Activity Link Preview For BuddyPress

WordPress 6.5 or higher, PHP 8.1 or higher, and either BuddyPress 6.0+ or BuddyBoss Platform. If neither BuddyPress nor BuddyBoss is active, the plugin deactivates itself and shows a notice explaining why.

Open Graph tags are preferred, not required. The plugin looks for og:title, og:description and og:image first, and falls back when they are missing: it reads the page’s <title> element for the title, the <meta name="description"> tag for the description, and collects every <img src> on the page for the image choices.

So a page with no Open Graph tags will usually still preview. A preview fails when the site blocks automated requests outright, when the response is not HTML the plugin can parse, or when the URL resolves to a private or loopback address that the SSRF guard blocks. Reddit links are deliberately skipped. Failed lookups are remembered for 15 minutes, so if you fix the target page, wait for that window to pass before retesting.

Add this to your theme’s functions.php:

add_filter( 'bp_activity_link_preview_enable_comments', '__return_false' );

This filter only controls previews on activity comments and replies. There is no filter to switch off previews on main activity posts, and no per-user setting – previews on posts are always on while the plugin is active.

Yes. The plugin includes: * SSRF protection (blocks internal and private IPs, and re-validates short-URL redirect targets) * CSRF protection via nonce verification * Logged-in-only URL parsing * Sanitization of scraped titles and descriptions on save, and escaping on output

It runs on BuddyBoss Platform, but it deliberately gets out of the way of BuddyBoss’s own link preview. If BuddyBoss Platform is active with its native link preview enabled, this plugin stands down and lets BuddyBoss render the card, so you never see two previews on the same post. If you turn the BuddyBoss link preview off, this plugin takes over.

Same idea. If Youzify is active and its wall URL preview is enabled, this plugin leaves the content alone so Youzify’s preview is the only one shown. Turn the Youzify wall URL preview off and this plugin handles the card instead.

It is not needed there. BuddyNext has its own feed with link previews built in, which you switch on or off in its Social settings. This plugin is for BuddyPress and BuddyBoss Platform activity streams.

The plugin recognises it as an internal URL and builds the card straight from your database, with no external HTTP request. A member link shows the display name, the XProfile About text and the member’s avatar. A group link shows the group name, description and avatar.

Yes. The plugin has no settings screen, but it exposes filters for the parts site owners usually want to change: bp_activity_link_preview_load_assets (which pages load the assets), bp_activity_parse_url_preview and bp_activity_link_parse_url (the preview data itself), bp_activity_link_parse_url_shorten_url_provider (which short-URL hosts are resolved), bp_oembed_discover_support (oEmbed discovery), and bp_activity_link_preview_enable_comments (previews in comments).

It has been tested with BuddyX, BuddyX Pro and Reign, in light and dark mode, and with block themes. It hooks the standard BuddyPress activity filters, so it should work with any properly coded BuddyPress-compatible theme.

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