[grassrootspa]

I like how you have your topic page display posts, voices and views (never thought to include views as well).

Your theme looks great Gautam. Not sure what else to do/change!

[grassrootspa]

Not sure if you are using this or not (I don’t think so because ‘Sticky’ shows) but try the bb-topic icon plugin (https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/bb-topic-icons/)

With the new version you can select your own icons!

[grassrootspa]

@yutt (or is it Skull Man?) & Dailytalker:

I agree 100% with your points. ‘Simplicity is a feature’ and ‘less is more’ are great slogans, but it’s impractical to require someone to find/research/download/upload/configure zillions of plugins to do extremely basic forum tasks that are taken for granted with other programs. I want a stable forum program that contains basic features that aren’t going to stop working if a plugin developer walks away or won’t update them to work with future bbPress builds. I love bbPress but find it just too stripped-down and feature-less out of the box. Would be great to see more optional features you can use or turn off like Gravatars. The default text input interface in-particular leaves much to be desired.

Plugins like Topic Views should be incorporated into the base feature-set of BBpress as well as things like Widgets and the ability to edit themes or plugins from within the admin.

I am not a professional programmer and really admire and appreciate those who develop plugins, such as NightGunner5, Paul Hawke, Michael Adams etc. Going out on a limb here, I would guess it would not be too difficult to incorporate SOME of the more popular plugin features into the Core (especially focusing on _ck_’s best stuff as she will likely not be back). Again, I’m not talking about building in Nintendo emulators or Weatherbug displays but why the heck should someone need a plugin to display how many times a topic has been viewed?!?

@all:

Something I think base minimalists and more-base-feature advocates like yutt & Dailytalker would all agree on is that that bbPress’s admin should display plugin update notifications like WordPress’s admin does. This would be extremely helpful for everyone, especially when security risks are discovered in plugins one has running.

Haha, I bet even kevinjohngallagher would agree with me on this one!

[grassrootspa]

1) Hmm, you can really install bbPress in any folder but here is a popular setup (buddypress like this one): Try this:

Let’s say your site is leftcoastmichael.com.

In your ‘wordpress’ leftcoastmichael.com directory you have 3 wordpress file directories (wp-admin, wp-content, wp-includes)

Just make a 4th file directory (forums) for all your bbPres stuff (bb-admin, bb-includes, etc).

Blam, that’s it.

2) If you want to integrate with WordPress use the same database info that you used in your WordPress config.

Hope this helps.

[grassrootspa]

@ Gautam:

Thanks so much. Turns out the page-links-background gif was missing from the images folder.

You are the best!

[grassrootspa]

Is there something that should be in my css?

[grassrootspa]

He also released this one too:

Topic Freshness Filter (https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/bbfreshness/)

Great to see him cranking these out!

[grassrootspa]

@kriskl:

I like where are going. Perhaps you are on to something. Building off your initial idea, what about some sort of 2010 plugin development contest?

As you noted, several people here chipped into _ck_ and got their money returned. I’m sure those same people might be open to something like this.

Heck, if we had some ‘bbPress plugin contest’ I’ll chip in something.

Anyone else like have any thoughts on this? Would anyone else be willing to donate toward a bbPress plugin development contest?

If we can get 10 folks to match one another at $25 or $50 each we can get a small but sizable initial pot built.

The Sandbox development contest back in 2007 initially had $500 total to distribute between 1st, 2nd and 3rd place (http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2007/05/31/announcing-the-sandbox-designs-competition/) After some sponsorships the total in competition prizes rose to $1950. (http://sndbx.org/details/)

Look, the top prize is most likely not going to be a zillion bucks, but it its not a bad idea to stick a steroid shot in the plugin development arm and get some more people fired up (or fired up once again) about bbPress development.

Heck, even if someone took an existing plugin that didn’t work with bbPress 1.02 and updated it, this would be an improvement.

Perhaps this plugin contest could be scheduled/built around around the revamping/relaunching of the bbPress.org site and the introduction of the new bbPress codex section.

Thoughts? Anyone else willing to match a small donation toward such a contest? Haha, if people like this idea, the bbPress Theme contest comes next

[grassrootspa]

Hmmm, here is an example of what is being generated. Looks like the ahref is remaining blank ( <a href=""> ):

<tr class="bb-precedes-sibling bb-follows-sibling bb-child alt">



<td class="num" style=padding:2px><img src='http://newstalkpa.com/graphics/redfolder20.gif' width='30' height='20'><br></td>



<td><div class="nest"><a href="http://newstalkpa.com/forum.php?id=23">Montgomery County</a><small> – Norristown, Conshohocken & Pottstown</small></div></td>



<td class="num">1</td>

<td class="num">3</td>

<td class="num" style=padding:0px>

<img src='http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=9d50ea21b75d0928eaf9487d20e9da06' width='24' height='24'><br></td>

<td class="num">

<small><a href="http://newstalkpa.com/profile.php?id=118" >amstay</a></small>

</td>



<td class="num"><a href="">Castor replacement</td>



<tr class="bb-precedes-sibling bb-follows-sibling bb-child">



<td class="num" style=padding:2px><img src='http://newstalkpa.com/graphics/redfolder20.gif' width='30' height='20'><br></td>



<td><div class="nest"><a href="http://newstalkpa.com/forum.php?id=26">Bucks County</a><small> – Doylestown, Levittown, Quakertown & Yardley</small></div></td>

<td class="num">1</td>

<td class="num">2</td>



<td class="num" style=padding:0px>

<img src='http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=439035a0912b61919d4611d60a7904b2' width='24' height='24'><br></td>

<td class="num">

<small><a href="http://newstalkpa.com/profile.php?id=21" >frank</a></small>

</td>



<td class="num"><a href="">Pat Toomey In Bucks County - July 18th!</td>

[grassrootspa]

Michael:

Everyone’s different, but I do like your forum’s current look. Looks very sophisticated and more like a vBulletin theme than a bbPress theme. Maybe your new one will be even better though.

Haha, I liked BusinessLike too and was actually going to build a new theme around it as well (I prefer the fluid look, the fixed width feels limiting as to what you can do). After a bit of playing just decided to make my current theme fluid.

(This was my old layout structure: http://SportsTalkPA.com/

Here is the new fluid one: http://NewsTalkPA.com/

Obviously the colors are different, but you get the general idea.

I’m running into problems with the forum.php and frontpage.php coding for some reason (see the bottom: last poster, last poster gravatar, link to last post in forum are not generating properly) The last poster/gravatar stuff is appearing on the wrong line for some reason and the link to the last forum post doesn’t work.

[grassrootspa]

@ Michael:

Your forum is incredible. One of the best bbPress designs I have ever seen. Did you do it all yourself?

[grassrootspa]

My apologies for bumping this up but:

<td class="num"><a href="<?php $topic = $GLOBALS['topic'] = current( get_latest_topics( array( 'number' => 1, 'forum' => get_forum_id() ) ) ); ?>"><?php topic_title(); ?></a></td>

…makes the last forum post appear, but the hyperlink does NOT work (the link generated is the current page that the reader is on).

Any idea how to resolve this?

[grassrootspa]

Having the same issue. Hopefully someone will solve this!

[grassrootspa]

johnhiler, this looks great! Thank you very much. Have you had any negative experiences with people quickly signing up with fake emails and flaming someone, trouble-making, harassing someone, etc?

The one thing I like about email verification, (or FB verification) is it goes a little farther in holding people accountable. Any war stories to share?!?

[grassrootspa]

@ chrishajer, just curious, have you had any issue with your 3 forums’ bbPress registration emails hitting folks’ spam folks? Had this issue with Yahoo, gmail, hotmail and other emails accounts. (It’s still not 100% resolved with all email accounts)

I must confess, this was initially a bit of a headache for this server newbie. (People complain that the registration doesn’t work, others don’t say anything and give up on the site at that point thinking the software doesn’t work) This really isn’t a problem with bbPress, but it is a tough issue to figure out when you are just learning the LAMP ropes. Thank goodness for knowledgeable server buddies!

Not sure if this explains anything, but this is one of the reasons (a minor one) why this LAMP newbie like the idea of allowing others ways to login like FB Connect…(it eliminates that potentially-troublesome email verification step and allows them to jump right in).

BTW, I would be ecstatic is FB Connect emerged as a plugin first and the next bbPress release focused on other things like integration, some cool new features, etc. You are a good salesman.

[grassrootspa]

Best of luck with your future projects Sam. I am still enjoying your bbPress 1.0.2 release.

[grassrootspa]

@ johnhiler:

You make a lot of excellent points. It’s funny you bring up the memory issues (had to move my news website site from Godaddy to my own server because of that very issue with WordPress).

This is a great community and have no doubt it’s going to be a fun year for bbPress. Can’t wait to see where things go in the next six months!

[grassrootspa]

@ (my affable sparring partner) kevinjohngallagher:

1) re: the 350 million facebook users, there was just a story on Mashable ‘Facebook’s Road to 350 Million Users’: (http://mashable.com/2009/12/02/facebook-350-million-users/)

“Mark Zuckerberg’s note detailing Facebook’s latest privacy changes also contained an announcement about another important milestone for Facebook: 350 million users.”

Facebook’s own website: (http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics):”‘More than 350 million active users”

I’m just going with what they said

2) I don’t have official ‘stats’ but can tell you Facebook connect is put to use on my site (I run Intense Debate, which offers various ways folks can leave comments). Twitter connect is occasionally as well (but not as much as FB connect) My general point is this: it’s optional and it and brings new folks into the discussion. IntenseDebate was smart to incorporate several different optional login methods! From my standpoint, I am very happy to offer FB connect to my readers

3) “So, who are these magical little elves that are going to build and then maintain all these features??” (BTW, I too am a South Park fan so I immediately got your reference):

Build and maintain all those features? You are missing my point…if existing popular plugins like ‘topic views’ or ‘bbcode’ are built into the core a third party no longer needs to maintain the plugin and make sure they don’t break in bbPress 1.0, bbPress 1.1, etc. They are STANDARDIZED and can be further fleshed out! (WordPress example: Just like WordPress did with the automatic updater and ability to thread comments…) _ck_ came up with some really slick and widely used plugins, and she is probably won’t be maintaining them from here on out. Maybe stuff like ‘BBcode Buttons’ should continue as a Core features?

Even though we both disagree on some of these things, we both want the same thing…bbPress to be more widely used & developed and the bbpress community to grow (those that make plugins, templates, etc). I would also like to see bbPress to emerge as a vBulletin alternative.

Again, things like Voices, gravatars, profile pics, profile occupation and location, tags etc could have all been simply left as plugins, but they were incorporated into the core. My overall point (forget FB connect for a sec) is that things like Voices, gravatars, profile pics, profile occupations, location, and other features are part of the core and that is a very good thing! It makes it easier for bbPress to be more widely used because a separate plugin is not needed for each (good for newbies, stability, and so community can further flesh them out via plugins or themes) There is less danger of those features breaking (they are now features of the Core, not separate plugins). The use of those features is standardized so plugins and themes can be developed to make use of those features without requiring a plugin to use each.

In a nutshell, I think things like bbcode, topic views, and some other plugins should sit alongside Voices, gravatars, etc as features that should be incorporated into the Core.

kevinjohngallagher, I love your passion. I am someone who is probably not as skilled as you are with computers and technology (17FB accounts…you sound busy!) I’m not a developer, just some newbie that taught himself how to run WordPress and bbPress by messing around with the stuff.

We aren’t going to agree on Facebook-connect (it’s a tougher sell than some of the others), but I would wager that there is probably a popular plugin or two that you might also agree should logically be part of the core for stability and out-of-the-box-feature issues. Thoughts?

[grassrootspa]

@ All (Respectfully)

Another thing…many of you look at proposals to add features to the core as things you MUST use.

What is the harm in including additional features which can be optionally turned on or off.

FB connect aside, I do not understand the opposition to making FB’s core more robust feature wise. Adding more features to the core standardizes those features so they do not break in future builds and allows even better plugins to be unveiled to customize them further.

[grassrootspa]

I strongly disagree (respectfully) with all of you.

bbPress should try to make it as EASY as possible for folks to join in the conversation. Short of anonymous forum posting (which can get personal and go to the gutter quick) FB connect is the next best thing to someone registering traditionally. Heck, they are essentially signing their name to their stuff! On my site I offer Twitter and FB login via IntenseDebate and get people to use them all the time for commenting.

You may call it the flavor of the week, but Facebook has more than 350 million active users. Imagine (as a user…please separate yourself from the admin process) visiting a forum and knowing you can immediately log in and join the discussion with your FB account. I’ve used FB connect myself on some sites where I would not have bothered registering. Again, this should be an optional feature a la Intense Debate’s interface where it can be turned on or off.

@ kevinjohngallagher (btw, I appreciate your comments, shame we disagree on some of this stuff):

“Maybe i’ve got this wrong, but BBpress is forum software. Forum’s of this format have been around for 20 years now, and have gotten along with without Facebook Connect. If this has changed, can someone pelase let us know?”

Matt’s made a comments re: bbPress and forums a while back along the lines that forums really haven’t changed that much in the past ten years. Exactly. Allow stuff like FB connect to encourage conversations and bring them into the next century! Let’s help bbPress evolve and become more robust featurewise so it buries vBulletin!

[grassrootspa]

@ Dailytalker: My thoughts exactly.

RE: (2), in this day and age people hate having to register a new user name and password for every single site they want to interact on. Like it or not, FB is the big social-networking dog out there. I think all our bbPress sites would see more interactions if FB connect could be used (optionally turned on or off).

Anyone else out there want to see ‘IntenseDebate-Connect’ ?

[grassrootspa]

@ kevinjohngallagher:

One doesn’t need bbpress to display Voices, but it’s built into the core.

One doesn’t need bbpress to give every registered user a profile pic or gravatar, but it’s built into the core.

One doesn’t need bbpress to display Tags, but it’s built into the core.

One doesn’t need bbpress to allow users to ‘favorite’ posts, but it’s built into the core.

One doesn’t need bbpress to display a user’s recent activisty, but it’s built into the core.

One doesn’t need bbpress to display a user’s location, occupation, and interests, but it’s built into the core.

We could go on, and on, and on. One could make the argument that those features above (as well as others) could easily just be offered as plugins (no one REALLY needs to use them) but they are there to make the software more robust, fun, and useful! Think about each one and how things like Tags, favorites, gravatars, profile pics could simply be kept as plugins. Thank God those features were incorporated into the core.

Yes, bbPress could be the most barebone of all barebone bulletin board programs, with multiple plugins required to do anything more than throwing up a forum post, but for this software to become what WordPress is to blogging/CMS software it needs to offer a more robust list of core features that can be refined and further fleshed out with future plugins.

Again, I’m not saying you NEED to have TinyMCE turned on, use bbPress widgets, show how many times a topic has been viewed, display how many users are online, or use (new) default topic icons, but build this stuff into the core so folks can optionally use it, develop plugins to flesh those features out (imagine plugins/themes built around customizing various icon sets), and this stuff can grow with bbPress.

bbPress is like 1.93 MB is size. Plugins like mini-stats are 37.9 KB. You guys are killing me, like incorporating stuff like some of the more popular plugins is going to make bbPress too bulky and bloated to use? Someone isn’t going to go, OMG, bbPress is 2.20 MB in size, its just to bloated to download and install on my server and it offers too many optional features! Come on guys, this is getting silly. Let’s make bbPress more robust in features so it blows vBulletin out of the water.

[grassrootspa]

@ timskii, great observations. re: “There’s a risk of being unable to upgrade because a key plugin won’t work anymore” and “Joanna Average forum reader doesn’t care about any of that, and is probably keener on things like WYSYWYG, email, etc”:

This is exactly why some of the more widespread plugins and features should be incorporated into the core as optional features one can turn on or off. It seems silly to force someone to download a plugin and mess with the template to do basic bulletin board admin tasks like display how many times a topic has been viewed, throw an icon next to each forum topic, allow rich text for those posting.

My only major complaint after a year of bbPress use is the lack of features/polish that exist in vBulletin. Simply put, its just too bare after initial install. I know this will be extremely unpopular to many of you, but over the past couple years there have been many great plugins developed, like private messaging, TinyMCE/rich text, topic views, Allow Images, Smilies, User Directory, Members Online, Related Topics, Reputation, Top Posters, Terms of Service, and some of these features should really be incorporated into the Core as OPTIONS that can be turned and off. So should stuff like the ability to set default topic icons, human test for signups (@$%@%$ spam users), widgets for the sidebar, ability to delete topics, Post Rating, etc. I’m not saying every single feature out there should be incorporated, but what is the hangup with more stuff that can be optionally turned on or off in the admin? If its in the Core, its not going to break when a new version comes out, and additional plugins can be developed to customize those features even more!

Right now bbPress is VERY bare after initial install so multiple plugins are required to snazz it up…and you can’t even edit the css or template from inside the bbpress admin. And yes there are plugins for everything but the kitchen sink, but some of the older plugins don’t work in newer versions of bbPress! Not sure how many of use also use IntenseDebate, but bbPress software’s core admin should consider have some of the same stuff which can easily be turned on or off, like voting, reputation, smilies (http://intensedebate.com/features or http://intensedebate.com/plugins)

How cool would it be for a brand new bbPress install to optionally display which users are online, how many views a topic has, or topic icons right out of the box with no fiddling with the css or template files/additional plugin installs? I’m not saying a Nintendo emulator or Weatherbug display should be built in, but if bbPress remains so barebone, it won’t fill the free-easy-to-install easy-to-use vBulletin alternative niche (it should).

[grassrootspa]

This is so awesome. Way to go Maurice.

[grassrootspa]

@ Matt: was just going to write the same exact thing. What’s the harm with including more popular features (like FB connect or TinyMCE) that can easily be turned on and off?