Plugin Review – BuddyPress Groups Extras

https://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress-groups-extras/

Version Tested: V 3.6.9.1

BuddyPress Groups Extras is a plugin that allows group admin to add two additional tabs to the group. One tab, called “Extras” is composed of fields that can be set up and edited by the group admin. The other tab called “Pages” (or any name) is composed of one or more fully editable pages. The concept is to give group owners the ability to add additional information to the group, such as adding a full page description with images and videos.

Installation is a case of installing and activating the plugin. Once activated the site admin can set the Groups Extras defaults by visiting Dashboard>>Settings>>BP Groups Extras page. Here specific or all groups can be enabled for the extra pages, default field sets can be created, you can view tutorials, vote for new features and set a number of general settings for BuddyPress Groups Extras.

Once enabled, group admin will find that they have a Group>>Manage>>Extras page, this allows them to configure the group extra pages as they wish; they can choose to have an Extras page or to hide it, they can choose to have the “Pages” page, rename it or hide it and they can also change the order of the group pages. In my article on Creating Great Group Home Pages with BuddyPress Groups Extras I go into more detail about how these can be used. Group admin can also use this page to Create and edit the page content to be displayed in the “Pages” tab and they can set up the fields that will be displayed in the “Extras” tab.

To input the Extras fields, group admin will go to Group>>Manage>>Settings and fill our the fields as desired.

Site Admin also get a Dashboard>>Groups Pages tab where the content of any pages set up for a group can be viewed and edited.

Although I really like this plugin I think there’s actually a lot of room for improvement. I think you should be able to change the name of the Extras page, I think you should be able to create more than one Pages tab and I think the user interface could do with an overall rethink in that it is pretty non intuitive and this tends to put people off using it. Certainly as site admin I have found that I have to set up these pages for my group owners, they pretty much give up on it as soon as looking at it. In-line help for group owners should really be included.

BuddyPress Groups Extras is a very powerful tool that helps deliver on the promise of BuddyPress Groups, enabling group creators to add additional tabs to store group specific information. It’s power however comes with complexity and the need for lateral thinking by group managers in order for them to get the most out of it. Because of that complexity I award this plugin 8 out of 10, it’s really good, but could be better.

My Star Rating

Other Peoples Reviews


Venutius

I've been setting up and managing BuddyPress social networks for a few years. I moved from Ning and other platforms and have come to BuddyPress looking to make sites with similar features to them.

2 Comments

Slava Abakumov · November 25, 2016 at 1:04 pm

Thanks for the review!
It’s a valuable feedback for me. Love 2nd from the bottom paragraph of your post 🙂
Thare are LOTS of things to improve or even consider moving them to BuddyPress core, but the reason I don’t do that is simple – time. Time is needed to do that, and as none of my clients uses this plugin – it can’t be improved via their requests as well.
Perhaps, some day… 🙂

Venutius · November 25, 2016 at 6:33 pm

Yes, I really hope you get that time someday!

Incorporting some aspects of the plugin into core would be cool! Imagine being able to change the name, hide and re-order not just group pages but also the profile page, now that would be great!

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