I’ll have to check it out. I agree with you, I think I sent you an email with a description of how it would need to work and how it could be used in a way that didn’t break pagination, pagination config changes and quoting plugins.
I was able to achieve most of what I wanted to do with almost no core hacks.
I editted my template front-page.php to basically be topic.php but without the re_permalink() ; call and statically setting $topic_id = 2.
The core hack I made was to change functions.bb_templates.php to modify all location query functions to trick it into thinking ‘front-page’ is topic-page instead (these are mostly case statements inside functions like is_front() and is_topic()) , meaning that post.php, post-form.php and /bb-post.php all fuinctioned on my new front page in the same way they would on topic.php. I would prefer to develop a plugin that did this modification, but I don’t have time to make one.
So it essentially does what I wanted it to do, albeit with a core hack that will have to be manually maintained in future releases unless a plugin is developed.
In the last few days, I’ve basically discovered that neither WordPress or bbPress can do more than 60% of what I want, and it’s a different 60% in each case. bbPress has one major advantage for me over WordPress right now, and that is bbPress Moderation Suite. WordPress has nothing remotely resembling it and I doubt I’ll be able to find someone willing to build it, even for cash. But even bbPress Moderation Suite is missing one key thing for me, and that’s email notification to the users, but Nightgunner is working on that one already.
I’ve been playing with this one and there’s a modification I would mind seeing, or some help on how to make the modification.
I’m trying to use the AJAX Quote plugin with this, but unfortunately it breaks. The reason is simple … the AJAX Quote plugin basically copies the id=x&page=y#post-zz into the postbox so that you can find and navigate to the original post being quoted. When using this script, it gets broken because the most recent posts are always on page=1, meaning that when a post that’s been replied to gets bumped to page=2, the link is now incorrect.
What I’d like to see is that the page id’s for a paginated topic don’t change … the earliest post will always be page=1 and the most recent posts will be on the highest page number. I can see that the quoting system can still be broken if the posts per page setting is changed, I know. But assuming it doesn’t change, then this would maintain the integrity of the quote links.
Any ideas?
I am looking into both options and trialling both, allowing my mod team to make a decision.
So whilst I am progressing WordPress, I’m still pretty keen to find out how I can make http://www.domain.com/bbPress/topic.php?id=2 display as http://www.domain.com/bbPress/. Hell, if I wanted to I could just do an Apache rewrite on / to be topic.php?id=2 or stick a redirect in place of the existing index.php, but I am concerned that this will break other things.
I have an alternate question on this now.
I want http://www.domain.com/bbPress/ to always be what would normally be displayed at http://www.domain.com/bbPress/topic.php?id=2.
I know how to manipulate the templates sufficiently to cripple the navigation and make it look like there is only one page, but I don’t know how to change front-page.php (as referred to in index.php) to essentially be topic.php?id=2 so that is the default index view.
Any ideas?
I’m not even considering Joomla for this. Joomla is for the news part of our site and not a consideration for this at all.
I’m basically tossing up between bbPress and WordPress.
I like the bbPress plugin bbPress Moderation Suite because it will allow my moderators to ban users for a period, generate an email and automatically remove the ban once it expires. However, I’m yet to find a way to reverse the order of posts in a topic so it’s most recent to least recent.
However, I find it easier to limit WordPress to only showing a “single topic” because, essentially, I can just post a single item and have the Comments do the rest. With some minor tweaks I can have the default WordPress page as the single post and remove other navigation features. I have the plugin for reversing the sort order so that’s covered too. But the user moderation features don’t appear to match that of “bbPress Moderation Suite” and I’m keen to have that for my moderators.
Basically, I’m looking for forum-like features with the following constraints:
- a single topic and viewing it is the default page
- descending sort order
- no user private messaging
If I can then add poll and live chat plugins, as well as some basic filtering options by allowing posters to tag their posts, that would be a bonus.
I am considering that approach as well. Part of the problem I face using WordPress is finding the plugins to allow the user moderation, comment moderation and user profile features I’m after. Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong places for WordPress plugins, I dunno. I’ve been spending most of my time looking at Joomla for another major site replacement so haven’t got much time to explore WordPress.
I mentioned over on _ck_’s forum that I’m willing to pay someone to help me nut this out … whether it’s WordPress comments-based or bbPress matters little to me, I’m just looking for a solution 
Cheers,
Chris.
