[Terence Milbourn]

Kevin, you’re a great bloke and your heart is soooo in the right place, but you are being naive here. Do you think Matt got where he is, that WordPress, bbPress, BuddyPress and all the others got where they are today without him making demands on people. You are wrong about that Kevin. It is perfectly OK to make demands on people, as long as they are for the greater good. Often it helps people find out who they really are and what they can become; what they can achieve. Preferring their ‘easy’ life, folk sometimes don’t make those demands of themselves without that little shove, that imperative, that demand. But as they say “…come the day, come the man”. And they say it for a very good reason, Kevin. Clearly you must think a demand is being made of you here. Is it really that demand you are trying to deny?

[Terence Milbourn]

Have fun, think different, create value, pay it forward.

[Terence Milbourn]

Kevin,

My goal is to build Virtual Crowds way beyond 100 a day and yes moderation will be a big issue, you’re right.

I’m not looking for the easy way out (never do), which is why a poked my head up above the parapet in the first place. What I want to do, is do it right; get the best possible solution.

As far as I can see, the way I have to work is from the inside out. In other words, as I am not committed to bbPress or BuddyPress for that matter, I need to start with WordPress and add my forum (social networking functionality etc), as and when I can, and it makes sense, i.e. once the smoke clears a little.

Its a real shame, but I cannot see that being the original bbPress, flawed and brilliant as it is.

But you know what they say, one door never shuts without another opening.

Who knows, maybe Mingle will get its act together and eventually become that much needed WordPress forum and social network plugin, and then Matt will lose out on both bbPress and BuddyPress.

And so will you guys, I am afraid. And I am sorry about that. I wish there was something I could do.

[Terence Milbourn]

Mod – thanks for the steer.

Kevin – thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed and helpful reply.

In the end, I think I am left with the same dilemma, only you’ve clarified one or two points for me.

Many thanks.

[Terence Milbourn]

Well then, why doesn’t somebody do something about it? If I remember rightly, WordPress itself was salvaged from another star that had entered a decaying orbit.

Are there no Buzz Lightyears out there?

[Terence Milbourn]

Last blog entry here was 6 months ago!

Not a good sign.

[Terence Milbourn]

I find it incredible that a program that is well loved and which has such great potential seems to be so unloved by its developer.

The only thing I can think of is that his keynote speech graphics must have taken him a helluva long time to write.

But the big question in my mind is this. Do we stick with bbPress and all the doubts about its viability in its own right, and move over to BuddyPress with its one click install, or stick with it?

I am at a critical stage with my site’s development and I have to make a decision to jump one way or the other; partly because I just don’t have the time or money to develop two themes for one site.

I wish someone could give me some clarity on the direction bbPress and BudyPress are going.

Someone. Anyone?

[Terence Milbourn]

@psycheangels – thanks very much for the information. I eventually found my way to noease’s beautiful iNOVE WordPress theme at http://www.neoease.com/themes/ and the iNOVE look-alike BBPress template from Eric Barnes’s at http://ericlbarnes.com/projects/inove-for-bbpress/. I also found a really excellent suite of programs developed around the Carrington theme, with templates for WP, bbPress and mobile too. Really excellent all of them. But you know what, I still would prefer a plugin that allowed me to integrate and run bbPress in my own developed Thesis WP theme. That would be my choice in a perfect world.

[Terence Milbourn]

Anyone know how I alter/setup the menu system on the Theme: iNove Release (v0.3)?

[Terence Milbourn]

Well I can see there’s no shortage of advice and help wanted by folks at the sharp end. All good stuff.

But it strikes me that one thing that is missing, so far, is the ability to simply import databases from other forums like PHPBB etc. Haven’t done exhaustive research but that’s my impression.

The one plugin that *I* would want is the plugin that installs BBPress in the first place. And by the way, it should install it right into my existing WP theme.

[Terence Milbourn]

@johnhiller — I just read that back in December “Matt Mullenweg dropped the bombshell yesterday in IRC: bbPress, the often forgotten forum option, could become a WordPress plugin in the near future”. I’ll have to get myself an IRC client and start participating. Any idea of timescales?

@chrishajer — I didn’t mean to come off too strong on that but on re-reading what I wrote, it does read that way. I apologize for that. And if its Matt Mullenweg that needs to have the benefit of my help and guidance I will be sure to let him have it… 8^) In the meantime, while I wait for commonsense to prevail, which I now know ‘appears’ to be happening (see comment above), I’ll content myself with creating my own template to match my current Thesis/WP theme. What joy.

[Terence Milbourn]

@chrishajer – I thought some more about what you wrote regarding the WordPress plugin idea.

I imagine, having worked with BBPress for so long, you guys are no longer concerned or have forgotten just what a royal pain in the butt it is to set up. Most of the pain could be avoided if it had been scripted and become a simple CPanel/Softaculous install, for example, but it hasn’t.

I am new to BBPress, and I have to say that my first impression is, compared with BuddyPress installation/integration (which is already that simple WordPress plugin), BBPress has a looooong way to go.

And I suspect, one of the reasons why there is such a big difference in the size of the respective communities, is that most of you guys don’t mind/quite like to fiddle with the technical stuff.

Haven’t you got the engine room steering the ship? Where are the ‘marketing guys’ out there finding out what the people really want, and steering the development, rather than what interests the coders?

It might surprise you to know (well I know it would surprise the coders), most people (WAY more people in the world), just want THEIR WordPress to load a plugin right into THEIR existing theme, and off they go.

Badabing badaboom!

I can’t see how, if the developers of BBPress can’t make it that simple, and also a darn site more compatible with WordPress itself, how its ever going to survive. Really.

And with the release of the merged v3.0 not far away, is that opportunity going to be grabbed or lost?

[Terence Milbourn]

Thanks. I am not much of a hacker and after reading that it made me realize that Thesis brings an additional level of complication. I’ll go talk to some of the nice folks over at Thesis and try and figure out if I am up to it.

[Terence Milbourn]

A “Thesis page” is just like any other html/php/css WP page except that it uses Thesis Hooks, which is the framework Chris Pearson created to sit on top of WP and is far more efficient than the underlying WP code. It looks like this…

<?php



// Using hooks is absolutely the smartest, most bulletproof way to implement things like plugins,

// custom design elements, and ads. You can add your hook calls below, and they should take the

// following form:

// add_action('thesis_hook_name', 'function_name');

// The function you name above will run at the location of the specified hook. The example

// hook below demonstrates how you can insert Thesis' default recent posts widget above

// the content in Sidebar 1:

// add_action('thesis_hook_before_sidebar_1', 'thesis_widget_recent_posts');



/**

* function custom_bookmark_links() - outputs an HTML list of bookmarking links

* NOTE: This only works when called from inside the WordPress loop!

* SECOND NOTE: This is really just a sample function to show you how to use custom functions!

*

* @since 1.0

* @global object $post

*/



function custom_bookmark_links() {

global $post;

?>

<ul class="bookmark_links">



<li><a rel="nofollow">&title=<?php urlencode(the_title()); ?>" onclick="window.open('http://delicious.com/save?v=5&noui&jump=close&url=<?php urlencode(the_permalink()); ?>&title=<?php urlencode(the_title()); ?>', 'delicious', 'toolbar=no,width=550,height=550'); return false;" title="Bookmark this post on del.icio.us">Bookmark this article on Delicious</a></li>

<?php

}

Thesis is on one level, just an additional library of high level functions, and at another, its an incredibly easy way to design and manipulate your theme/template. The structure of the framework and the finished theme it provides also happen to be presented in a very SEO conscious way, which is obviously a big selling point.

What I would really like to see is a BBPress Template written for Thesis. Hmmm. I wonder. How hard can that be?

[Terence Milbourn]

Yes, it was an upgrade of a 1.o.2 installation using the SVN and 0755 did the trick, thank you very much. Now I am going to discover there are more templates out there that work than I first thought. Many thanks.

[Terence Milbourn]

@pyscheangels – thanks, I had tried some of these but they didn’t run and had they same problems I described above.

I thought it was just because those templates were intended for an earlier version.

Now I’m beginning to think that there’s a problem here that needs to get fixed first, and then perhaps they will run.

[Terence Milbourn]

Actually, it is that one – 2417. I used the latest SVN version, which calls itself 1.1-alpha, unless that’s a mistake.

[Terence Milbourn]

There were only two templates I could find there in the three threads you pointed to.

And when I upload their folders to my my-templates folder, I see their thumbnails are missing the graphic image in the Manage Themes window, and BBPress is now text only all ranged left.

Is there some bug that would stop v1. 1 alpha from ‘seeing’ the graphics and the basic display settings?

[Terence Milbourn]

Why do you think it is that BBPress is still a small community?

After all, many of the WP installations badly need an integrated forum and installing PHPForum or whatever and then trying to link them together is not much of a solution.

I very much like the idea of BBPress. I just hope it grows and survives to achieve its potential.

When I see the opportunity, I will volunteer to do anything I can to help.

[Terence Milbourn]

There definitely should be a template directory, and perhaps there would be one if there were any current templates available, so perhaps that’s one of the reasons why there isn’t one. QED?

I have searched for hours, in here and Googled the heck out of the web and nowhere can I find templates for 1.x apart from the two (1) it comes with.

Very sad.

You say they are in here. Can you point me to one?