Hi Kevin,
Like you said, you have brief knowledge of BuddyPress, so please do not assume anything.
It’s actually quite straightforward if you have a deep integrated install.
If it’s not a deep integrated install, it requires some custom SQL insert.
—
@arturo – I’d work on such a plugin, but like you, I don’t have the time. If enough people supported such a plugin, I might feel enticed to create one.
@gautam – Haven’t tested this yet, but great work. Glad to see some movement.
Silly question, but it’s possible to turn off anonymous, loginless posting right?
The issue with loading WP header is that you don’t load a very important line for most plugins “bb_head()”
You could probably get around this issue by adding something like this in your bbPress theme’s functions.php:
function bb_head_in_wp_head() {
bb_head();
}
add_action( 'wp_head', bb_head_in_wp_head' );
Though this is true w/ deep integration:
(advantage you can load any WP functions in bbP. Disavantage it will slow down your forum because you’re loading WP & bbP at the same time constantly)
Thanks for the writeup!
To those reading, the “limitations of converting” section is key. Read that section before starting with the guide.
For those not using deep integration and want to use BuddyPress avatars, check out this forum post I just made on BuddyPress.org:
https://buddypress.org/community/groups/how-to-and-troubleshooting/forum/topic/how-to-definitively-display-buddypress-avatars-in-bbpress/?topic_page=1&num=15#post-56018
If you’re using WPMU, replace the $avatar_folder_url with:
$avatar_folder_url = '/files/avatars/'. $author_id;
Looks like bbShowcase is coming back soon as well!
http://bbshowcase.org/forums/
Moderators read: I am not a spammer!
Just checked out Noel’s site and the first thing I see are a bunch of Scarlett Johansson videos! lol
Welcome back!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGFwGwV1lZc
[EDIT]
Hmm… I’m not a spammer!
I’m not an authority figure, but I can tell you that bbPress is turning into a WP plugin.
So bbPress does have a future; steps have been made to do this. Release date is uncertain though.
Not sure what is going to happen when bbPress turns into a WP plugin in BuddyPress.
I think BP will adapt to fit this new incarnation of bbPress when it comes out.
What is uncertain is the people who use bbPress w/o WordPress. Is there going to be a standalone version of bbPress in the future? That’s the question.
I’m going to try to answer the OP’s questions.
What is the advantage, of any, of having BBPress either instead of or in addition to BuddyPress?
Advantages of using bbPress – using bbPress plugins, forum categories and sub categories. If you want the traditional forum, go with bbPress.
BuddyPress’ internal bbPress relies on a concept called “groups” (similar to Facebook). You need to create a “group” in order to create a group forum. BP’s internal version of bbPress also uses a flat structure, you cannot categorize group forums into categories (as of now). Also, out of the box, you’ll need to port bbPress plugins to WP/BP in order to use them. Not many bbPress plugins have been ported to BP as of yet.
Advantages of using BuddyPress – template matches the rest of your site. Social networking in a box for WP (if you need it). Check out http://testbp.org/forums to view the forum layout.
Will (bbPress) now work with a straight WordPress install, or is it tied to WordPress MU at this point?
Works in both instances. bbPress integration plugin handles this fine.
(With the upcoming integration of WP and WPMU, at this juncture I simply don’t want to go through the hassle of installing MU.)
BuddyPress 1.2 is now supported by regular WP, so no need to install WPMU if you don’t need it.
Yeah, I know, but it’s good to have alternatives!
This is mighty interesting!
If you can build vBulletinesque features into your bbPress-Pods clone, you’ll get a mass following!
Ahh okay, Chris! Will do some more research.
Thanks Chris and John for the replies.
Cleaning up the meta data would be great in a future version of bbPress.
bbPress, the WP plugin, is coming… not soon, but it’s coming.
@chrishajer,
Matt’s response to that canonical plugins post reminds me of Jeff Zucker’s response on Charlie Rose about the whole late night fiasco! lol
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10824
Chris is right; bbPress is included in BuddyPress already, although there are some limitations:
– most, if not all, bbPress plugins need to be ported over to BuddyPress
– there’s no bbPress backend in BuddyPress
Also, is there a way of converting bbPress to BuddyPress?
Basically, you’ll need to create groups in BuddyPress and then determine which bbPress posts fit which groups.
Read what CUNY Commons did – http://dev.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2009/12/06/upgrading-from-buddypress-1-0-to-1-1/. Specifically the “Dealing with bbPress forums” section.
Sorry to bump an old topic, but I just wrote a writeup on the BuddyPress forums detailing how to hide BuddyPress group forums on an external bbPress install:
https://buddypress.org/forums/topic/how-to-hide-bbpress-forums-from-users-while-allowing-forums-in-buddypress-groups#post-33582
This addresses anandasama’s problem.
There’s also PunBB and FluxBB (fork of PunBB) as alternatives.
Both are also lightweight and actively in development.
Although if you’re using WordPress for your main blog/CMS, you should think about sticking with bbPress for your forum.
@sadness
No need for speculation, hearsay and playing the blame game.
Posts like this do not help matters.
@michael888
If you can’t wait for the WP/WPMU merge for BuddyPress, use Mingle, a social networking plugin by Blair Williams that works on regular WordPress. It’s already quite stable for such a young plugin.
Good news is you can still use your existing bbPress as well 
+1 for _ck_ to join the bbPress team.
She knows the project inside and out and is a stickler for code optimization and performance!
Rohan, I think orizine wants the BuddyPress forum theme, which isn’t available.
orizine, the current bbPress.org forum theme, bbOrg, which Rohan was talking about, is available through bbShowcase:
http://bbshowcase.org/forums/view/available-themes
Keep in mind that that theme probably isn’t updated with the latest bbPress v1.0 theme changes, but it should be easy to make those changes.
In the example above, I thought that a category’s RSS feed would aggregate both sub-forum 1 and sub-forum 2’s RSS feeds.
Okay, not a big deal!
[EDIT]
The reason why I inquired about this in the first place was because bb_feed_head() was displaying RSS feeds on forum categories.
I guess bb_feed_head() shouldn’t echo any RSS feeds in the [head] if you’re on a forum category.
Thanks for the link to the changeset, _ck_.
Upgraded smoothly!
No prompts for db changes this time around. Nice!
