bbPress.org

The next installation in the bbPress 1.0 alpha series has been released. bbPress 1.0 alpha 2 introduces new features and fixes most of the issues raised by testers from the previous release.

A lot of the features were covered in a previous post. You can view the changes in bbPress between 1.0-alpha-1 and 1.0-alpha-2, as well as the changes that have been made to BackPress between revision 109 and 161.

The XML-RPC functionality now built into bbPress 1.0 alpha has made possible a new plugin for WordPress called “bbPress Live“. Currently this plugin can grab a list of forums and latest topics for display on a WordPress blog. Two configurable widgets are provided to pop the information into sidebars. Future versions of the plugin will allow WordPress posts to be copied to a bbPress forum, much like the bbSync plugin does for earlier versions of bbPress. The difference is that bbPress Live does not require the bbPress and WordPress sites to be on the same server, as all interaction is via XML-RPC calls rather than direct database queries.

It’s about time everyone was let in on the progress we have made towards version 1.0 of bbPress.

I expect the next alpha release to be made sometime in the next two weeks. This release will include our first implementation of Pingbacks both to and from your bbPress installation. The first draft implementation of this is now in trunk.

Also to be included in the next release is an implementation of the pseudo cron feature from WordPress. This will allow plugin developers to schedule jobs in the future or on a regular basis. It is 100% compatible with the WordPress implementation, so the existing documentation is all you need to get started with using it.

To enable cron I’ve included the very new WP_Http class in BackPress. This new class is a robust HTTP fetcher which is meant to replace the Snoopy class in WordPress. This will allow all sorts of RESTFUL services to be utilised within bbPress plugins, like fetching data from other pages, embedding search APIs and even pulling data from WordPress via RSS or XML-RPC.

On the drawing board is the beginnings of an XML-RPC publishing interface. This will make it easier to use bbPress as a data store for more exotic clients like custom flash applications and XML-RPC desktop clients. It also opens the door to creating an iPhone app for bbPress much like the existing WordPress iPhone app.

An alpha version of bbPress’ new export/import format and tools has also landed in trunk thanks to our Google Summer of Code student Dan Larkin. You can read a little more about that at the BBXF website.

There will also be several fixes for bugs found by our courageous alpha testers.

Over the coming weeks we will be releasing a series of 1.0 alpha versions for download.

The more adventurous among you may want to help out with testing these alpha versions. Probably the best thing to do is create a duplicate version of your installation (including a duplicate database) and then test there.

We would appreciate help with people looking for issues with upgrading, the user interface and any bugs in the new admin interface.

You can download the alpha releases via the download page.

You can use trac to report bugs as you would with the normal release. Please remember to add the version number to any new tickets.

I (Sam Bauers) will be speaking about bbPress at WordCamp UK in Birmingham this weekend.

I’ll be going through how to integrate bbPress (0.9.0.2) with WordPress (2.5.1) as well as talking a little about where bbPress is heading at the moment.

There is lots of other great stuff going on, full details are available via their blog.

Or just buy tickets here.

I hope to see some bbPress users there!

bbPress 0.9.0.2 is available for immediate download. This release includes some small changes and fixes a few bugs, but is first and foremost a security release. The vulnerability is not yet publicly known, but will be soon.

Many thanks go out to Steven J. Murdoch for identifying the issue (CVE-2008-1930) and working with us and WordPress to resolve it.

Note: Those of you with integrated WordPress/bbPress installs should upgrade WordPress first and then will probably have to update the “WordPress database secret” setting in your Settings -> WordPress Integration: Cookies admin panel after upgrading bbPress.

The bbPress team is happy to release bbPress 0.9 for download. This release is important for anyone who integrates bbPress with WordPress and wishes to update to WordPress 2.5.

Primarily this is a compatibility release so that we can continue to provide the same integration levels with WordPress as in the past, however quite a few other improvements have made their way into this version.

Improvements and changes include:

• New installer: 
  • Creates your bb-config.php file for you when possible.
  • Allows for setting up integration with WordPress at install time.
  • Supports languages other than English when language translations are available.
  • Looks pretty.
• Additional RSS feeds for views.
• A “new topics” RSS feed, available on the front-page and on each forum. This feed only returns the first post from each new topic as it is created, instead of all posts.
• More configurable <title> tag available to themes.
• More secure authentication cookies which are compatible with WordPress 2.5
• Passwords now stored using “phpass” hashing library instead of md5. If you still want to store your passwords as md5 for any reason, there is a plugin here which will do that for you.
• A second core theme called “Kakumei Blue”. This theme demonstrates just how little you need to do to start creating a new theme.
• “General” and “WordPress Integration” options configurable via admin interface.
• Built-in support for Gravatars, implemented in a way that makes 3rd-party avatar plugins much easier to author.
• New “Date and time format” and “Date format” options.
• Akismet and Bozo functionalities have been moved to plugins. Akismet key now enterable via an admin interface.
• Removed “replies” querystring argument (?replies=#) from topic links. If you still want that functionality, there is a plugin here which should emulate it.
• Fixes to use of PHP “glob()” function to avoid errors on hosts that don’t support it.
• Moderators can now manage tags by default.
• Fixes to slug incrementing.
• The old “admin_email” setting is now called “from_email”. This is now the email address that emails from your installation appear to come from.
• “No replies” view is now technically “no replies and greater than 2 hours old”.
• Improvements to the export script towards the integration of an upcoming import script.
• RSS feeds now sent as UTF-8
• Full support for slug-based feeds on forum and topic feeds.
• Keymasters can no longer be demoted by non-keymasters.
• Many other smaller bug and typo fixes.

Installation

We have provided updated and more detailed installation and integration instructions in the documentation.

Upgrading

Upgrade instructions are available in the documentation here.

Dedication

bbPress 0.9 is named “Brubeck” after American Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck. In his early career he often performed with saxophonist Paul Desmond, after whom bbPress 0.8 was named. Brubeck has composed a number of jazz standards many of which employ complex rhythms and unusual time signatures.

There are a few changes in 0.9 which plugin developers need to be aware of. So here are some notes to help you get your plugins running under the new release.

Read more →

Most of those who follow the tech-blog-o-sphere* will be aware of the recent financial news regarding Automattic, the company that more or less stewards bbPress’ production.

For the rest of you here are some links that cover the story.

Some people may be wondering what this news means for bbPress. Well, for a start this funding has already impacted on the project as it made my full-time employment with Automattic possible three months ago when the arrangement was in it’s early stages. But more importantly it now allows Automattic to have the financial security to back bbPress into the foreseeable future.

We have some awesome things in the pipe including improvements to the bbPress core, the bbpress.org website and, in the not too distant future, the launch of a hosted community service by Automattic based on bbPress.

In the meantime, we will be ramping up the pace of development and attempting to bring out some of the new features that have been on the “to-do” list for far too long. Features which we hope will help to differentiate bbPress from the crowd and make it a truly useful tool for building online communities.

* NB: Not an actual word

Due to popular demand we have bundled a bug-fix release for bbPress. 0.8.3.1 (still called “Desmond” I believe) and it is now available for download.

This version is not the latest development release so as to remain as compatible as possible with the current version of WordPress.

The primary reason for the release is to fix some bugs in the MySQLi implementation. We anticipate that MySQLi support will be dropped in the future and to this end we have made MySQL the default extension instead of MySQLi.

A few other fixes and enhancements have also snuck in:

• Deep forum breadcrumbs with thanks to baptiste
• More consistent topic labeling methods – users of the support forum plugin will probably need to upgrade to version 2.3.3
• Some fixes to stop orphaned sub-forums from disappearing from all view
• There is now one of those fancy checkboxes to mark a user as a bozo

A couple of those changes will affect existing themes. If you have questions about adapting your theme to be compatible with the new topic labeling and forum breadcrumb features, then ask over on this forum topic.

I’ll be at WordCamp Melbourne this weekend to reprasent bbPress. It’s a good opportunity for both seasoned bbPress users and newbs to find out more about our favourite forum software. As the crowd will be mainly WordPressers, I’ll be focusing the discussion on integration with WordPress and a few of the more WordPress-centric plugins.

Automattic developer Alex Shiels will be there as well as other local blogging luminaries. Check out the full program here (pdf), and RSVP on Upcoming soon, it’s almost full.