Group Description

Hi there, pleased you took the time to look at this. The plugin uses the BP Template in order to get the group description, it does not create it of itself so in order to fix that you would need to overload the plugins/buddypress/bp-template/buddypress/groups/groups-loop.php file.

Make a copy of this file and in line 86 make the following amendment:

<div class="item-desc"><?php bp_group_description_excerpt(false,200); ?></div>

Place this file in themes/your-child-theme/buddypress/groups/groups-loop.php and the character limit of 200 characters will be set.

You will also need a child theme, you can use something like One Click child Theme to set this up but there are many such plugins available. Once you have set up the child theme you can deactivate the child theme creator as you won’t need it again.

Regarding moving the description itself, this is probably something else you will need to configure. I’ll take a look at how best to do it.

Hi Venutius,

Thanks for the info… I will go ahead and adjust my theme as advised. I am using a child theme…so that should not be a problem

Kind Regards

I think in order to get the layout of the groups directory to change, you would need to overload the groups-loop.php file and restructure the display. I think instead of each item being a one column display, you want in to be two column with the description being one column and the avatar, group name and last activity on the other side.

If you agree that’s what you want I could look to write an article about overloading the groups-loop for my site as a way of walking you through the changes.

However, I’m pretty sure that with the new format DP Directory Views won’t work right with it, it’s designed to be single column only.

Then again, if I like the result I could fix that by including the overload with Directory views, but no promises on that.

Could you let me know what theme you are using? This is a bit of a longer term project – I’ve written a plugin that allows users to change the colour scheme of their profile page. It works well for example when there’s some form of corporate colour scheme that users would like to maintain for their profiles. The issue is that it’s pretty theme specific, I’ve got it working for graphene, maybe I could add your theme?

• This reply was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by Venutius.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by Venutius.

Hi Venutius,

I think you misunderstood my suggestion.

I love the way the display is at the moment in 3 columns… the problem I have is that the description under each group is centered… I think it should be floated to the left under each item.

If you look at the Aquaponics group in the image.. just under the words 4 days ago… you can see that the description of the group is centered.. would have been good if the sentence “This is a discussion group” starts from the left (aligned left).

I am using the generatepress theme and my website is on a multisite.

I want to suggest you also have a look at a plugin called youzer… which is a great plugin for buddypress users… there might be one or 2 things you might get from the plugin… the only problem I had with that plugin was that it would not allow me conrol of my themes sidebar.

Kind Regards

Think I’m with you, in the image the description actually looks like it’s offset to the right. On my test system I’m not seeing that. I wonder if you need to change that with additional css? It would probably be better if I was to visit your site and see what’s happening for myself, is it live?

Actually, I’ve installed Generate Press and I am seeing the same right offset for the description so no need to hook me up to your site.

Try adding this CSS:

.item-desc {
    display: inline;
}

see if that fixes it

• This reply was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by Venutius.

Hi Venutius,

My site is not live but i have a test site that you can take a look at. I use it mainly to test things before transferring to my mains site.

I have tried the css codes you gave me… but that’s not doing it

I will leave it open for the next few hours so you can see the groups section

Kind Regards

The change improved the view of the group description overall so I’ve included it in the latest update. Give it a try ??

I’d just like to thank you for the time you have put in looking at my plugins and giving feedback. I think together we have been able to really kick these into shape. Getting good feedback is a key issue for us plugin developers and I’ve really enjoyed taking on-board your comments and dealing with them. I seem to have quite a large development list now :). Next step I think is to launch the groups widgets.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by Venutius.

Thanks for taking my feedback on board and also for taking the time out to sort the issues quickly. It’s been quite beneficial for me too as your plugins have helped resolve some of the issues I had struggled with for years on some of my websites.

Your plugins are all quite useful and great for buddypress users like me who know little or nothing about coding.

Now your plugins is going to be one of the first things I install on any buddypress site I develop in the future…

Good luck with the launch of the group widgets

Kind Regards