The first level of security is to change the footer text to remove mentions of WordPress and BuddyPress. Spammers target the words “proudly powered by WordPress and BuddyPress” in search engines to find sites they can compromise.
In BuddyPress, the default URL for the registration page is “http:/yoursitedomain.com/register”. This is why spambots include the “insite:register” when performing the search described in the above section. Make it harder for them to find your site by easily changing the default slug for BuddyPress in your wp-config.php file.
We use the honeypot technique to thwart spambots and it has worked pretty well from our experience. I didn’t invent the idea, but I built this implementation for BuddyPress and it works like a champ.
All you need to do is set the slug for the registration page that has been created. If you’re on BuddyPress 1.5+ that is.
It enables you to block IP addresses and even entire domains from accessing your site, a very useful thing to do against known bots trying to create fake BuddyPress user accounts.
Be wary of trying every single security plugin under the sun, as this slows down your site and adds to your maintenance workload by having more things to update and go through if something breaks. At first, stick to the highest rated ones that have proven themselves over time with a lot of users. One such plugin, which is highly recommended by many BuddyPress and WordPress users, is Bad Bahavior. This plugin will not only block a lot of spam, but will make your site invisible to many bots in the first place and thereby prevent fake registrations.
If your BuddyPress theme is the default theme (for BuddyPress version 1.2 or above), or a child of the default theme, or uses the same template hooks as the default theme, you can put the invitation form in the following places by just ticking the right box in your settings screen:
Before any list of members
After any list of members
At the top of every page
Before your site homepage
After your site homepage
At the top of the default sidebar
At the bottom of the default sidebar
The invitation form is hidden by default, and is shown by clicking an "Invite a friend" button which makes the form slide into view.
Preset settings
If you want to quickly set up invitations without messing with lots of settings, there are now four presets you can use:
Anyone can join with or without an invitation, and all users can invite as many people as they like
Signup is just for invited people, and all users can invite as many people as they like
Signup is just for invited people, and all users who have been registered for 30 days or more can invite as many people as they like
Signup is just for invited people, and all users who have been registered for 30 days or more can invite up to 10 people
Or you can use your own custom settings just as before.
Overriding of special users
Sometimes you want particular users to be able to invite more friends than the default, or perhaps you want to stop a particular user from inviting anybody at all. Now you can, by searching for the user and changing their own individual settings. You san set whether they are allowed to send invitations at all, and of so how many (either a limited number or unlimited).
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Essential reading for anyone running, or thinking of running, a BuddyPress site.
Can I change the URL where non-loggedin users are being redirected? =
Yes, currently you need to write a filter function in your functions.php.
`function redirect_nonloggedin_users($current_uri, $redirect_to) {
// Redirect users to the homepage
// Caution! Exclude the homepage from 'Private BuddyPress' options
// to avoid redirection loops!
return get_option('siteurl') . '/?from=' . $redirect_to;
}
add_filter('pbp_redirect_login_page', 'redirect_nonloggedin_users', 10, 2);`
Protect your BuddyPress Installation from strangers. Only registered users will be allowed to view the installation and all other users will be redirected to the login page. Users attempting to view blog content via RSS are also authenticated via HTTP Auth.
You can exclude the registration, the homepage and blog pages (e.g. posts, archives and non-buddypress pages) from protection. In combination with the plugin 'Invitation Code Checker' your installation stays private but the registration is for users with a special password open.
This post is all about making unifiead search work with BuddyPress 1.5+. It is a long post, so please have a cup of coffee and let us get started.
List of things we will cover below:-
Installing Global Unified search Plugin
Basic setup for the theme
Showing search results for:-
Members search
Groups search
Activity search
Blog Posts search
Blog search
Group Forum search(BBPress 1.0 which you use for group forums)
BBPress 2.0 based forums topic search
By default, bp_create_excerpt (found in /bp-core/bp-core-template.php) sets a default length of 225. The Achievements plugin calls it in achievements-templatetags.php, causing descriptions longer than 225 characters to be truncated.
As a temp fix, I copied bp_create_excerpt over to bp-custom.php, increased the $length, renamed it my_bp_create_excerpt, and then renamed it within the Achievements plugin as well. (I’m sure there’s a better way to change the $length, but this works for now)