BuddyPress Album + | BuddyPress Plugin Review
Dec 7, 2010 at 12:26 am in BuddyPress, BuddyPress Plugins by Honey Young ·
| Editor Rating | |
| 4.0 out of 5 | |
| Download link | BuddyPress Album + |
| Plugin version | 0.1.8 |
| We tested with | WordPress 3.0.1 BuddyPress 1.2.6 |
| Author | Carl Roett |
| Price | Free |
One of the things that makes Facebook so popular is the ability to upload albums of photos and to be able to view your friends’ albums, as well. There’s just something about viewing a person’s life through their pictures that is so interesting. Wouldn’t it be nice if you can add this functionality to your own BuddyPress website? With BuddyPress Album +, you can mimic Facebook’s photo app.
BuddyPress Album + Functionality
BuddyPress Album + is a plugin that adds the ability for users to upload pictures and share albums on your BuddyPress site. This plugin takes from the popularity of the Facebook photo app. Aside from photos, this plugin also support audio files, embedded YouTube videos, Vimeo, etc. Basically, this plugin allows your website to become a file-sharing center for your users.
Installation
Once installed and activated, a BuddyPress Album + settings link appears under the BuddyPress drop down on the side bar of your site’s dashboard. Clicking on this link brings you to the plugin’s setting page where you can customize album size limits, image size limits, and if you want to allow comments on the uploaded files. You can also choose to use the built-in image URL re-mapping in case you are hosting your site on a badly-configured virtual server and you get broken links when viewing the uploaded images.
Once you save your chosen settings, you can see an “album” tab on your profile page:
Clicking on the tab brings you to the image uploading page. Here, you can choose the files that you wish to upload.
Once you upload your chosen file, the image is now displayed on album > my pictures on your profile page.
BuddyPress Album + Review
BuddyPress Album + is a very easy file-uploading plugin to use. I especially like the built-in image URL re-mapper that patches broken image links irregardless of the state of your virtual server’s configuration. The only problem I find with this plugin is that it only allows you to upload one image at a time. If you are uploading a ton of photos, this could take a very long time. It would’ve been nice if it had the drag and drop functionality that the Facebook photo app has or at the very least, allows you to upload several photos at a time. If it had this ability, I would’ve given this plugin all five stars.
Recommendation
Irregardless of its minor shortcomings, BuddyPress Album + is a great plugin to add to your BuddyPress site. It works really well and is very easy to use. Having it will lend a more genuine social networking feel to your site. After all, what is a social network without the ability to share photos, right?
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Foxly said on December 20, 2010
Nice work reviewing the plugin!
A few things to fix in your article:
-It’s not just *me* building the plugin …there are three developers and almost twenty other contributors on our team.
-Version 0.1.9 (which is not released yet, but you can get on our Google Code download page) has a multi-file uploader that lets you upload hundreds of images at once.
-We’re looking for people to help translate the plugin, specifically Asian languages. Version 0.1.8.6 is a 10 minute job to translate. You get a shout-out to your site for helping. Interested?
http://buddypress.org/community/groups/bp-album/forum/topic/translators-needed-for-0-1-8-6-release-next-week/
^F^
Michael Eisenwasser (Admin) said on December 23, 2010
Thanks Foxly. Can you let us know who else is behind the plugin? We would be happy to credit everyone involved.
Foxly said on December 23, 2010
Just credit us as the “BP-Media Team”, and list our URL as http://code.google.com/p/buddypress-media/
Also: I’ve sent some “link love” your way …
^F^
John said on December 12, 2011
hi… how is differnt from ur BB’s default photo adding plug option ?
TJ Chester (Admin) said on December 14, 2011
@johnpaul you cannot create albums with the default photo option. All photos are under your images with no sort order or anything.
Shaun Ramkelawon said on February 21, 2012
Hi
Is it possible with this plugin to upload pictures to a specific group or forum. For example, I need users to be able to upload a picture relating to a specific topic. If not, then is it possible for my users to be able to upload a picture and somehow link it to a specific thread or topic. Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks
Shaun
TJ Chester (Admin) said on February 22, 2012
Shaun,
You can post pictures to specific groups and forums. Play around with our demo at http://www.buddyboss.com/demo to see exactly how it will function.
Thanks!
Aaron said on May 20, 2012
Hello,
I use buddy press and bp album +, I have a link on the BP profile page that says ALBUM now… I want to make it say PHOTOS
Does anyone know where i would go to change this
Lavish said on July 29, 2012
Hello,
I wish to have an option that allows me to have a users group that can access other users’ albums, this user-group will basically be from subscribers level only.
1. I don’t want public picture.
2. Not registered members because that gives access to every registered user.
3. Not friends because even in that case I can’t control the access the way I want.
I have models and companies 2 user groups. So, I want only the companies to have assess to models’ album/pictures and the models can only see their own album but not others.
Is the above possible?
Thank you for you support.
TJ Chester (Admin) said on July 29, 2012
This is not possible.
Lavish said on August 3, 2012
I’m sorry, I think I was not clear enough. Can you kindly have a look here :
http://buddypress.org/community/groups/bp-album/forum/topic/giveing-only-specific-users-access-to-albumpictures/
Please share any ideas/clues.
Thank you.
BP-Media Team said on August 3, 2012
Please post questions regarding BuddyPress Media on our support forum. You’ll get better answers, a lot faster, from our core devs.
http://buddypress.org/community/groups/bp-album/forum/
jason said on January 10, 2013
Is there a way that when a user uploads a photo he can use it as his profile photo?
Zeaks said on February 16, 2013
I was about to consider a CMS other than WordPress until I read about BuddyPress and this plugin. it seems to have everything I need to create a photography community, thanks for the detailed review.