Ok, few thoughts
1. Is you intention to have a site with a forum page, or is the forum the whole site? This will determine the best way to get your users onto the forum, let me know and I’ll advise further
2. I don’t like giving users the dashboard – it takes away from look and feel of the site and shows them the backend. I disable the toolbar in users profile.
3. I don’t let my users auto register – unless you plan to have high levels of users it is better to let them manually resister. I have a simple form that they complete and gets auto emailed to me. I then set them up manually. If you forums are private, then you wouldn’t want anyone being able to auto access anyway would you?
4. you need to assign your topics to forums, and make those forums private for the participant role to then be able to see them
Hi Robin. Thanks for your reply and help! Below are my answers to your questions.
1. Is you intention to have a site with a forum page, or is the forum the whole site? This will determine the best way to get your users onto the forum, let me know and I’ll advise further
I WANT TO HAVE A SITE WITH A FORUM PAGE.
2. I don’t like giving users the dashboard – it takes away from look and feel of the site and shows them the backend. I disable the toolbar in users profile.
I WOULD LIKE TO DISABLE THIS BUT NOT SURE HOW GLOBALLY OR OTHERWISE. IN MY DASHBOARD, I DON’T SEE WHERE I COULD GO TO SEE WHO HAS REGISTERED FOR MY SITE OR WHERE TO CHANGE THEIR PROFILES.
3. I don’t let my users auto register – unless you plan to have high levels of users it is better to let them manually resister. I have a simple form that they complete and gets auto emailed to me. I then set them up manually. If you forums are private, then you wouldn’t want anyone being able to auto access anyway would you?
COULD YOU PLEASE LET ME KNOW MORE SPECIFICALLY HOW YOU DO THIS? WHAT FORM DO YOU USE (THE REGISTRATION FORM OR SOMETHING ELSE?) AND HOW DO YOU SET THEM UP MANUALLY? I DON’T SEE A WAY OF SETTING UP USERS IN MY DASHBOARD.
4. You need to assign your topics to forums, and make those forums private for the participant role to then be able to see them.
I THINK I DID DO THIS BEFORE. UNER “FORUM ATTRIBUTES”, I HAVE THE FORUM SET TO: TYPE: FORUM, STATUS: OPEN, VISIBILITY: PRIVATE.
I SET THE TOPICS AS STATUS: OPEN, FORUM: THE NAME OF MY FORUM SELECTED
This will take you several stages but should get you where you want to be
1. For your forum page
Create a page called forum or forums. In the body of the page type the following code
[bbp-forum-index]
And save
If your menu auto-creates then this will appear, if not go into dashboard>appearance>menus
2. Create a register form
Download contact form 7
https://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7/
set up a page called ‘register’, and put a registration for in there
3. Download bbpress WP tweaks
https://wordpress.org/plugins/bbpress-wp-tweaks/
This will give you a bbpress sidebar that your forum page will use
Go into dashboard>appearance>widgets and populate this with
(bbpress) login widget
The url for register will be the page you set up under 2 – so populate this with “/register”, and the lost password url will be “/lost-password”
(bbpress) forums list
(bbpress) recent topics
(bbpress) recent replies
And anything else you want to add
4. When someone sends in a form (it’ll be emailed to you) then you can set them up, and ensure that they don’t get the toolbar. They will have “no role for this site” for wordpress, and “participant” form bbpress.
That should be enough to get you going, but come back if you need more !
Thanks for the tips Robin!
I got the forum page set up in the site’s menu and it looks like the widgets you mention were already included when I uploaded bbPress, so I put them into the sidebar. I am still not exactly clear on how I would set up a user after they sign up with the contact form 7. Would I need to create their username and password etc and where do I set them up? Also, when I log out as a user, I am getting an error page that says “Oops, this link appears to be broken.” This is the link: http://www.successintention.com/forums/forum/success/?loggedout=true
You also mention that the user will have “no role for this site” for wordpress. Where do I set this up?
Thanks,
Suzanna
username
Yes you will set each one up.
Go into Dashboard>users>add new user
In there you will see a box to uncheck that they don’t see the toolbox, a wordpress role – I set to none for this site.
Once you have set them up and clicked save, then go back in to edit that user and you’ll see at the bottom options for their bbpress, which you’ll set to participant.
