A beta version for the Buddypress Group Documents, compatible with BP 1.7. and WP 3.5.1 is ready.
- BP 1.7 compatible and WP 3.5.1 (not for previous versions of BP)
- More secure based on http://dev.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2011/02/05/hardening-buddypress-group-documents/
- Complete rewrite in some cases.
- Added a new widget: User’s Groups Documents
Since it is a beta version – try it on a dev server first but not in one which shares the blogs.dir with the production server
In order to make the plugin Buddypress Group Documents available through plugin repository of wordpress.org, we renamed it to BP Group Documents.
So from now on you can download it as BP Group Documents , leave feedback etc. in http://wordpress.org/plugins/bp-group-documents/.
== Upgrade Notice ==
If you upgrade from older version (previous 0.5.4) you must also add a your .htaccess in order
to ensure that requests to the old URLs are redirected to the new, hardened URL. That line is:
RewriteRule ^wp\-content/blogs\.dir/1/files/group\-documents/(.*) /?get_group_doc=$1 [R,L]
==Note for Windows server==
If you run a windows server and you get errors about mb_convert_case function which is a default php function (see http://php.net/manual/en/function.mb-convert-case.php), you must uncomment the line with php_mbstring.dll in your php.ini
BETA TESTERS needed!!!
I ‘ld be glad if you drop a line to let me know if it works or not for you.
You can say “Thank You” via my Amazon wish list
http://www.amazon.co.uk/registry/wishlist/7HYK62UCVCDI
or just 
UPDATE 25/10/2013:
I remove the links to previous versions, since it is STRONGLY recommended to update to version >1.2 from http://wordpress.org/plugins/bp-group-documents/
WordPress + Buddypress experiences 
[…] Alpha version of Buddypress Group Documents for BP 1.7 […]
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Hi,
Thanks for the plugin and all your work,
I have installed it, and will continue testing.
With WP 3.5.1 and BuddyPress 1.7.1, so far, so good. Some days ago I already wrote at github about a bug. Anything I see, I’ll post it there.
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Hi juanfrito.
Thanks for the bug report.
The issue you reported is fixed on version 0.5.2.
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Hi
Thanks so much for updating this essential plug in.
I went to Amazon to contribute but there is only one option which didn’t suit particularly. Can I just donate some $$ somehow?
Gordon
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Hi Gordon, I added a donation button.
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Hi again
I have installed BPGD v 0.5.2 and it appears to work. However two things seem slightly strange
1. I updated from the older version. The existing documents are all still listed without the change to the htaccess file …
2. I cannot find BPGD settings, nor can I find where to turn off the email notifications [as these are already covered in a plug in which is part of my Commons in a Box [CBOX] installation.
The Read me file says: “There will now be a “Group Documents” menu item under the “Settings” menu. Here you will find a list of all file extensions allowed for uploaded files along with other settings.”
But there is no Group Documents setting there or elsewhere
BP 1.7.1, WordPress 3.5.1, Commons in a Box Theme and plugin set 1.0.3
Thanks for any help.
Gordon
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GordorR.
I will take a look into the 2 issues.
About the second one, can you confirm that you are connected as Super Admin and you are looking at “My Sites” ->”Network Admin” ->”Settings” page. It should be there as sub menu item.
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Hi
Thanks. No, as I am not running multisite. I have a regular 3.5.1 WP install. I am looking at: Dashboard /Settings
The settings files are the standard wordpress ones (General Reading Writing Discussion Media Permalinks) and settings for some plug ins (BuddyPres, Invite Anyone, Forums & a security plug in).
By the way I asked my host to update the htaccess file anyway and they have. The documents are all there OK. So I woudln’t worry about that first point.
I would like access to the settings & in particular I wonder if there is any control over email notifications as I want to turn them off from Group Documents and leave them on on the other plug in. Thanks
Thanks
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As GordonR, I cannot see settings of your plugin (not running a multisite too).
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Hello lenasterg,
First of all, I thank you for your great plugin!
But I too am having issues with the “Group Documents” menu item not appearing (or any settings options), as well as I have spotted another issue.. when I have the plugin activated, on the Dashboard, I get this error “ERROR: The themes directory is either empty or doesn’t exist. Please check your installation.”
I have spent hours trying to debug my theme (thinking it was my child theme that was the problem), however, upon deactivating the plugin, I no longer have the error and all is well. The weird thing is, the plugin still works beautifully even with the error.
I am running BP 1.7.1, WordPress 3.5.1, custom child theme (with very minimal theme overrides) of the bp-default theme.
Thanks!
Joyce
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Hi @Joyce.
Can you confirm that you have a style.css into your child theme folder?
Also try to change the theme to bp-default and again to your child theme.
Let me know if it works.
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I’m having the same issue with my theme (Frisco for BuddyPress), and I do have the style.css in the theme folder.
Running BP 1.7, WP 3.5.1, and version 0.5.2 of your plugin.
Great job for having made the update! Thanks!
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Hi Lenasterg,
Thanks for your quick reply. Yes I can confirm that i have style.css in the child theme folder and I already have tried switching the themes to bp-default and again to my child theme, but still there’s an error. Only when I have your plugin deactivated, there is no error.
Joyce
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Joyce, thanks for reporting.
I think I fixed it.
Please try version 0.6 (link is in the post).
Bests Lena
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@lenasterg Thank you so much for all your hard work getting this plugin going again. You are an amazing person.
I’m still getting the error (ERROR: The themes directory is either empty or doesn’t exist. Please check your installation) with Frisco theme using the latest 0.7 release. Was there a fix for this? Or does anyone know a quick fix I can use? With the plugin enabled and this error in place we’re restricted in choosing page templates etc
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Thanks for all!
I am not able to find bugs and their solutions … I’m not able to program in php.
so ….
I look forward to new developments
and simply …. thank you ….
FraVit
from Italy
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Hi, version 0.5.4 is available.
I discontinued the github use due to lack of time, so only zip will be available.
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Thanks for the update!
I’ve found one issue: if you try to upload a forbidden document (forbidden extension or over the limit size), there is no message telling you that you cannot upload this file ; as you have a confirmation message when the upload is sucessful.
Have a nice day
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Anthony, I can’t reproduce it. I get the error messages in version 0.5.4.
The errors are displayed right after the group avatar.
Can you give informations about your BP version ?
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You’re right, I was not using 0.5.4, but the older one.
Works perfectly now 😉
Thanks !
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Thanks for this plugin. Seems to be working great. So far I’ve had no issues with it.
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I’m interested to try this out – thank you for your work
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Hi Lenasterg,
Thanks for your work. I have the same issue with the “settings” menu (WordPress single install). There’s no such submenu for me.
Two questions:
1.- Is there a way to turn-off notifications without having the menu? Is it something I can tweak in the database?
2.- Is there a way to import multiple documents at once? Can deal with the database and the server folders. If there’s a way (although tricky), please let me know.
Thanks again.
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[…] Download link is available at https://lenasterg.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/buddypress-group-documents-for-bp-1-7-and-wp-3-5-1/ […]
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Daniel hi.
Thanks for using the plugin.
I fixed the ‘Settings’ issue for single wp installation, in version 0.6 (download link is in the post).
1. The notification setting are not into the plugin. They are into each member Settings like the Buddypress notifications.
I think there is a plugin where you can manage all Buddypress notifications ex. http://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress-notifications-manager (note, I haven’t try it myself).
2. Unfortunanely, no. Right now I can’t think an easy way to explain the insert you have to do into db, cause you have to play with the taxonomy, terms, and bp-group-documents table. Since taxomony tables are used also for posts etc I advice you not to “break” anything there.
Bests
Lena
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Hello Lena,
Thanks for this plugin. I noticed a couple of issue on our test site. It uses BuddyPress 1.7 and WordPress 3.5.1.
– First, taking a document out of a category is impossible unless you put it into an other one.
– Second, in the Admin tab of the group, admins can’t create a category. As soon as you push the button, the whole page gets loaded in what appears to be an iframe.
If you need more precise information or screenshots, I’ll be happy to provide them to you. Thanks in advance for investigating those issues.
Best regards,
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PS: My team’s lead just pointed out that the plugin doesn’t conform with the groups’ email preferences and sends notifications with every change. Is there a way to change this?
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Evren.
Fixed in version 0.7. Thanks for reporting.
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Yes, some screenshots will help.
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OK. Send me an email at evren[dot]kiefer@gmail.com and I’ll send them to you.
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I found a better way. Here are the screenshots http://postimg.org/image/myenx3bdd/ and http://postimg.org/image/f5k3e0671/ !
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Hello lenasterg,
thank you for this plug-in – it very much sounds like something I have been searching for!! But when activating the plug-in I get the following fatal error message:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function mb_convert_case() in C:\inetpub\Sites\goalify.org\wp-content\plugins\buddypress-group-documents\include\widgets.php on line 41
Is there anything I can do? I run the latest versions of both bp and wp…
thank you so much!
Michael
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Hi michael
mb_convert_case is a default php function (see http://php.net/manual/en/function.mb-convert-case.php).
If you run a windows server you must uncomment the line with php_mbstring.dll in your php.ini
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Hej lenasterg,
thank you for the advice which – unfortunately – did not help (at least in my case). I will dig around some more…
All the best
Michael
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It was the right track you sent me down … for whatever reason the .dll was named differently … Now activation was no problem … Thank you!!! Now I am excited to see what this plug-in can do for us!!
Michael
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Hi lenasterg,
I downloaded and installed BP Group Documents for BuddyPress 1.7 and WordPress 3.5.1.
It installed and activated ok, but when I click the Add button to upload the submit the post nothing happens.
Please refer to the screenshot here http://www.thelearningclub.my/screenshot.jpg
Appreciate your immediate response to this, thanks.
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sivahari Hi.
From the screenshot I can’t understand your problem. Please do the following:
– check on the settings page if .docx are allowed
and
– if the problem persist, check your error.log for the relative error and send it back to me.
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Hi!
I’ve tried the beta version and everything works except one small error: Calls to insert_with_markers() in create_dir_or_htaccess() fail because the necessary file is not included/required. Adding a require_once and everything works like a charm.
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Martin hi.
Can you specify where you put the require_once and which file should be required?
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I applied the following patch:
— a/wp-content/plugins/buddypress-group-documents/include/classes.php
+++ b/wp-content/plugins/buddypress-group-documents/include/classes.php
@@ -674,6 +674,7 @@ class BP_Group_Documents {
// Defining the rule, we need to make it unreachable and use php to reach it
$rules = array(‘Order Allow,Deny’, ‘Deny from all’);
// creating the .htaccess file
+ require_once ‘wp-admin/includes/misc.php’;
insert_with_markers($dir . ‘/.htaccess’, ‘Buddypress Group Documents plugin’, $rules);
}
}
The required file defines the insert_with_markers function.
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Hey I want to know if with this plugin we can make the Description automatically our comments in our profile in buddypress and the associated group will automatically post our doc to the group with he comments (description)??
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Ayman hi.
No, this is not possible yet. But it is a very good idea and sure will keep in mind for the next update (when I find time)
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Hi,
Is it possible to add a file tree view for docs so that each category was represented as a folder? When you click on a folder you could be taken to a new page or perhaps the folder could expand down to see the docs contained within? Not unlike the way a desktop Finder works.
Just looking for a simple way of sorting through a lot of documents without requiring the user to sort manually by category.
Thanks for any suggestions you can offer.
By the way, so far the plugin has been working great.
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David, I can’t give a “no” answer or a “yes” with “How to” instructions. Sure it is possible, but it needs some coding :-).
I’ ll be glad if someone who has done it can share the code.
Sorry for not being much of a help on this.
Bests Lena
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Hey Stergatu,
Thanks for creating such a fantastic plugin. Everything is working beautifully for me you’ll be glad to know.
I was wondering if it’s possible to allow all users to upload documents from the activity stream or from their profile. Or to put it another way, remove the requirement for a user to be in a group in order to upload documents. Mimicking the behavior of the BuddyPress Activity Plus plugin by Ve Bailovity (Incsub).
I was hoping that this would simply be a matter or removing a few lines of PHP but when I had a look at the code, I couldn’t figure it out.
Kind Regards
Dave
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I’ve been struggling with this all week. It must be easy to remove the group association, right?
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Hi David.
I can’t think an “easy” way to do this, since the whole plugin login is based on groups and many plugin’s options are stored to group’s specific db tables.
So if you really want to give it a try, you had to mess the plugin code a lot. I guess, you could start by making the plugin always use group_id =0 (if upload on user profile) and then you should create display page of documents on user profile. Also you may have to consider if a usermeta record is needed or not.
Thats all I can think on the fly, about that.
But I sure there are other plugins which do what you want.
Sorry I can’t by more helpful.
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Thanks for getting back to me. I really appreciate your time. My knowledge of PHP is not quite good enough to start ripping into this. I literally just want users to upload documents to a folder and then echo the URL. There doesn’t have to be any database work. Do you know of any other plugins that are able to do this?
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This is really puzzling me. I literally just want the existing UI to upload documents to a folder (uploads/username/file.zip) and return a hyperlink in the activity update. No groups, database or admin work needed. Would you be able to develop this for me please? I will donate..
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Any chance you could develop this plugin to use group_id =0 if wp groups are disabled, or if there are 0 groups. I just don’t want to see the error “Please select a group to upload to” any more! lol. Thanks for Version 0.8, currently beta testing.
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David. It’s interesting idea, but I can’t promise if and when I can work on it, cause currently I’m have to finish something for a project.
Actually all the updates and plugins I share are things I needed and used for the project.
But if you are in a hurry, why don’t you try the plugin Buddydrive http://wordpress.org/plugins/buddydrive/ of imath? I think it does exactly what you want.
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Hi lenasterg, thanks for this plugin. Would it be possible to activate/deactivate Group Documents per group? Ideally I want user-generated groups to have Group Documents deactivated by default. The admin can turn it on selected groups only.
A max file size option would also be useful.
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Nicola, nice suggestion!!!
When I find time I ‘ll work on it.
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My programmer is trying to persuade me to move
to .net from PHP. I have always disliked the idea because of the expenses.
But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using WordPress
on various websites for about a year and am anxious about switching to another platform.
I have heard very good things about blogengine.net.
Is there a way I can import all my wordpress posts into it?
Any help would be really appreciated!
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I haven’t use blogengine.net so I can’t help you. Sorry 🙂
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Hire another programmer 😉
WordPress is, simply, the best blogging (and much more) platform. Really serious businesses are run using WordPress, so I don’t see any reason to move from it.
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I am truly delighted to read this weblog posts which includes plenty of
valuable information, thanks for providing these data.
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Hi! I know this is somewhat off topic but I was wondering if you knew
where I could loate a captcha plugin for my comment form?
I’m using the same blog platform as yours and I’m having trouble finding one?
Thanks a lot!
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I think this is a great plugin, however there is something that I observe in my installation:
Whenever the plugin “BP Group Documents” is activated the template select-box disappears in page attributes and thus I have to deactivate it when i need to make template selections.
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Henry. I can’t reproduce the issue.
Can you please give more details about wp, bp versions and if you have multisite or one blog installation?
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It is a one blog installation in a sub directory running
WordPress 3.6.,
WPML 2.9.2
Buddypress Version 1.8.1
bbPress Version 2.4
BP Group Documents Version 1.2.2,
and many other Plugins.
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It’s amazing in favor of me to have a web page, which is good for my
knowledge. thanks admin
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Hi Lena,
I have a strange issue in an Windows XP computer. The issue is that I upload a PDF file to a group, and when I open it… in the title bar of the browser, I see what I guess is the metadata of the word file (origin of the PDF).
Take a look at the screenshot: http://bit.ly/1er7xeD
As you can see, it says “Microsoft Word…..” when it’s a PDF file uploaded.
Where are you taking this info? How can I change it?
Thanks in advance.
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Hi again,
I’ve been able to see the issue in Windows 7 with Firefox.
See screenshot: http://bit.ly/LUBUmR
Thanks.
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Thanks for this useful plugin! very efficient! I was wondering about how to define the maximum size for the uploaded file?
Thanks again
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Hi Sandy.
Take a look at http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-increase-the-maximum-file-upload-size-in-wordpress/
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Hey I know this is off topic but I was wondering if you knew of any widgets I could add to my blog that automatically tweet my newest twitter
updates. I’ve been looking for a plug-in like this for quite
some time and was hoping maybe you would have some experience
with something like this. Please let me know if you run into anything.
I truly enjoy reading your blog and I look forward to your new updates.
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Sorry, I haven’t use such a plugin, but you can try at http://wordpress.org/plugins
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Hi there! Thanks for this plugin!
I’ve installed it in multisite and activated the plugin network-wide. The “Documents” tab is available and the interface to upload is present. However, when I attempt to upload documents, I get an error message: “The type of document submitted is not allowed.”
In Network Admin > Dashboard > Settings > Network Settings under the section header “Upload Settings” the “Upload file types” field lists the following: jpg jpeg png gif mp3 mov avi wmv midi mid pdf
I reviewed the plugin using the “Edit” link for BP Group Documents on the Plugins page, and the following definition exists: define(‘BP_GROUP_DOCUMENTS_VALID_FILE_FORMATS’, ‘odt,rtf,txt,doc,docx,xls,xlsx,ppt,pps,pptx,pdf,jpg,jpeg,gif,png,zip,tar,gz’);
I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled the plugin. I’ve also deactivated it and activated it only at the subsite level, with the same results.
What am I doing wrong? Thanks again!
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Hi. What type of document do you try to upload?
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I’ve tried uploading .jpg .pdf .txt .ppdx .docx, .mp3 .png …all with the same result.
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I can only guess that the ‘bp_group_documents_valid_file_formats’ option in the database is not set. If you have some coding experience can you please do the following in order to help debugging.
In file /include/bp_group_documents_functions.php after line 344
” $valid_formats_string = get_option( ‘bp_group_documents_valid_file_formats’ ) ;
place the following:
var_dump ($valid_formats_string);
die();
Then try to upload a document and let me know what the output is.
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Thank you. Done! The output is “bool(false)”
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Hmm… Lena, you made me think of something. In your “Installation” text, you wrote the following: “There will now be a “Group Documents” menu item under the “Settings” menu. Here you will find a list of all file extensions allowed for uploaded files along with other settings.”
There is no such menu under the Settings menu in my Network Admin interface (nor on any sub-site admin interface). What I’ve been looking at is the file upload options near the bottom of the “Network Settings” page. I wonder if this could be the culprit?
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Hi. Sorry for late response. What version of WP and BP do you have?
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No worries! WordPress 4.0 and Buddypress 2.1
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The problem is that there is not a “BuddyPress Group Documents : Settings” page in the Network Admin’s settings menu, so I cannot select the correct file types. When I manually type the address for the settings page in my browser, (http://myblog.com/wp-admin/network/settings.php?page=bp-group-documents-settings) I get a “You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page” error.
I suspect that this is a problem in the database? I’ve deleted the plugin, and reinstalled. I’ve deactivated all other plugins. I’ve even run a force-upgrade.php…
Can you suggest a repair?
Thanks so much!
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Hi!
Love your work on this plugin.
Now I wonder if it’s possible to add a button so members easily can get the documents link. Sometimes you want to comment on a file that’s been uploaded or refer to it in another way. Then it would be great to have.
Sincerely
Felicia Fortes
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