Just download and start playing with it. Best way to learn about anything.
Structure is extremely similar to WordPress with improvements because bbPress doesn’t have to support the old legacy problems that WordPress has.
My first tip to anyone installing bbpress is
1. don’t call the folder bbPress, maybe call it forums (plural)
2. don’t install it directly under wordpress unless you really think that is more natural
suggested:
webroot
blog
forums
3. remember during integration you have to change your cookie path in wordpress and bbpress to the webroot, otherwise you’ll never get the cookies to integrate
Then follow the Integration 101 topic.
I just disagree with promoting a product before it’s even usable.
bbPress is very usable, just not finished. But it’s certainly *not* being promoted. All we have is this support forum. If it was being promoted, it would be listed on WordPress.org/WordPress.com and there would be hundreds of thousands of users. bbPress currently has less than 10,000 active installs. That should change by this time next year.
bbPress was originally written by Matt to simply give a support forum for WordPress (WordPress.org). Everything from there was just Matt releasing the source. There never was a general plan after that until Matt started talking about TalkPress which is still very far away by my best guess.
bbPress’s greatest strength is it can be integrated in many websites easily and made to look like them easily. But it’s still a growing child and very young. If you are looking for a polished product, you need something with over half a decade of development like phpBB, vBulletin or SMF. The downside to them is they are very rigid and hard to develop for. bbPress is incredibly easy to develop for, I only learned PHP a few years ago and look what I’ve managed to do. Just imagine what a person who knew what they were doing could do 
If you have your own server make sure you setup your mysql cache properly and even more importantly make sure you install some kind of PHP opcode cache (eaccelerator, xcache or APC). Even the fastest server will greatly benefit from an opcode cache.
Yes that configuration is certainly possible.
The same logic applies, both cookies need to be using the webroot as the path.
The full template can be confusing to non-coders.
This concept has been covered several times around here, it’s quite simple.
Just replace
<?php topic_last_poster(); ?>
with
<a href="<?php topic_last_post_link(); ?>"><?php topic_last_poster(); ?></a>
in the front-page.php, forum.php, view.php and tag.php templates
To figure out pages is easy.
You lookup how many posts are in the topic and then you divide by the page_topics setting which also happens to be the posts per page setting.
something like:
$pages=ceil($topic->topic_posts/bb_get_option('page_topics'));
I have no use for facebook myself but johnjamesjacoby I think you are missing the point that bbPress is not even a 1.0 final product yet and should not be used on projects if that can’t deal with bugs and problems. You should never install a pre-1.0, alpha or beta product unless you can handle bugs.
bbPress like WordPress was not developed for the heck of it to give out for free, it was written for WordPress.com and just happens to have free source available.
(and you need to call animal control if there’s a dog barking for that long, most towns have anti-noise ordinances to protect you from that kind of annoyance)
The new theme should match the WordPress.org theme but in dark greens so we have a common identity.
I don’t think the the BB in bbPress should ever be small caps. Always lowercase. Looks better.
I’m afraid I do qualify for too many of the “Granny” points – large fonts, too many cats, health problems, etc. LOL!
But I bet your granny can’t write PHP or javascript so that makes me feel better somehow…
Maybe it’s because I use the “large fonts” setting in Windows.
That makes my fonts like 10-20% bigger.
Well I still don’t have SVN access but thanks to Sam you can at least grab the first version :
https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/super-search/
Do not use it on a very active site yet, there is no query cache.
Are there ads or something like that holding the column in place? Because I block most ads and that might be it.
Okay if you want something simple you can make this into a mini-plugin:
(call it forum-totals.php)
<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Forum Totals
*/
function forum_totals() {
global $forum_id;
$forum = get_forum( $forum_id ); $topics=$forum->topics; $posts=$forum->posts;
$forums=get_forums(array('child_of' => $forum_id)); $count=0;
if ($forums) {foreach ($forums as $forum) {$count++; $topics+=$forum->topics; $posts+=$forum->posts;}}
echo "<tr style='background:#ccc;'><td align='right'>$count total forums:</td><td class='num'>$topics</td><td class='num'>$posts</td></tr>";
}
function forum_topics_including_subforums( $forum_id = 0 ) {
echo apply_filters( 'forum_topics', get_forum_topics_including_subforums( $forum_id ), $forum_id );
}
function forum_posts_including_subforums( $forum_id = 0 ) {
echo apply_filters( 'forum_posts', get_forum_posts_including_subforums( $forum_id ), $forum_id );
}
function get_forum_topics_including_subforums( $forum_id = 0 ) {
$forum_id=get_forum_id( $forum_id );
$forum = get_forum( $forum_id ); $topics=$forum->topics;
$forums=get_forums(array('child_of' => $forum_id));
if ($forums) {foreach ($forums as $forum) {$topics+=$forum->topics;}}
return apply_filters( 'get_forum_topics', $topics, $forum_id );
}
function get_forum_posts_including_subforums( $forum_id = 0 ) {
$forum_id=get_forum_id( $forum_id );
$forum = get_forum( $forum_id ); $posts=$forum->posts;
$forums=get_forums(array('child_of' => $forum_id));
if ($forums) {foreach ($forums as $forum) {$posts+=$forum->posts;}}
return apply_filters( 'get_forum_posts', $posts, $forum_id );
}
?>
Install and activate it and then you need to put
<?php forum_totals(); ?>
anywhere you want to see it, on front-page.php or forum.php templates.
It should go between the endwhile and the </table>
Like this:
<?php endwhile; ?>
<?php forum_totals(); ?>
</table>
To use the replacement functions for forum_topics() and forum_posts() which include the totals for a forum including it’s subforums, simply replace them in your templates with forum_topics_including_subforums(); and forum_posts_including_subforums();
The state the trunk is in right now needs a great deal more bug reports – I find at least one new problem every time I try it because they keep changing chunks of code that are critical with backwards compatibility.
You don’t want to unleash it as a regular release in that state, even as an alpha, because despite my constant warnings and explanations, people use the alpha on live, active sites, usually because they absolutely have to use the very newest WordPress despite it’s bloat and bugs.
I’m fairly certain there will be another alpha release before the end of the year though.
If you know how to use SVN then you can help contribute with quality bug reports on TRAC.
Have you tested it in Firefox on Windows?
The column float is not working correctly and pushes the middle down below the left.
I am pleased to announce I have a public alpha available for Super-Search and will post it later after they fix some weird bug with the SVN.
You can see try it out here:
http://bbshowcase.org/forums/search.php
Demo:
http://bbshowcase.org/forums/search.php?search=download+theme
Suggestions, feedback and bug reports encouraged.
Oh and by the way, you don’t have to wait for official releases, simply install a SVN client and you can keep in sync with the very newest trunk copy (or any other release) any time you’d like.
It’s the same technique as for WordPress so use these instructions
https://codex.wordpress.org/Installing/Updating_WordPress_with_Subversion
also see this topic for more details/ideas
https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/svn-procedure-for-checking-out-bbpress
and if your server is on apache, here’s how to easily install SVN as a client instead of the full package:
https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/svn-procedure-for-checking-out-bbpress#post-18739
Please file this in http://trac.bbpress.org
so Sam will see it and address it.
But it’s possible that it’s been fixed already in the trunk.
Please take a look at the WPMU tag for some ideas:
https://bbpress.org/forums/tags/wpmu
Haven’t made it yet, still pondering the best way to do it (I tend to think about the more complex ones for awhile).
Wow this topic was from last year? I must be slacking. I know I posted another message about it a week or two ago somewhere around here.
Currently working on Super-Search which is badly needed.
ps. ah here’s my more recent comments on this idea: https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/to-bbpress-or-to-wordpress#post-21148
Michael should be finishing up from the WP 2.7 release and hopefully will be able to comb through his emails and bbpress stuff soon.
Why not let Sam have a little more time on it and give Michael some time to recover from the WP 2.7 release so he can switch back his mindset over here when he can.
WP 2.7 is nothing to celebrate, it’s more bloated than ever before and breaks more plugins than ever before. I wouldn’t be in a rush to upgrade to it on existing sites. I really miss the light/fast mentality of WP 2.0 and 2.1 – long gone now.
Oh also, the next alpha will have even more internal changes than the change from 1.0a1 to 1.0a2 – it’s not ready yet IMHO as I already found three bugs in it yesterday.
It also completely renames many files which is going to cause a mess for those who simply dump one install over another in their directory.
I call that full or complex integration and it’s mentioned in Integration 101 and many others do it I believe, despite my advise not to (until WordPress uses BackPress like bbPress 1.0)
Try replacing that line in your .htaccess file with this
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .php
AddType application/x-httpd-php5 .php
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .php4
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php4
