[frooyo]

So it sounds like the next major release of bbPress will make bbPress a plugin of WordPress … merging bbPress into WordPress and no longer keeping bbPress as an independent/stand-alone product.

I have a few technical questions as such:

1. Since the future is that bbPress will be a plug-in of WordPress, does that still allow bbPress itself to have plugin capability? Because essentially then, any plugin of bbPress would be a plugin of plugin to WordPress.

2. How would other WordPress plugins effect bbPress? Meaning, if I were to use the SuperCache WordPress plugin – would that then cache my content for bbPress even though bbPress is a plugin itself of WordPress … or, if does it mean that if you use the bbPress WordPress plugin, you cannot use any other WordPress plugin?

3. How would the Admin interface look for bbPress within WordPress. Seems like the Admin interface could easily get messing in a hurry when you have essentially 2 admin consoles (WordPress’ itself and then bbPress’ admin interface within WordPress admin).

For what it’s worth, this is what scares me the most about merging bbPress into WordPress.

The original goal of bbPress was to:

– Open Source, always and forever

– Less (code) is more

– Simplicity is a feature

– Speed and security are the foundation of any good user experience

– Put the user first

Currently, bbPress is close (but not quite there) to meeting the original goals above.

My concern is that by making bbPress a plugin of WordPress, it’s DRASTICALLY moves bbPress away from the original goals because we already know that 1) bbPress would be *more* code, 2) much more complicated, 3) definitely slower given you have to load now WordPress and 4) fundamentally, this is not putting the user first.

Just my 2 cents … also, thanks in advance for answering my questions above

[ipunkbali]

I thought the creator has abandoned this project? no?

[frooyo]

@ipunkbali

No. Matt is back involved, as noted in his latest weekly bbPress meeting.

You might be thinking of either Sam or _ck_. Sam was an employee of Matt who left to pursue other interests. _ck_ was a major contributor of plugins who left because, to my understanding, she felt under appreciated by the community and disagreed with the direction of the product.

[johnhiler]

If you’re looking for a sneak peek into bbPress’ plugin future, you might want to install BuddyPress and see how they’ve solved these problems.

It’s my understanding that bbPress plugins will become like BuddyPress plugins: a series of plugins on WordPress MU. BuddyPress plugins need to be “BuddyPress aware”, so that the BuddyPress plugin loads first:

https://codex.buddypress.org/how-to-guides/make-your-plugin-buddypress-aware-v1-2/

_ck_ stated her reasons here… the primary reason given was “[t]he removal of Sam Bauers and the halting of bbpress.org 2.0 “.

[Olaf Lederer]

@John,

I know about the discussion to create a bbpress plugin for wordpress, but where can I find this official information?

[deadlyhifi]

There isn’t any official documentation as far as I’m aware, but you can read the IRC logs on the blog (https://bbpress.org/blog/).

Regarding the points by froyo:

1 + 2: As mentioned it would work in the same style as buddypress which allows plugins which affect particular aspects of buddypress itself. So there wouldn’t be a problem hooking into only bbP features, and keeping other plugins away from bbP.

3: I think the admin area will be a whole lot cleaner when the two are integrated. Currently all the user stuff is duplicated in both admin areas (and behave differently), so I imagine there will be additional menu on the left of the WP admin area for all forum related stuff, plus a dashboard overview panel/widget.

[johnhiler]

Olaf – as I understand it, the next version of bbPress is going to be a point release that builds on the last version… with some bug fixes along with a few features added directly to the core.

I saw some discussion that the canonical plugin approach would be for a later release… so I’m guessing there’s no real information on it yet.

[Olaf Lederer]

Since bbpress is very similar to wordpress, a plugin is a good idea. This way you can publish longer forum posts in a much better way (just like a blog post)

[johnhiler]

What do you mean Olaf?

[Olaf Lederer]

The main difference is that new post are done on the website and not from the backend. Everything else looks a lot like wordpress. I’m sure if you create a wordpress theme which looks like a forum theme you can use wordpress as forum (except the new topic/post function)

[paulhawke]

I think there are a number of big architectural hurdles to get over. In WP I bind a given slug to a page on a 1-to-1 basis, and that’s what is used to resolve a given URL. If I have a forum I would want “virtual page slugs” where anything starting with (say) “/forum” is passed to my plugin for resolution of the rest. The URL processing in WP is messy (to say the least) and is a perfect example of the opposite of the “Open/Closed” OO design principle – “Closed to modification but Open for extension” – I imagine that a rewrite of that code would go a long way to improving WP itself.

If bbPress were hosted on a single page using a WP shortcode, then the entire GUI needs to be re-coded to run fully AJAX as the user will need to remain on that particular page.

[bobtheman]

“My concern is that by making bbPress a plugin of WordPress, it’s DRASTICALLY moves bbPress away from the original goals because we already know that 1) bbPress would be *more* code, 2) much more complicated, 3) definitely slower given you have to load now WordPress and 4) fundamentally, this is not putting the user first.

Just my 2 cents … also, thanks in advance for answering my questions above “

I agree, making bbpress a plugin to WP is not in the best interest of bbpress. If this happens, our existence and success would be contingent on wordpress. The moment bbpress becomes a wp plugin, we are no longer a forum solution but rather a wordpress forum solution and we limit ourselves to just that.

[Olaf Lederer]

@bobtheman,

you’re right, but I don’t believe in bbpress as the big forum system anymore. If I need to build a big forum I go for bigger projects like vbulletin. I think if bbpress is a plugin it will be a better system and frequently updated. And what’s wrong to have a blog and a forum on one site? I write so much articles on forums which better fit into a blog than a forum. Since bbpress has so many bugs the system need much more development than now. I’m sure systems like vbulletin has much more developers than bbpress (I forget there is currently no one)

[bobtheman]

@olaf

bbpress has ever opportunity “as long as no forces push bbpress in a different direction” to flourish and continue to be successful as any other opensource project does. The lack of contributions is a direct reflection of issues that need to be resolved within the community but are in no way unresolvable. Making bbpress a plugin goes against the goals of bbpress and most definitely isnt keeping the USER first, unless they change that to read “keeping the WordPress User first”. Making bbpress a WordPress plugin limits bbpress in so many ways, while other projects are focusing in on simplicity, extendability and yes integration even with wordpress but also with other platforms.

on a side note, this sorta makes you want to ask yourself, will every project that automattic picks up be transformed into a worpdress plugin?

[petroski]

It’s the great thing about open source software – no one is stopping anyone of carrying on bbPress as a stand alone project. Myself, I like the idea of bbPress as a plug-in – much of the work I do with WordPress is providing a CMS web site solution – a bbPress plugin would become yet another powerful tool for easily integrating into a wp web site.

[paulhawke]

Getting back to what @frooyo asked at the start…

Since the future is that bbPress will be a plug-in of WordPress, does that still allow bbPress itself to have plugin capability? Because essentially then, any plugin of bbPress would be a plugin of plugin to WordPress.

Plugins would be managed in a single interface. They would use the regular WordPress functions to add admin-area functionality, and to add action hooks and insert themselves into the filter processing. The issue is which actions and which filters are registered in a given plugin. As bbPress is migrated to being a plugin the developers will make sure that it will broadcast its own actions, separate from WordPress, when it makes sense to, and share action/filter hooks when it makes sense. For instance, I could see the “talk like a pirate” plugin for WordPress being shared between bbPress and WordPress on a given site.

In addition to action and filter hooks being distinct between the two systems, or shared in certain cases, it’s entirely possible to write code that a plugin registers with, separate from the main WordPress. Take for instance the current “Topic Icons” plugin that allows other plugins to register new “rules” on how to apply icons. This capability allowed the “Topic Icons” plugin to support skinning the “Support Forums” icon set without ever needing to be coded into the core “Topic Icons” plugin – people who dont run “Support Forums” never need activate that piece of code. What I’m getting at here is that one plugin can register and talk to another – there just has to be a little care about how its done; if bbPress becomes a WordPress plugin, there’s nothing to stop it having its own sub-set of plugins specific to it.

How would the Admin interface look for bbPress within WordPress

Its very easy to add a new top-level menu item in the admin interface, its just not something plugin writers normally do. In the case of bbPress, I could see a “forum” menu being added that then contains a sub-menu of management pages specific to bbPress. That said, we get user and theme management for free from the main WordPress.

@bobtheman – you asked an interesting question

on a side note, this sorta makes you want to ask yourself, will every project that automattic picks up be transformed into a worpdress plugin?

It’s been said that “when all you have is a hammer, all the worlds problems look like a nail”

The fact is, WordPress is a thoroughly versatile foundation to build upon. To quote another software engineering saying, “it isnt code re-use the second time some code gets used – that’s just a happy accident. Code re-use doesnt happen until the third and subsequent time.”

What do I mean here? Simply this: the foundations of WordPress (user management, theming, admin, plugins, etc) are great. They make a solid basis for building from. BuddyPress started down that road and by a “happy accident” made use of the features. Now we are looking at bbPress and saying “wow – code re-use!” but there are large slabs of code that will not be used when you’re a bbPress user/admin. The thing which needs to happen is to look, now that a third (WP, BP, bbP) project is building on the same backend, and refactor the truly common code into a modular WP-Core that is lean-and-mean, and the additional functionality builds upon. We have an opportunity to drive the architecture of WordPress into a better place as bbPress becomes a plugin.

For instance, what if I want to swap out and run my WordPress against Microsoft Active Directory for all the user management thereby gaining single-signon in a corporate shop? Impossible right now, but if the core is more modular, maybe it would be possible. If the core were more modular, then an install of bbPress need not drag the entire WordPress codebase along with it.

[Scott Kingsley Clark]

The way this would be handled is that plugins can hook into other plugins. Actions / Filters still work the same between plugins as they do between core.

[Cristian]

I am personally pretty excited about the bbPress plugin for WordPress. As someone has already mentioned there is already a number of other good standalone forum software out there that you could use and there is no reason that bbPress could carry on as a standalone forum as well as being a WordPress canonical plugin.

I have four sites built with WordPress and I have been wanting to add bbPress to each site for some time but the integration between the two has always put me off.

Anyone got any idea when the first version of the bbPress plugin will be out?