[DennisH]

@diegozaks: Sounds like you have a special character(s) in your db. You need to find and delete them. I had the same issue.

http://www.forlang.wsu.edu/help/keyboards.asp

[DennisH]

@sambauers Could you post that “trivial” code that allows for a BB login box in WP that will redirect back to the page after login?

BTW: I have deep integration.

[DennisH]

@heartson is bb and phpbb in the same db?

[DennisH]

DennisH and mark-k – I think your discussion is worthy of another topic, so it doesn’t get lost here.

What topic would that be? I’ve addressed these issues in other topics and have always been given the BB standard “No replies since.” At this point those non-solution iframe replies would be a relief.

PS

Sorry for the frustration.

[DennisH]

@johnhiler Thanks for the links. I’ve decided it only makes sense for us to use BB if it was deeply integrated. I’m willing to take the server hit, it can’t be any worse than what phpbb is doing.

@mark-k I think you would be everyones hero if you pulled it off. Instead of one big plugin, maybe you could do several smaller ones.

The one thing I can’t wrap my head around is login pages and profile pages. Having 2 different pages (integrated or not) is not only confusing to users it’s confusing to administrators. In a perfect world BB would handle all of this, but we know that’s not the case. So what to do? You can’t have a BB “login box” in WP, but BB should be their only profile page (that’s where they will be uploading avatars, checking PMs, etc.). So could you redirect WP login page to BB? If so how would you automatically redirect them back to the last visited blog page? I’m so confused I don’t even know how to write these questions intelligently. How do you have just one login page and just one profile page?

PS

I got the avatars working.

[DennisH]

Same here. Passwords do not work. Users need to reset them.

[DennisH]

Deep integration is what I meant when I said we intergrated our theme. Outside of a few minor adjustments we used this method:

http://tinsology.net/2009/05/seamless-wordpress-bbpress-integration/

It worked very well in terms of using WP within BB. The issue now is getting BB within WP.

[DennisH]

@Ipstenu – It’s not the glitter and unicorns that make a site hard to convert, but best practices If you designed your website with good XHTML etc, it’s a simple matter (a weekend at most) to convert it to WordPress or bbPress or BuddyPress.

That was just my attempt at humor.

We where able to integrate BB into our WP theme is about 30min. Although restyling everything is still ongoing, but that’s not a issue with BB (although more themes would be great). With the WP header/footer there is some issues with BB plugins that require javascript, but we are working around that.

The issue I have with “integration” is that WP should be able to call info BB and vice versa. That’s it.

The other issue I have is that v1.0 more or less killed all the developments that came before it.

I think BB is great and I wouldn’t be spending my time here if I didn’t. After solving a major issue with converting our old phpbb forum we have decided to push forward with bbPress.

So now I’m off to figure out how to call up Bavatars in the post.php file. If I have time after that I will try and get that BB welcome/login message in the header working.

[DennisH]

@Ipstenu: Deep Integration worked nearly out of the box for me on BuddyPress. I don’t do it on WP because really I don’t need it when I can easily reproduce my theme for bbPress. But still, no hacks were needed, just a tweak of the bb-config.php and some jiggering of a theme. Took me all of an afternoon.

We have lots of glitter text and animated gifs of unicorns on our site so it may take more than a afternoon.

@Ipstenu: Gravatar works fine.

Gravatars are great for some sites, but I was looking for more of a custom solution. I think customizing their profile even if it’s just a avatar gives members a sense of belonging and therefor more likely to comeback.

[DennisH]

At this point I’ll take 1 out of 3.

I’m not talking about plugins. I’m talking about having to hack almost every bbpress php file to include the wp header and footer or having to hack the config files.

The phpbb solution at the time (a year ago)was a HUGE F@#*ING HACK, but now that phpbb has a automod (or whatever they are calling it) it’s basically as easy as a plugin.

I’m not looking for the login form (I’m building a lightbox for that), I’m talking about:

“Welcome, _ck_ ! View your profile (Admin | Log Out) 5 New Private Messages”

As far as Avatars I’m using the wp-united on the live site (phpbb avatars). For BB I have not found a solution yet that will work or integrate into both BB and WP.

[DennisH]

Buddypress group forums run on bbpress. Besides, wp-united hooks into more than the user table.

I would hope that Automattic would at the very least see where there is user demand and make some effort to fulfill that demand. After all it’s their users a developers that are responsible for their huge success. I guess I can understand them feeling that we give you the software for free so you shouldn’t complain, but those users/developers create, extend, promote and for the most part supply customers service for them.

Nevertheless, statements like this can lead to the wrong impression:

Easy integration with your blog

WordPress and bbPress are siblings, and they get along together a lot better than you and your brother did when you were kids!

I don’t think I’m alone in this. Just look at your tags.

We have been able to pull off much of what I described here. We have integrated bbpress into our theme. We have converted phpbb forums posts and users and have integrated them. We have been able to list new posts in WP. We have been able to do about 75% of what we need so far. Avatars are still a issue. And I can’t see why it’s so hard to put a bbpress login box in WP.

So its not that much of this can’t be done. I just fear with so many hacks it could be trouble down the road.

[DennisH]

@_ck_: So are you using that phpbb3 integration?

If it works so well, I am curious why you are here?

It does work well.

There are several reasons I’m here.

First, although it has been recently taken over and updated that mod was abandoned for over a year by its creator . During the period it was MIA we where locked in and it was very had to upgrade to new versions of WordPress. It wasn’t compatible with 2.6. All that has changed recently and upgrading and installing is much easier. But, even though it is “under new management” I didn’t want to be held hostage by one developer.

Second, I wanted a lighter site. Phpbb is great but it can be overkill sometimes.

Third, at some point in the future we want to move to Buddypress. I thought moving to bbpress would get us ready for that next step.

Forth, we are adding about 500 new members each month so if we where unable to move those users and posts it was better to start over now rather than later.

Fifth, Although phpbb was well integrated in terms of users and themes there was still a sense of 2 different sites. I was hoping that because bbpress was made by the same people as WP we could better integrate both style and function.

I knew going into this that WP-United was currently a better option, but I was willing to overlook those smaller details in order to be with a platform that would grow with us. Now my fear is that bbpress will grow in the wrong direction (if at all).

PS

I want to thank you personally. Your contributions are a main reason we decided to give this a try… and continue to try.

PSS

The reason I bring up WP-Untied is not because I want people to drop bbpress for phpbb. I bring it up as and example of what bbpress could be or at least inspiration for new plugins.

[DennisH]

I got the following error when converting:

General Error

SQL ERROR [ mysql4 ]

Data too long for column ‘post_text’ at row 1 [1406]

An SQL error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact the Board Administrator if this problem persists.

I solved this issue. It was the © symbol in some of the posts causing the error.

Another question: any ideas on redirecting perm links from the old phpbb to bbpress?

[DennisH]

All I’m saying is it’s as if Apple built a ipod that wasn’t compatible with a Mac.

I believe Automattic’s only concern is TalkPress and anything that doesn’t fit into that model they don’t care about.

[DennisH]

@gardenfl: My main complaint would be that sifting through this site for solutions it is sometimes difficult to figure out version compatibility.

Yes, searching for solutions is really frustrating. Like most people trying to decide if they should jump in I looked trough the plugins and other mods only to find out later many/most are out of date. Installing a older version of BB isn’t a real option when you want a forward looking cms. This is of course no ones fault (at least not the plugin developers), I am very thankful for what is there.

@chrishajer: bbPress is not right for some people, but it’s just fine for a lot of others.

But how do we define “a lot of others?” I think there are huge numbers of users out there looking for a truly integrated solution. I don’t see many people using bbPress as a stand alone community forum. There are other forum platforms that fulfill that need. I believe most of the adapters of BB will be users that want to integrate a forum into their current site. BB may be good for someone that just wants a support forum (or something along those lines), but the true market is site owners that want to add more community features…. and that means true integration.

@johnhiler: I agree that bbPress lacks many social features… but that’s not really the scope of the project, which is more focused on forums? If there’s a specific feature you’d like to see, let us know in the forums!

A forum is a “social feature.” Now that does mean it has to be Facebook, but it should have some basic features.

These are some of the features I would love to see some day (I know some can be done with plugins and hacks, but I would like to see more “stable” solutions):

bbPress “login box” in WP (with new private messages and profile link).

Integrated bbPress in a WP page that strips out the bbPress header and footer (theme integration)

Integrated Avatars

Blog Comments listed in bbPress profile

Current forum topics/replies in WP

Integrated bbcode in WP comments

Facebook Connect, Twitter, OpenID etc.

I’m sure I can think of more, but those are the ones that come to mind.

Here is a good list of features I would like to see:

http://www.wp-united.com/features/

The reason i decided to post this is to help voice concerns that may one day lead to a better BB and that will in turn lead to more developers and users. Not yet being knowledgeable enough to create these add-ons myself my voice is all I can currently contribute. Although, I soon hope to share how I overcame some of these issues and provide some inspiration and tips for others.

[DennisH]

….anyone?

[DennisH]

I have the sames issue using the most up to date versions of both BB and WP.

Anyone know what’s going on?

[DennisH]

I have the same issues.

Converted from phpbb3 and all passwords needed to be reset. Then tried to integrate and all the members disappeared except the WP ones.

[DennisH]

Also, do all passwords need to be reset afterwards?

[DennisH]

I got the following error when converting:

General Error

SQL ERROR [ mysql4 ]

Data too long for column ‘post_text’ at row 1 [1406]

An SQL error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact the Board Administrator if this problem persists.