter

Tags