[@johnjamesjacoby Keymaster 16 years, 8 months ago]

Check this topic…

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/integrate-wp27-and-bbp10a2

Then, check it again for exactness…

Then, check it a third time…

It took me a little back-and forth, but I was able to make all of my logins and logouts work in every direction without any hacking of the core files or additional plug-ins.

[@johnjamesjacoby Keymaster 16 years, 8 months ago]

It’s really almost impossible as the role data is serialized within the wp_usermeta table… I was poking around in there and figured it was best left alone, even if it’s not working, it ain’t quite totally broken yet.

I’ve found that when I have everything all hooked together, that the capabilities of my users seems off. Like as it sits right now, with WordPress and bbPress together, I can’t even make a topic or reply.

I think that the problem takes places in bb-includes/capabilities.php, somewhere around line 29

$retvalue = call_user_func_array(array(&$bb_current_user, 'has_cap'), $args);

For me, this function returns nothing when the value is indeed true or 1 in the $bb_current_user array… But it only messes up when WordPress is included in the bb-config.php file, otherwise it’s fine…

[@johnjamesjacoby Keymaster 16 years, 8 months ago]

I find myself in the same boat. Actually, somehow my admin with user_id of 1 is marked as inactive, and when I try to edit his profile to change it back, I get all kinds of funkiness that spits out.

Seems the roles still need some TLC.

[@johnjamesjacoby Keymaster 16 years, 8 months ago]

I think that the user experience ultimately should define itself as the audience grows.

I recently just witnessed a GIANT misstep on one of the larger forums I’ve been involved with. They moved from ZeroForums to vBulletin, and of the 1.2 million active members and COUNTLESS posts and topics, it managed to work pretty alright on ZeroForums. It was simple and people got used to using it the only way they could on such a large forum; they had a link to the topics you’ve posted in or are watching, and you can keep track of new posts there.

That’s it.

It was so simple but it worked so well. It let you peek your head out and scour some forums for new content if you wanted to, but it allowed you to stick inside the topics you were the most comfortable with and related the most to.

vBulletin totally removed that link, and because it handles searches differently, it’s taken 2 days so far and the search functionality still isn’t working because there is so much data to catalog.

Basically they had a forum that worked for what it’s users needed it to work as. The theme was so simple and stripped down but allowed for basic BB tags and had a good distinction between those tags. It had just the right balance of user profile customization (signature, avatar, etc) without making a social networking site.

I think what bbPress does, is it allows the administrator to decide how much of what type of emphasis can be placed on what areas of the discussion, and to add or remove those things via plug-ins without hurting the data.

I personally think that end users have no idea what they want, and regardless of what you serve them they won’t be happy. The idea is to provide them 1 option and force them to adapt to it without ever feeling like they are learning something totally from scratch.

How many times have you asked someone what they’re hungry for and they say “Oh I dunno, you?” If you said “Hey I want pizza, is that cool?” they will probably say “Sure.”

In the dinner choices of life, bbPress is a pizza crust and the plug-ins are the toppings.

[@johnjamesjacoby Keymaster 16 years, 8 months ago]

You know, that WordPress is really an elaborate Forum clone, right?

Years ago, forums were threaded email responses back and forth that were documented hierarchically. Then, the idea of threads was cast away because it was thought to be too complicated to understand. Why would someone branch off to speak to a reply instead of replying to the original post/poster?

To me, it’s the nature of group discussion, and it is the difference between the intent of WordPress and bbPress, at least it was before WordPress 2.7 brought back threaded comments.

A forum is intended for multiple, typically registered commited users, and invokes group discussion that is often times allowed to skate off-topic as people reply to other people. Sometimes reply counts can escalate into the hundreds or thousands depending on the size of the forum.

A blog is intended to allow a few authors to create articles and attempts to cater to non-committed users that drop by, can leave a comment, and never look back if they don’t want to.

Since the emphasis of a blog is the initial post, comment replies typically tend to stay on topic.

Since the emphasis of a forum is to spark conversation, replies typically tend to drift off topic.

The funny thing is that both of these display methods use almost the exact same data storage and retrieval methods. Data is categorized and tagged as necessary, with a time-stamp, an excerpt, and other pertinent information.

The one major way that blogs differ from forums, is that forums restrict posts to one forum or category while blogs allow for one post to be in several. This ability inherently changes the emphasis away from categorization and towards the content of the post itself and how it relates to other possible posts.

I moved away from phpBB and towards WordPress for this specific attribute alone. Since posts can often times benefit from being in multiple categories, a blog style system makes a great deal of sense.

I think that the similarities between WordPress and bbPress exist only because they share a similar intent with data storage and categorization, and if you’ve ever read two books by the same author you’ll understand how both of them will read very similarly.

Overall I am happy that the authors of WordPress have made bbPress, as it shows a recognition of the distinct differences between the two of them.

I think as time passes, you will start to see more of how these two tools come from the same family but are different members all together. Think of them as fraternal twins.