The first release candidate (RC1) for BuddyPress 12.0.0 is now available!

This version of the BuddyPress software is a development version. Please do not install, run, or test this version of BuddyPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended that you evaluate 12.0.0-RC1 on a test server and site.

Reaching this phase of the release cycle is an important milestone. While release candidates are considered ready for release, testing remains vital to ensure that everything in BuddyPress 12.0.0 is the best it can be.

You can test WordPress 12.0.0-RC1 in four ways:

• Try the BP Beta Tester plugin.
• Download the release candidate here (zip file).
• Check out our SVN repository: svn co https://buddypress.svn.wordpress.org/trunk/
• Clone our read-only Git repository: git clone git://buddypress.git.wordpress.org/

The current target for the BuddyPress 12.0.0 release is December 6, 2023. Get an overview of the 12.0.0 release cycle, and check the BP Development updates blog for 12.0.0 related posts.

What’s new in 12.0.0-RC1 ?

• We made three new improvements to the BP Nouveau template pack:
  • Member and Group loop entries are now more consistent (see #9025)
  • A group’s excerpt in a loop is now “really” truncating the Group’s description when it exceeds 225 characters (see #9024).
  • We have made the member’s cover header action buttons behave more consistently (see #9023)
• We also added other improvements to this template pack to welcome the Twenty Twenty-Four WordPress theme, including a new Priority Navigation feature (See #9030).

12.0.0 Highlights

The BP Rewrites API (a massive change!)

• Site Administrators now have a full control over all BuddyPress-generated URLs. They can choose slugs (portions of URLs) that reflect their community, using localized language or special terms that are more meaningful to their members. All also means that URLs generated by third-party BuddyPress Add-ons using the BP Rewrites API will be editable.
• BuddyPress is fully compatible with plain URL permalinks.
• Parsing BuddyPress URLs is faster, more reliable, extensible, testable and fully compliant with WordPress best practices.
• Please note that if some of your BP plugins are not ready yet for this new API we have you covered thanks to this backwards compatibility plugin.

A new community visibility level: Members only

Thanks to the BP Rewrites API, we were able to give site admins a choice as to whether their community should be fully public or only accessible by logged-in members. In future versions, we hope to add granularity to this choice, so that community administrators can choose to highlight their members but share activities only inside the community “gates” for example. 

Ways to contribute

BuddyPress is open source software made possible by a community of people collaborating on and contributing to its development.

Get involved in testing

Testing for issues is critical to developing the software and ensuring its quality. It’s also a meaningful way for anyone to contribute—whether you have coding experience or not.

If you think you’ve found a bug, you can share it with us replying to this support topic or if you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on BuddyPress Trac.

Help translate BuddyPress

Do you speak a language other than English? Help us translate BuddyPress into as many languages as possible! This release also marks the string freeze point of the 12.0.0 release schedule.