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46 posts tagged with "Community"

Community-site messaging guides

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WordPress Chat File Sharing: Images, Videos, Documents

· 6 min read
Creator of Better Messages

A messaging plugin that cannot share files is barely a messaging plugin in 2026 — members expect to drag an image into a chat the way they would in WhatsApp, send a 50MB video without worrying about the connection dropping, and trust that the file is not accessible by random visitors guessing URLs. Better Messages handles all of that: drag-and-drop attachments, resumable TUS uploads for large files, browser-side image and video optimization (WebAssembly), automatic EXIF / GPS stripping, and proxy-based file access protection.

GIFs in WordPress Chat: GIPHY and KLIPY Providers

· 5 min read
Creator of Better Messages

GIFs are how casual conversation moves on social platforms — a reaction GIF answers a question faster than a sentence. WordPress sites running BuddyPress / BuddyBoss / PeepSo / Ultimate Member / FluentCommunity communities all hit the same gap: members expect a GIF button next to the message composer, and the native messengers do not have one. Better Messages adds a GIF picker that supports two providers — GIPHY (the world's largest GIF library, free API key) and KLIPY (a newer curated platform with optional ad-supported monetization).

White Label WordPress Chat Plugin (No Branding to End Users)

· 4 min read
Creator of Better Messages

Agencies, SaaS companies, and white-label community platforms running on WordPress need every part of the user experience to feel native — no "Powered by X" attribution leaking out of a plugin. Better Messages ships white-label by default: the messaging UI shows your site's branding only, with no plugin name, no "Powered by Better Messages" tag, and no third-party logo anywhere visible to end users.

Translate WordPress Chat: Multilingual Messenger Without Hacks

· 4 min read
Creator of Better Messages

WordPress sites serving members across multiple languages need the messenger UI in every member's language — buttons, menus, modals, error messages, the whole shell. Better Messages is fully translatable through the standard WordPress translation pipeline: every user-facing string is wrapped with the WordPress __() and _x() functions, exposed under the bp-better-messages text domain, and reachable through Loco Translate, WPML, Polylang, or a manually placed .po/.mo file.

Floating Chat Windows for WordPress: Mini Chats That Follow Members Across Pages

· 6 min read
Creator of Better Messages

A messenger that lives only on its own page asks members to leave whatever they were reading to check messages. A floating chat window — the Facebook-style popup that follows the user across every page of the site, with multiple conversations open at once at the bottom of the screen — keeps the conversation present without breaking the reading flow. Better Messages has shipped floating mini-chat windows since the early days, with one-tap open from BuddyPress / BuddyBoss profiles and per-conversation popups that stick across page navigations.

BuddyPress Messaging Plugin: Modern Private Chat for BuddyPress

· 5 min read
Creator of Better Messages
info

Originally published when Better Messages 1.0 launched on WordPress.org in January 2017. This post has been kept up to date as the plugin matured — the body below describes the BuddyPress integration as it works today. The original idea has not changed: replace BuddyPress's built-in messages with a modern real-time messenger.

BuddyPress is the open-source social community plugin for WordPress, powering communities, networks, and intranets. Better Messages replaces BuddyPress's built-in private messages with a modern messenger — real-time delivery, group conversations, file uploads, voice messages, voice and video calls, AI bots, end-to-end encryption, web push, and a native mobile app. It has become the de-facto messaging plugin for BuddyPress sites over the past several years.