bbPress

Available immediately is bbPress 2.0.2.

This maintenance release adds proper template redirects for logged-in users, and fixes a few bugs with the freshness recounter and closing topics.

If you already have bbPress 2.0.1 installed, updating to 2.0.2 is a cinch via the WordPress dashboard. If you’re still thinking of moving from a bbPress 1.x powered site, the method noted in our 2.0 post still applies. If you integrate bbPress 2.0.1 with BuddyPress, nothing additional needs to be done; it will still just work.

Available immediately is bbPress 2.0.1.

This maintenance release fixes a bug when anonymous posting is enabled, allowing logged-out users to potentially edit topics and replies. If you allow anonymous users to create content on your forums, we recommend you update to 2.0.1 immediately.

If you already have bbPress 2.0 installed, updating to 2.0.1 is easily done via your WordPress dashboard. If you’re still thinking of moving from a bbPress 1.x powered site, the method noted in our 2.0 post still applies. If you integrate bbPress 2.0 with BuddyPress, nothing additional needs to be done; it will just work.

In hot pursuit of BuddyPress 1.5 follows bbPress 2.0!

No longer are the days of elaborate xml-rpc connections or impossible to figure-out cookie configurations! No more are the integration woes, complex theme arrangements, or separate dashboards! bbPress 2.0 represents a complete rethink of how to fit forums inside WordPress in the simplest, most elegant way possible.

Simply by activating bbPress 2.0, any standard WordPress theme is suddenly capable of having support forums, user profiles, topic tags, and custom topic views. Your users are able to mark topics as favorites to read them later, and can subscribe to be notified via email to topic replies, so they never miss out on the conversation.

bbPress 2.0 comes with Akismet and BuddyPress functionalities baked-in, so if you’re already using either plugin, no additional configuration is required.

If you already have a previous version installed, updating to 2.0 is easy with the bbPress Importer. Move your bbPress 1.0 powered content into your new WordPress/bbPress installation and you’re ready to go. (There is already a migration plugin in the works for other forum software that promises to be pretty amazing, too!)

If you’d like to see bbPress 2.0 in action, a few brave developers have been using it on their live sites already:

• BuddyPress Test Drive
• WPCandy Forums
• DevPress Forums
• Jigoshop Support
• GetShopped Support

In the coming weeks we’ll be moving our own forums onto bbPress 2.0, adding a codex to improve the documentation, and doing some general housekeeping here at bbpress.org. We’ve put a lot of work into rebuilding the software, now it’s time to rebuild the site to properly support it!

Props for 2.0 go out to: andy, anointed, boonebgorges, christopher-jon, Coolkevman, cnorris23, dimadin, DJPaul, duck_, dudd, Fartlek, GautamGupta, greenshady, jaredatch, jghazally, Jason K, Kaspace, markmcwilliams, mouratidis, nacin, Nightgunner5, petemall, ryangannon, ryanimel, ramiy, scribu, schrepel, sorich87, vanillalounge, Viper007Bond, westi, and wonderboymusic.

Download bbPress 2.0

Available immediately is bbPress 2.0 RC 5 “Can we have a pool, dad?” edition. Thanks to a few last minute contributions we were able to fix some theme compatibility issues, BuddyPress Activity stream issues, and Email subscription issues. We’re pretty confident this is the final release-candidate before launch, so please update your existing installations and let us know how it’s going in the support forums.

We’re confident you can use RC 5 on a live site without sinking the ship, but please let us know if it springs any leaks in your installation. If you’re a developer or site administrator, report any oddities over at our trac.

Here are some of the changes in RC 5:

• Improved theme compatibility
• Improved BuddyPress Activity stream behavior
• Improved Subscription email sending
• API tweaks for plugin authors

Download bbPress 2.0 RC 5

Available immediately is bbPress 2.0 RC 4. Thanks to an enormous amount of feedback during the Beta period, we’ve put out a few unadvertised release candidates to tighten integration with Multisite, BuddyPress, and Akismet.

This is still pre-release software, but we think it’s polished and shiny enough to use on a live site. If you’re a developer or site administrator, please report any bugs you find as they are critical at this stage in development.

Check it out and let us know what you think in the support forums!

Here are some of the important changes:

• BuddyPress 1.5 activity streams and @mention integration
• Improved Akismet integration
• Improved update process
• Improved importer
• Improved multisite integration
• Improved spam/deleted user handling
• Added blacklist_keys support
• Added actions to topic/reply forms
• * Updated green admin color scheme for WordPress 3.2

Download bbPress 2.0 RC 4

* Bet you didn’t know this was there, did ya?

The next item up for bid is bbPress 2.0, Beta 1 – the first public iteration of bbPress as a plugin for your self hosted WordPress powered website. Several months worth of sweet-tea, BBQ, and pepperoni pizza have gone into making this the easiest forum software you could ever integrate with WordPress, and we’re really excited to give everyone a preview. The bidding, starts (and ends) at $free, for a quantity of unlimited bbPresses.

bbPress 2.0 is still in active development, and we don’t recommend that you run it on a production site. Instead, set up a test site or a local installation to play with. If you do manage to break it, you’ll be doing everyone a huge favor by letting us know. If you manage to fix what you broke on your own, there just might be cake waiting for you when the BBQ is gone.

We are aiming to release bbPress 2.0 by the end of June, to coincide with the WordPress 3.2 launch. The actual release date is a bit of a moving target, based on how both beta periods go. The more help we get with testing and fixing bugs, the sooner the final version ships. If you want to be a beta tester, check out the WordPress Codex article on how to report feedback.

Here’s a taste of the awesomesauce that comes baked in:

• Seamless integration with your WordPress site and theme
• Integrated admin interface for forums, topics, and replies
• Split and merge topics within a single forum
• Shortcodes to help you customize where your forums appear
• Currently comes with a child theme of TwentyTen to get you started
• Keep track of changes with topic and reply revisions
• Dashboard widget shows you a shapshot of your forums at a glance
• Automatically creates a new ‘Moderator’ role for your forums
• Mark topics as favorites and view them within your new user profile
• Receive emails when new replies are posted to topics you subscribe to
• Anonymous posting lets you open your community up to the world
• Includes widgets to show latest forum activity
• Comes with an importer to move your existing integrated forums over

Developers, here’s the icing on your cakes:

• Fully extendable, with actions and hooks where you need them
• Works with Multisite, so you really can have unlimited bbPresses
• Adds no additional database tables through the wonders of post types and taxonomies
• Uses adjustable meta capabilities for letting you scope out users and roles
• Relies on template parts to display themes in pieces that are meant to be overridden
• Fully documented PHP, so your IDE will thank you
• Plays nicely with BuddyPress Forums (full integration/replacement coming soon!)
• Use standard post queries to display custom forum and topic data
• Plays nicely with existing WordPress plugins (especially caching)
• It still uses the same awesome icons made by Ben Dunkle

You should know this going in:

• The migration tool is completely new, and really needs some in depth testing
• Query counts increase exponentially with hierarchical forums (fix pending)
• It’s possible to orphan topics/replies by deleting its parent forum (fix pending)
• If you have a physical /forums folder, your ‘forums’ slug will not work (needs nag)

If you think you found a bug, please report it! Start by bringing it up in the support forums, or if you’ve confirmed that other people are experiencing the same bug you can report it on the bbPress Core Trac. If you find a security vulnerability, please be discrete and let us know privately using one of the methods posted on the WordPress contact page.

Theme and plugin authors, if you haven’t been following the 2.0 development cycle, please start now so that you can update your themes and plugins to be compatible with this new version of bbPress.

Download bbPress 2.0, Beta 1 ↓

Today we’ve released two versions of bbPress.

• bbPress 1.0.2 addresses a number of issues which have come up since the 1.0.1 release, including a problem where the voices count could get out of sync.
• bbPress 0.9.0.6 is the first “legacy” release of the bbPress 0.9 branch, which will be maintained for security until late 2010.

Both releases fix a long standing bug which was affecting the way spam was being reported via the Akismet plugin. These releases are recommended for all users of both bbPress branches.

Download either (or both!) from the download page now.

This bug fix release has been made available for download to address a number of issues that have been raised after the release of bbPress 1.0 including a security issue where multiple users could be registered with the same email address.

This is a recommended update for all users of bbPress 1.0. These issues do not affect users of bbPress 0.9.

That’s right, bbPress 1.0 finally hits the tubes!

After many months in alpha, beta and release candidate status, bbPress 1.0 final is now available for download.

Thanks to the many testers who contributed so much important feedback during the pre-release period, going way back to 1.0 alpha 1.

This release offers many usability improvements, based on making bbPress more approachable for adopters who are accustomed to WordPress. To that end bbPress 1.0 now has a similar administration interface to WordPress and uses similar descriptions and names where appropriate. bbPress also behaves more like WordPress when it comes to things like automatically generating your .htaccess file when setting up permalinks.

Here are a few of the improvements over the 0.9 series:

• “Voices” count on topics reports the number of individuals participating in a conversation
• Native support for cookie integration (single sign-on) with WordPress 2.7 and 2.8
• Optional support for memcached object caching
• Time-zone and Daylight Savings time support
• A complete XML-RPC publishing API
• Pingback support – each topic can receive pingbacks, just like a blog post
• All javascript has been moved to jQuery
• Optionally allow login via email address as well as username
• New meta API allows arbitrary meta data to be stored for posts, topics, forums, options, tags or even meta (that’s right, meta-meta – first legitimate use wins a prize)!
• Display names used primarily for user identification display, which allows special characters to be used
• Themes can now have a “functions.php” file, which is automatically loaded
• Accessibility improvements on forms and in the default theme, including WAI-ARIA roles
• Major overhaul of the admin interface
• Optional Akismet statistics page
• Cute new icons from Ben Dunkle (pictured above)
• Improved use of posts admin to manage spam
• Prettier Kakumei (default) theme
• Hello Louie! Plugin

If you are upgrading from any earlier release to 1.0 then you absolutely should backup all you files and database before doing so. You also may need to make minor adjustments to your templates. Before upgrading, disable all plugins.

Dedication

bbPress 1.0 is named “Bechet” (pronounced beh-shay) after the pioneering jazz saxophonist Sidney Bechet.

After the release of 1.0-RC-2 there was a lot of great feedback both in the support forums and on Trac. Some new issues came up around WordPress integration, caching and SQL query performance which were simply too important to leave out of the final 1.0 release.

After taking careful aim at these issues I’ve decided to make one last release candidate available. There is still a little cosmetic work to do in the admin area, but you will find a few new improvements there too, like better handling of .htaccess auto-generation and full timezone support, including automatic daylight savings switching.

1.0-RC-3 is available now from the download page.