bbPress.org

After lots of hints and hushed voices, the bbPress plugin browser is here.

We’re offereing this up as a centralized source of bbPress plugins. Hopefully, for all us users, that will mean one-stop shopping when looking for plugins.

And for you developers, anyone can host their plugin there. We keep track of comments, ratings, and download stats for you. You even get your own little corner of the bbPress plugin development center (a trac install) for you to keep track of bugs, tickets, changes and versions of your plugin.

Many thanks go out to Aditya for helping me test and debug the site, and to Stefano and Trent as well for early adoption.

In the previous post, I alluded to a place to store options (basically, any arbitrary data) in the database. Plugin developers shouldn’t try to access that data directly; we’ve got an API for you.

bb_get_option( $option_name )

This one function grabs data from all the different places bbPress uses to store such data: hardcoded data, “softcoded” data, and data stored in the database.

First, the function checks to see if $option_name corresponds to some hardcoded value like version, language, or text-direction. If $option_name doesn’t match an hardcoded value, it looks to see if it matches what I call a “softcoded” value. These are the names of the options stored in the global $bb variable such as domain, path, akismet_key and so forth. Finally, if it still hasn’t found anything, it queries the database for $option_name.

It returns the value of the option filtered through the filter bb_get_option_{$option_name}. (So if you asked for the option named “blue”, you could filter the results with the bb_get_option_blue filter.)

bb_get_option_from_db( $option_name )

If you want to bypass all the hardcoded and softcoded data queries that bb_get_option() performs and go straight to the database, use this function. Its results are filtered through bb_get_option_from_db_{$option_name}. In conjunction with the bb_get_option_{} filter, a plugin could use this function to override softcoded data with data from the database.

NOTE: bb_get_option() calls bb_get_option_from_db() when it decides to grab data from the database. So both bb_get_option_{$option_name} and bb_get_option_from_db_{$option_name} may be run on the same result.

bb_update_option( $option_name, $value )

Updates (or adds) the option named $option_name with value $value to the database. You can store any type of variable except NULL.

NOTE: Option names are unique in bbPress.

bb_delete_option( $option_name, $value = '' )

Deletes the option from the database. If you want a sanity check, you may include the value of the option. $value has no other use here, however, since option names are unique; bb_delete_option( $option_name ) works just fine.

bb_cache_all_options()

Options are not loaded into cache by default when bbPress starts up. Each option is cached only after it is queried for the first time; if you grab several options from the database, you will query the database once for each option. This function caches all options from the database in one large query. You may find it increases performance for some applications.

After a month of waiting, bbPress 0.74 is finally available for download. Even if it did take a while, we’ve fixed a several important things.

Aditya has a great overview of the changes, but here’s a few of the bigger ones.

1. init hook has been changed to bb_init for better compatibility with WordPress.
2. When users are deleted, they’re really deleted now.
3. Somewhat simpler installation procedure. When installing, you’ll also be informed if any of those little configuration variables are incorrectly set.
4. A place to store options in the database! Woo!

We’ve got some slick new features we’re working on for the next release (did someone say “themes”?), so stick around….

In the meantime, read on for some more technical details about this release.

Read more →

With bbPress 0.73 out, bbPress is much better equipped to handle localization to whatever language you speak.

We’d like to encourage such localization by offering a centralized resource for localization files, support and anything else needed by the international community.

Please leave a comment here to let us know what language you speak (and fill in your email!) if you’d like to get involved. (We have some pretty heavy moderation in effect; don’t worry if your comment doesn’t appear right away.)

And apologies ahead of time; I only speak English. Italian used to be a second language of mine, but that was tanti anni fa.

After a couple of weeks of kicking the tires, we’ve decide we’ve fixed enough bugs to put out a new version of bbPress. So here it is: 0.73, the latest in the bbPress “Bix” series.

The changes in brief:

• Improved rewrite rules generation
• Template cleanup
• Much better support for non-English forums including support for right-to-left languages
• Improved installation
• Even better integration with other software
• And, of course, a small security fix

More detailed information about the changes can be gleaned from the tickets we fixed and the code we improved.

Download, and Get your bbPress on, everybody!

Learn more about 0.73 »

I just came across the original post announcing bbPress on my blog. It’s interesting to read back on that post and comments, like going back through a time warp.

Richard Boakes, one of the first users of Akismet, has a nice summary of the benefits of bbPress.

Jazzle says,  “bbPress is a fantastic example of how the web should be made.”

Since we dropped it last night, bbPress has had 289 downloads. (We’ll look at getting a counter up like we have for WP.) When you Google for bbPress there are about 340k hits.

We’ve now gone around the site, swept up the corners and shined the mantel. If you visited when things first launched you’ll notice everything is tidier now. Please take a look around! The forums are already starting to buzz.

I’m really excited about getting bbPress out in the public with its first public release. Michael has been doing great work and I think today, just as two years ago when I first wrote bbPress, the forum arena is in dire need of some fresh air.

bbPress is also technically pretty fun if you’re a geek. It’s how I would’ve written WordPress if I could go back in time with everything I know now. The code is clean, fast, consistent, and extensible.

The moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived. bbPress has officially been released, and we’re calling it 0.72: Bix. 0.72 after WordPress’ auspicious beginnings, and Bix for Bix Beiderbecke‘s inspiring sound and really hep name.

We think this release is pretty swell, and we can only imagine you’ll have plenty to say about it. To that end, we’ve set up some forums to get the conversations going (and to show off the goods!).

Here’s just a few things that will catch your eye.

• Fast and Light: nothing you don’t need.
• Built in spam protection by Akismet.
• Really simple interface: we want people using our software to forget that they’re using it.
• Complete integration with WordPress.
• Both the look and the functionality are highly customizable.
• RSS feeds for everything.

So download and go!

There have been several changes at bbpress.org over the last couple weeks.

First off, the content of this site has been updated substantially. There is now somewhat more thorough documentation, and a more fleshed out about page.

Second, bbPress’ code has been made just that much more pluggable and convenient by syncing several of its core functions with those of WordPress.

Third, Bryan Veloso has whipped up some stylin’ new style for the bbPress default theme. People expect great things from Bryan, and, amazingly, he just keeps raising their expectations. Tips on how to create your own themes can be found in our Customization Documentation.

Fourth, the bbPress Trac has been moved to https://trac.bbpress.org/. The tickets have all been cleaned up to make way for…

Lastly, the imminent release of bbPress 0.72. Expect an announcement and some forums (no!) here on bbpress.org within the next couple of days.

Many of you will remember the dark days of the bbPress Trac. For several months it was getting hit by spammers multiple times a day.

Matt put a stop to new spam a couple of months ago, but there was still a huge amount of garbage blocking up our ticketing system. All of that is now gone. Well, I’m sure I missed some here and there.

This daunting task would have been completely impossible were it not for the following three things.

1. The Ticket Delete Plugin for trac by Noah Kantrowitz. The interface is clunky (limitations in the Trac plugin API?), but it gets the job done. Kills spam dead.
2. Jesse Ruderman‘s Check Range Greasemonkey script. This thing is awesome. Move over, sliced bread.
3. Tom Preuss. Many people helped reduce spammer damage by closing tickets and so forth, but Tom gets the gold star. His faithful invalidating of spam tickets through the darkest of bbPress’ days made searching for and eliminating trash a piece of cake. Many thanks to Tom and the others who stepped in.