Topic Hubs

A topic hub turns a category or tag page into a page about the topic: its name and description, how many posts it has, a Follow button, the members who write about it most, and its posts. It replaces the category and tag archives at /category/{slug}/ and /tag/{slug}/.

Use it when your categories are real subjects readers come back to, such as “Travel” or “Recipes”, and you want those pages to feel like a section of your community rather than a plain list.

Turn it on

1. Go to WB Plugins > Member Blog > Features.
2. Under On your site’s own pages, switch on Topic hubs.
3. Click Save Features.

The Overview tab also offers a Turn on button for it while it is off.

Setting (Features tab)	What it does	Default
Topic hubs	Replaces your theme’s category and tag archives with topic hubs	Off
Follow writers	Shows the Follow button on category hubs	On

Topic hubs start off on new sites and on sites upgraded from 3.x, because they replace pages your theme already draws.

What a topic hub shows

Part	Details
Topic name	The category or tag name
Description	The description you entered for the category or tag under Posts > Categories or Posts > Tags, when there is one
Post count	How many posts the topic has
Follower count	Shown once at least one member follows the topic
Follow button	On category hubs, for signed-in members, while Follow writers is on. Tags cannot be followed.
Writers on this topic	Up to six members who have written the most posts in this topic. Hidden when fewer than two members write in it.
Posts	The topic’s published posts, 12 per page, with numbered page links

Page links go to real archive pages (/category/{slug}/page/2/), so paging works with your permalink settings. A topic with no posts shows “Nothing has been published in {topic} yet.”

Following a category adds its new posts to the member’s following feed and digest. See Following and the Digest Email.

Put a topic hub on any page

The [bp-member-blog-topic] shortcode and the Topic Hub block show a hub for one topic on a normal page. They work whether or not the Topic hubs feature is on, so you can keep your theme’s archives and still build a landing page for a topic.

1. Create or edit a page.

2. Add the Topic Hub block and choose the category or tag, or add the shortcode:

   [bp-member-blog-topic category="travel"]

3. Publish the page.

The shortcode has its own paging, so two hubs on one page page separately. All attributes are in the Shortcodes Reference.

For developers

Hook	Use
bpmb_takeover_term_archive	Filter. Return false to leave an archive to the theme (receives the setting and the term).
bpmb_topic_hub_taxonomies	Filter. Which taxonomies get a hub. Default: category, post_tag.
bpmb_followable_taxonomies	Filter. Which taxonomies can be followed. Default: category.
bpmb_topic_hub_per_page	Filter. Posts per page on the hub (default 12).
bpmb_topic_header	Filter. The hub header HTML.
bpmb_before_topic_hub	Action. Runs before the hub header.

To restyle the hub, copy templates/topic-hub.php from the plugin to your-theme/buddypress-member-blog/topic-hub.php.

Related

• Writer Profiles and the Author Box
• Following and the Digest Email
• Features Screen