PeepSo 1.6.0 Is Out!

This is a huge milestone for PeepSo. The new version is packed with many of the features our customers have been asking for. It’s a massive step up. I encourage you to update PeepSo today to enjoy all these great enhancements.

First though, a special thanks to our Beta testers for helping us making version 1.6.0 stable. We couldn’t have done it without you.

So… What’s New?

Core PeepSo Changes

Flexible Core Profile Fields

PeepSo Core comes with the following core fields:

  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Gender
  • Birthdate
  • About Me
  • Website

These fields used to be hard-coded. You couldn’t change them without digging into the code and breaking things. Not any more. Now admins can enable or disable the fields, change their titles or labels, and determine whether or not they’re required. They can set validation and even add a ‘placeholder’ or prompt to encourage users to complete the fields. We also have a brand new plugin that allows you to add new profile fields. Read about ProfileSo here.

Core PeepSo Customizable Profile Fields
Core PeepSo Customizable Profile Fields

Profile Completion Progress Bar

The Profile Completion Progress Bar shows users how much of their profiles they have already completed and what they still need to add.

That’s useful to members but we’ve made it even more useful for community admins: you can ‘Force Profile Completion’ upon your users. If any required fields in their profiles are empty, they’ll have to fill them in before they can navigate anywhere in PeepSo beyond their profile view.

Profile Completeness Progress Bar
Profile Completeness Progress Bar

Changes To Edit Account Page

The ‘Edit Account’ page is now a ‘Preferences’ page. Not only did we merge general account settings and notification settings but it’s all completely Ajaxified. There’s no ‘Save’ button anywhere in this view. It’s not necessary… and we love it that way!

Members Can Now Hide From Search Results

Users now have the option to hide their profiles from user listings. They won’t show up in search results, on members pages, on friends’ lists, or on widgets, etc. They can still make their content visible if they wish, though, giving them complete control over their privacy. And admins can still see everyone. The setting is available for them in their profile Preferences.

Users Get A Sin Bin

It’s never fun having to ban a user but sometimes it is necessary… at least until they’ve calmed down, at which point the admin can let them back in. We’ve now made that process much easier with bans limited by time. The next time a user starts flaming, admins can decide in advance how long they’ll be cooling off in the sin bin.

Filters Now Above The Stream

We made a number of changes to the activity stream. The first thing that you’ll notice are the tabs above the stream. We felt that the setting in the user preferences to show either the community feed or friends feed wasn’t super user-friendly. So we put the tabs right on top of the stream. For those tabs to show, you will need to have the Friends plugin installed and activated.

Filters above Activity Stream
Filters above Activity Stream

Removing Link Previews

Users can now remove the link preview when they place a link in a post or a comment. Admins, of course, can remove the preview from all posts and comments.

Remove Link Preview.
Remove Link Preview.

Number Of Hidden Comments Now Visible

We added a bit more information to the hidden comments. Now we don’t just tell users that additional comments have been hidden. We tell them exactly how many comments have been hidden.

Number of all hidden comments under a post.
Number of all hidden comments under a post.

Facebook’s Open Graph Improvements

PeepSo handles Open Graph in a completely new way. This is a big change! After offering no control at all over Open Graph in the previous version, PeepSo now has settings that let admins set the default image, title and description.

Open Graph Admin Config
Open Graph Admin Config

That’s a big improvement but we’re working with Facebook, so it’s not as straightforward as we might like.

Open Graph handling has been designed to be fully aware of context, shared links and privacy. So if someone posts a picture, adds a description, mood and location, but sets any privacy setting on the post to not ‘Private,’ when a link to that activity is shared on Facebook, Facebook will only fetch the defaults added in the Open Graph handling settings.

Our Lead Developer's Profile on PeepSo.com
Our Lead Developer’s Profile on PeepSo.com

If the post has a ‘Public’ setting, Facebook behaves very differently. It will share the added picture as the Open Graph image, take the title from defaults, and take the description from the post together with the mood and location name. Sharing a link to a user’s public profile will fetch their cover and avatar as the Open Graph image.

That sounds complicated but privacy was our priority and we made sure it works exactly as it should.

We made a number of other new features and improvements to PeepSo Core. For the full list of changes, see the changelog.

Widgets

PeepSo 1.6.0 is packed with improvements to current widgets and introduces a bunch of completely new ones.

‘Hide When Empty’ Setting

If a widget is empty, the admin can decide not to show it, removing empty space on a Web page.

In my next blog post, I’ll tell you about the improvements to existing widgets, and describe the new widgets, what they do and how you can use them to create a more engaging community.

Improvements To Existing PeepSo Widgets

PeepSo Profile Widget

The PeepSo Profile widget has been around for a while. It allows members easy access to different PeepSo pages. In this update, we’ve added two new features:

Notification Placement

Notifications now appear on top of the widget so that even if your members are currently on other pages of your site, reading a blog or checking the terms, they won’t miss the notification.

Profile Completion

The degree of profile completion now also appears on this widget, encouraging members to continue adding information to their profile.

Those are all the Core PeepSo improvements. Next, I’ll tell you about an exciting new PeepSo plugin: ProfileSo.

Upgrade PeepSo Now

Automatic updates let you move quickly to the latest version—and you can do it all in the backend of your site.

Remember to update plugins in this sequence: ChatSo first, then all the child plugins. Core PeepSo plugin should be updated last. Here’s documentation that explains how to upgrade. You can see the full changelog here.

No PeepSo?

The free PeepSo Core version is fantastic. But if you want to unlock the true potential of social networking for WordPress, install the other plugins today.

If you’d like to see what’s coming up next, check out our roadmap here.

Read more about PeepSo 1.6.0

Comments? Questions?

Please leave them below.

Brought to you by PeepSo Team Eric Tracz
I'm a Digital Nomad currently living in Manila, The Philippines. Co-Founder and CEO of PeepSo.com. First time WordCamp Speaker at WordCamp Kuala Lumpur 2017, WordCamp Singapore 2019 and hoping to speak more soon. I started my journey with open source nearly a decade ago as a simple support guy. Joomla! was my first encounter with the world of Open Source. After that period of my life got phased out I fell in love with WordPress and never left. I have been both lucky and at the same time I worked my ass off to get to where I am right now. Free time, if I have any, is usually spent with my wife and / or travel around South-East Asia. Even when I'm supposed to be on a little vacation, not a day goes by when I don't check up on PeepSo. So far visited or lived in: Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Hungary, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, China, Japan, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Norway, Germany, Scotland, England and more... Whenever possible, I jump on my Ducati Monster and just ride.

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