[kevinjohngallagher]

I want to use it in bbPages to create, contact page, feed back forms and other stuff.. I was avoiding to create static pages like this

OK, cool.

While it might be possible, its not likely. Its not what bbPress was designed for. It’s not a Content Management System.

In honesty, if you want that sort of functionality, WordPress side by side with a bbPress forum is the best way forward.

[kevinjohngallagher]

In order for us to help, we’d really like to know in what situation you’d use this in. Can you give us an example where you would actually use this?

[kevinjohngallagher]

@kevinjohngallagher where are you man

help me, help you

Pagal,

In order for us to help, we’d really like to know in what situation you’d use this in. Can you give us an example where you would actually use this?

Respectfully, in the past you’ve asked for something vague, and it takes us about 2-3 days to get a real example of how you would use it, and then we solve it or you write:

bbpress sucks,

why you people did not shut down this software..if you are not able to do anything???????????????????????????????

– https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/extra-dropdown-field-in-registration-page#post-70307

Throws us some examples, and we’ll try to help

[kevinjohngallagher]

Yes

[kevinjohngallagher]

Ash mate, you know how much I like you and your work, but that poll is never going to give even close to an accurate figure. To start with you don’t know why people are voting for each one, or how often, or who’s voting.

I mean, Matt came on here and said that 0.9’s not been looked at in a long time and BAM 1.1 starts to get more votes. Matt forgets to mention, the 1.0 branch has had the same number of releases in the last year as the 0.9 branch: namely 0 !!

How much the 0.9 version has actually gone through testing and how much we can be confident it being secured.

Well it’s had 2 years more testing than 1.0 in the wild, and generally (apologies in advance) by people who are happier coding/debugging/ working without a GUI than the folks using 1.0 branch. Plus, the WP forums were running 0.9 until last August (at least), so it was known to be very secure then.

I know it may contain bugs, any code can but my curiosity lies in the testing & use it has gone through already.

A sh*t load more than 1.0.

Rememebr 1.0 was (another) rewrite decreeed from “above”, and we cancelled all Beta testing, and it took 10 alphas to even get useable (pres Alpha6 isn’t compatible with after-alpha-6), and broke most plugins etc. The process of getting 1.0 out the door also led to some of the real wizards leaving the project behind (see Chip Bennet, Justin Tadlock, JJJ, _ck_ etc), and released it in a week, and we released an update to 0.9 at the same time as 1.0’s last update

In my opinion, as someone who uses both; 1.0 only has 2 things going for it: The Admin section and it has more Actions/Filters.

Replicating actions/filters into 0.9 is easy. As _ck_ said, getting a nice looking UI into 0.9 is a mini project.

==============================================

1.1 has some good work, nae, some great work.

It also has some rusheed work, to get it out the door for testing.

It has at least 1000 lines of changed code last I checked (and that wasn’t today or yesterday) and we still have 10 tickets open – all before we release for Alpha testing, and all before we get a new package of BackPress released (in theory) after WP3.0.1’s release.

If we finished all of those tickets this week, and packaged an Alpha testing release for Monday, there is no way 1.1 will be released before September. Infact, we’re looking at a late-September/October release at a minimum, unless we skip testing and bug fixes (again).

Lets take our time and look at 0.9 objectively when 1.1 is close to coming out. Rushing into forks is just as dangerous as rushing into WP-reliant plugins

Ash mate, you’re a very smart guy. Go grab a busy forum and duplicate it on your machine, and convert to 0.9. You’ll very quickly see some of the small issues with it, but you’ll also be amazed at just how quick and robust it is.

[kevinjohngallagher]

In order to help get 1.1 out of the door (or actually to help get 1.0.3 out the door before the decree came down to not release 1.0.3) a large number of useful and needed Tickets in Trac were bumped to 1.5 ( now, “future release” – the name initself laughable ;-] ).

So I’ve moved a number (about 1/3) of those tickets back.

[kevinjohngallagher]

_ck_,

More truly excellent work.

I offered a different solution though, it’s a geneology plugin thats currently with a few folks for testing. It is far from as elegant as this (though it’s scope is wider).

One of the things that I’ve “diskiked” about bbPress is lack of support for heirarchies. I know you’ve written some excellent code for finding the last poster for forums with sub forums before, but like the code above, they’re all workarounds.

It also makes it difficult for theme developers to get on board when wanting to call basic API functions for “last poster” for a forum or topic etc. At some stage, I’d love a discussion on small things like this where we could improve bbP0.9

[kevinjohngallagher]

While it’s great that Matt is overseeing the complete reqrite of this project into something that requires WordPress to run, I think we should be just a tad guarded against getting euphoric about 1 line in 1 interview.

First off, the interview took places months before it’s published date, and lets remember that on 1st May (only 2 months ago) Matt’s opinion was this:

http://bbshowcase.org/audio/Matt-on-bbPress-2010-May-1.mp3

[kevinjohngallagher]

This topic has the topic ID “331”.

And my forum now has exactly 133 registered users. Is there a crash between these numbers?

[kevinjohngallagher]

We don’t need a fork –

bbPress standalone (which isn’t going to be discontinued until there’s a perfect converter to the plugin version)

Sweet, whats the time frame on this?

Because if this is way offin the future, then cool.

If this is this year, then it’s not.

The issue here is one of perspective, and we don’t have the data on this yet.

can easily be replaced with a WP install with only the bbPress on it

yeah, but some of us don’t want that…

[kevinjohngallagher]

But seriously – do people want display names because of lack of UTF8 support in user_login?

I find that people want display names for a few reasons:

• They like to have the same login name for websites
• They don’t want people to see/know their login name
• Their login name might be difficult as a username
• People are used to it from other forums. It’s no longer “standard” it’s a “baisc”.

Here’s an Real World example I dealt with today:

An MMO people playing forum, where people are displayed by their username, but they want to be displayed by their “character name”.

Here’s a Real World example I dealt with about a month ago:

A good willed American called Joh Mahone chooses the username “IrishMahone” for years, but when he joined one of my Irish Tourism boards, and gots abuse every time he posts. Thats because his username says “Irish My Ass” in Gaelic. This didn’t go down well.

So do 1.x/WP users allow members to change their display name to “administrator” ?

Or to mimic the names of moderators?

No, i’m sure there is a catch for this.

I’ve never liked display names, they are a really bad idea on an active forum where you cannot control the mental age or lack of social skills of some of the members.

True, and I’m all for worst case scenarios when coding; but surely it’s easier to put some kind of time lock on when or how often one can change their name? Or even have name changes approved? I’m just blurting ideas here – but if its something that people will miss when going from 1.0 to 0.9, then why don’t we think about a solution?

How much time do you spend in the admin section, does pretty really matter?

Pretty? no.

Usable? Hell yeah !!!

Sadly on my busier forums (moderation wise), the decision to upgrade from 0.9 to 1.0 was won over by the admin section. This is also true of bbPress installs for “less tech savy” users.

One of the things about your plugins _ck_ is that they mostly require people to open the file and manually edit. Thats not everyone’s cup of tea. Thats not to be disparaging of the method, or its reasons, but we’re at a stage now where people that come to forums expect an Admin UI and options to be there.

Also, and I think this is something tht no-ones said here, but if you think “bbPress, hear good things, lets look at this” and you download 0.9 and see THAT admin section and kakuemi theme, you’re not going to think “oh this looks good, modern andwell thought through” you’re going to think “awesome, i’m Marty McFly, my computer is a delorian, and i’ve landed in the 90s”.

[kevinjohngallagher]

I commented on that last night, time differences must be working against us, here’s my (slightly edited) reply:

Howdy Ben,

Just as I was about to head to bed I saw your post (thats my excuse for the typos).

I think matey, it’s a tad of an over simplification, and I think you’ve actually missed bits yourself (rather than missed them out).

1) [edited as off topic]

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/extra-dropdown-field-in-registration-page#post-70307

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/block-users-by-their-names

2) It’s not the first time that Zaerl’s mentioned trying to contact you about the updates he made to the plugin. Its not a bad comment on yourself at all bro. We know how these things go. Its more… the work he did was done months ago, he didn’t only do it last week (not sure how clear that was to you)

3) It’s cool that you’re cool with someone updating your code. It’s awesome. Not everyone is, and I think it’s good of Z to check first. It’s also been a strange “week” since he said he’d ask, and todays post. Like… ALOT has happened.

4) Zaerl’s statement is “wrong” in your opinion. We’re still very much at the mixed signals stage. If you look at everything posted by “those in the know”, there is no definative clear cut answer. On one hand we’re given good news, on the other bad. Basically, take 2 days off from reading the bbPress forum, and you’re on the wrong end of the swing/roundabout.

Plus I have an email from my conversation with AndyNacin/PeteMall/JJJ which states categorically that [the plugin] “will be the only supported version of bbPress” (the email thread is very open and honest – i couldn’t apprecaite it anymore if i tried. I just don’t like to nor have permission to repost it) or this post from JJJ https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/bbpress-plugin-is-born#post-71009

“This is the end of the line for the current implementation of bbPress?”

Yes.

Of course, there are other posts that suggest the opposite. It’s cool if you’re in the “everything will be OK camp”, jsut as much as it’s cool if Zaerl’s in the “no, it won’t camp”. But i don’t think anyone is categorically wrong.

5) bbP1.1 is further away from being released now than it was 8 weeks ago. After Matt wasn’t happy about releasing 1.0.3, telling ChrisH we had to wait for 1.1 to be finished, we bumped as much as we could from 1.1 to get the bug fixes in 1.0.3 out ASAP. If we’re not getting another bbPress standalone release for sure, then alot of them will have to go back into 1.1. If they go back into 1.1, I doubt it’ll be released before the Fall.

6) “And even if bbPress development was going to end, it’s open source, so just like b2/cafelog, a new project would spring up”

Thats very true mate. I’m sure it will. Doesn’t mean that Zaerl (or others) want to hang around here though.

7) You link to a post detailing _ck_’s “goodbye”. As much as _ck_ and I don’t see eye to eye on things, I can’t see one thing on her goodbye that doesn’t ring true.

Relax. We’ve done this before.

True Matt, but it didn’t inspire confidence then, it sure doesn’t inspire confidence now…

[kevinjohngallagher]

Well, bbPress as a plugin is official bbPress fork.

Ha

It’s really not.

It’s a totally new progam with the same name.

[kevinjohngallagher]

why not no need of “www”? reason?

We’ve known that using “www” during installs has caused issues in the past. Especially if you used “www” for one isntall and not the other.

Cookies are/were (been a long time since i looked into this) using the full URL so “www.bbpress.org”‘s cookie would be different from “bbpress.org”‘s cookie if you didn’t specify.

99/100 it makes no difference. 1/100 it does

.

.

You are right that there was no need for the salts when bbPress1.0 was released, but we’ve had 3 WP releases since then. I find its better to be safe than sorry.

So I’m confuse why we need two separate authentications for both wp and bbP.

In theory: You do not.

In Practice: It doesn’t hurt at all.

Request:

Can you please create two demo files for wp-config.php and bb-config.php with authentication keys, and make live them to pastebin.com & paste links here?

Sure, i’ll do that tonight when I get home.

Am off to see Toy Story3 in 10 mins.

[kevinjohngallagher]

Yes, there’s a plugin but It works only with older release bbPress

As do most plugins.

It’s just where we are I’m afraid

[kevinjohngallagher]

Well I can see some things I’d change. Will they make a difference? i don’t know, probably not, but again, they’re what I use.

(I wish the search function here was half decent so I could find the post I went into this in detail in…)

1) Get your authentication Keys from https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/bbpress/salt/

2) Copy your WordPress authentications into your bbPrefig file

define('AUTH_KEY',         '5G#If&OQrV:MfrjuU2;NKhfw|Z:|iU>@hw^LLTxv|~8KPC9S;-+r#J&|T=DS%#X8');

define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY',  'u.p|C]A*s*@M%VGr4;_Cc-*d|I:QjTT&p6kcTL:^X+tzUT)7k-S]h)q^c|||$uy;');

define('LOGGED_IN_KEY',    'xA+j,OZKD_*, 6|Jb7C6rS*3(oT4{-Y)R.E/|!xNtb8,GYzp,X-?i[HtTRE|81h=');

define('NONCE_KEY',        '4h035-4lx6-W.>dtZzRtA=XA+&G5v)llX[B>4--:>hX0h:Ey$afw|&[r_1zHQnZ^');

define('AUTH_SALT',        '+/poE0c>eRr#l54-r@:S.4HD^s3Zr%w-S;s++d,[ku5#Aj{N6g6T;.P>/UB8bIUn');

define('SECURE_AUTH_SALT', 'ck.^(0_T5tON$lTy>dkPZ#]1wZ~yKBkE0m>60H_FRG r6yXd#E|dhJAVvPDu5Kf.');

define('LOGGED_IN_SALT',   'Fz^)*aj<U[RxO3A][1K=pXX6a-4-<R7=[fe$1[hT5d!e-_onpNrk^t|j%!~a+;KP');

define('NONCE_SALT',       'TEdXdR+g]&YY9/YtZX^[,e{_U+^fSGcgt JqKB<[sh:3Jg<7RG~f_.xLX(9e5FXV');



define('BB_AUTH_KEY',         'f@X, B|4rcQ?sv#[]q+x;r =KO{r}i<|h%0=?>!/f|0A#[qzh9pNWdnZR8XadkFH');

define('BB_SECURE_AUTH_KEY',  'X0*%@*wpp(A[/(4RD(TWAnW7N[:gYBZ:@r}-z;w),|fptIbt5 Ro}8Tr?}-c-y+m');

define('BB_LOGGED_IN_KEY',    'cbal+zxea.]|C!ZsWQ6}cKy+?!eSs?@(t)qCz=H*4CDrZlXoC+-X#[h5Hl37LU~/');

define('BB_NONCE_KEY',        '4{ZC+__k{]MPr[I{~q$Muta#XghduMPBRQvNZqFIm-~-4-DaH|vH$6W~)wD!^92X');

define('BB_AUTH_SALT',        '?v&+?5?vnXoIPuc&%OQMNN#QP_Xf&ZA0J:FO;tY:JdEjT5xt^k$,-q!XvVS,E)$1');

define('BB_SECURE_AUTH_SALT', 'n(M15M~Y<qg(A!x8ov,7]:+HZ>q0ajV3!feD){dLPhn2upN?;fIRE.@~14xH?v!8');

define('BB_LOGGED_IN_SALT',   '{Lu=[hq;BCEu j>n[Ejv%]w-k y?$@*sK@VcB<7E)wR/mrUIGj%9@*Q>.v]P|~#x');

define('BB_NONCE_SALT',       '*9Dv~}=@+k<g-w$WIsEXdxULL0yz0D{]!9@HY/e$7Ru|^dv?QF$gy!}dcLIC>@5P');

3. With no disrespect to that screencast, it is 19 months old, and we’ve had a whole new version of bbPress since then. For integration I always use http://wpbbpthemes.org/integration/ as a starting guide.

4. Check you’re not using “www” anywhere in the URLS you specify in the database, or that you installed any of the bbPress/WordPress systems while using “www”.

[kevinjohngallagher]

In your bb-config.php file put this code:

define( 'COOKIE_DOMAIN', '.your-domain-name.com' );

define( 'SITECOOKIEPATH', '/' );

define( 'COOKIEPATH', '/' );

If you’re using WordPress, make sure you put the same in the wp-config.php too.

Now, I know this isn’t supported or well-liked or even neccessary these days (was it ever), but I still put this legacy code into my bb-config

$bb->wp_siteurl = 'http://www.my-wordpress-url.com';

$bb->wp_home = 'http://www.my-wordpress-url.com';

$bb->wp_table_prefix = 'wp_';

$bb->user_bbdb_name = 'my-database-name';

$bb->user_bbdb_user = 'my-database-username';

$bb->user_bbdb_password = 'my-password';

$bb->user_bbdb_host = 'localhost';

$bb->custom_user_table = '';

$bb->custom_user_meta_table = '';

$bb->authcookie = 'wordpress_';

$bb->cookiedomain = '';

$bb->cookiepath = '/';

$bb->sitecookiepath = '';

$bb->wp_table_prefix = 'wp_';

Does it make any difference? I doubt it. But with all the integration stuff over the years, I’ve become a big fan of covering the bases.

[kevinjohngallagher]

I’d strongly recommend this: http://wpbbpthemes.org/integration/

It covers installation in more than 8 steps, and should help a fair bit

[kevinjohngallagher]

_ck_,

Really apprecaite the hints.

I’m definately not a PHP coder by trade, so these sorts of tips are invaluable.

Cheers,

Kev

[kevinjohngallagher]

Dude, blame sleep on my part. Add an echo

echo bb_get_avatar( $topic->topic_last_post_id , '48');

[kevinjohngallagher]

Ok mate, first thing to test is, if you specify an ID, do you get an image.

eg: bb_get_avatar(1);

If so, aweosome. then we’ve narrowed down the problem to the ID we’re passing.

i’d also add this line:

echo $topic->topic_last_post_id;

and see what that outputs. (should be a number).

[kevinjohngallagher]

I knew I forgot something!!

http://www.kevinjohngallagher.com/downloads/bbpress/plugins/kevinjohngallagher_seo.zip

[kevinjohngallagher]

Johnnydoe,

sorry mate, rushed off my feet tonight, try this:

bb_get_avatar( $user->ID, '48');

Is the code you’re looking for.

In order to get it to display the last poster you’ll need this:

bb_get_avatar( $topic->topic_last_post_id , '48');

Usual disclaimer, i’m guessing at this code. Just annoyed I forgot to add the “bb_” when telling you this morning, sorry.

[kevinjohngallagher]

I was thinking about this on the way home. I think Forums as a Category is a great example. It was a plugin by _ck_ which was (for me) essential in 0.9; but it’s essentially a (hope i got the american term right) “band-aid”. Basically, if you worked within it’s boundaries, and accepted it’s issue – it did exactly what it said on the tin.

The thing is, it was then rolled into the 1.0core without any form of thought. Now we’re “stuck” with something that could have been a great feature with 2 days of dev time.

Forum as a category should have been in the forum table, as a 1-to-1 relationship. Every forum is either yes/no. Its no more meta than the name.

To the next level, the bbpress definition of a category is any forum that is both read only and has child forums. Thats daft. Don’t get me wrong, it was a needed/ideal/susynct work around for 0.9; but no scoping/checking/planning done before rolling it into the core. I remember during one of the BigBrother last evictions I told one of our staff to make a particular forum read only for a minute (which triggered all the category restrictions no showing of posts etc).

No harm done, i thought, until people couldn’t navigate or read their own posts as categories are given different theming. circa 1000 screaming teeny-boppers and lonely housewives on a shout-box!!

Its little things like that, where as a plugin, heck even a “core plugin” we can fix it quickly. As soon as it enters the core…

[kevinjohngallagher]

Matt, I just wanted to quickly say thank you for coming back to bbPress.org forums and answering questions and communicating with us. There are a lot of passionate people here. We might not all agree on the direction, but I can tell you that already your presence (and JJJ and Pete) has helped morale immensely.

CitizenKeith always phrases things better than my celtic tongue does.