@Buslawekee, @tntc1978 and @Mike1233, please don’t make this into another bbPress 2.0 Updates thread. We’ve been given specific topics to which John wanted additional feedback. Anything not related to those clearly defined topics belong in their own threads, or a new ticket on Trac if it’s a valid bug report.
Separate as in users, or just not an inherent part of WordPress?
I highly recommend Vanilla:
http://vanillaforums.org/
That’ll give you a tight integration with WordPress, but through a “bridge”, so CMS and Forum remain two distinct systems.
Another argument for this plugin would be multisite friendliness. I think it would be anyhow.
Since the “integration” is simply a matter of the plugin copying the contents of a comment and re-posting it on a forum, it shouldn’t matter whether that’s in example.com/forums (default), forums.example.com (a secondary site) or example.com/secondarysite/forums, so long as that’s specified in the settings.
So if I have a main site for blogging, example.com, and a secondary site for forum discussion (i.e. with bbPress 2 installed on it), forums.example.com, this approach could still work just fine.
Am I correct in this assumption?
Thing about that is you wouldn`t be taking advantage of the lightweight nature of comments, which is ideal for simple reactions but not so much extended discussions. Actually I really like the term ‘reactions’, as that’s where I draw the line between a comment and a conversation. I’ve updated my mockup to reflect that. Here’s the updated image:
https://i.imgur.com/y09EW.png
You’d also be confined to a single thread of discussion, which is the key limitation this plugin would resolve. Look at the linked TED page and you’ll see pretty much the exact setup I’m looking for.
Another reason to use comments is that if you’re using a P2-like theme you can enable near real-time comments on your article. This is only possible with WP comments, not posts.
Oh, and then there’s the many types of plugins that facilitate unregistered commenting. Besides anonymous comments, there are plugins to enable posting with a Facebook/Twitter/Google account without actually registering to the site, but just to avoid spam.
Finally, I actually think this “comment conversion” approach would be less of a hack than using bbPress in place of comments. It’s a one way conversion, from one standard data format to another. Removing the plugin only removes the conversion method; what’s left is perfectly standard data, ready for export etc.
In the end it comes down to what you need for your website. Check out “use bbPress in place of wordpress comments” if you want to continue discussing the setup you have in mind.
(much delayed) Update:
After some talk with Patrick Daly at DevPress I realized it’d probably be for the best that only moderators get to “promote” comment trees to forum threads. Having a choice between the two might confuse the average user.
[Multisite:] Users can access all forums, or users can only access forums for which they have a role on that specific site?
I think they should have access to all forums. Once you have a multisite setup, isn’t it commonly because a bunch of sites are going to have some unifying factor in common?
On my own site, all forum activity would most likely be confined to a single bbPress install tied to the main BuddyPress site, so I don’t think this decision concerns me anyhow. I would like to know though, would either way be fairly easy to opt into by means of existing settings or a plugin if whatever ends up as the default is not ideal for a particular setup?
Search is a pretty big topic. Isn’t this something that ought to be discussed in context of the entire WordPress ecosystem?, i.e. including at least Multisite and BuddyPress. I really think there ought to be just the one default type of WordPress search, which both bbPress and BuddyPress would plug into. My project will rely on bbPress in BuddyPress, so in my case I’m looking for a BuddyPress search that will properly incorporate bbPress search results.
As for the settings panel, I would agree that the secondary layer of navigational tabs that many premium themes (-frameworks) come with is very manageable.
Do you have a question?..
If you’re looking for a way to integrate bbPress 2.0 with BuddyPress, this is not yet possible. There’s no set date given, but I’m hoping we’ve only got a couple more weeks of waiting left.
Read up on the P2 discussion, in particular this post by JJJ to get an idea of where to start looking.
I also made a mockup of how I personally envisioned this functionality:
https://i.imgur.com/sBzHj.png
For my purposes, I envision only one extra level of nesting. I don’t like the way WordPress discussions can turn into abominations of hierarchy. In my opinion StackOverflow has set an excellent standard already.
Making a subdomain is the exact same process. It has nothing to do with bbPress and everything to do with your WordPress Network configuration. It’s all neatly laid out in the codex. This is for advanced users though.
If you just want the sub-domain for cosmetic reasons (i.e. it just looks tidier) that’s not really good enough reason to set up a network site. You have to realize that enabling Network comes with a lot of implications on how you can use and extend your WordPress site. For example, only a small percentage of the plugins in the WordPress repository have been tested and made to work in a Network environment.
Making a subdomain is the exact same process. It has nothing to do with bbPress and everything to do with your WordPress Network configuration. It’s all neatly laid out in the codex. This is for advanced users though.
If you just want the sub-domain for cosmetic reasons (i.e. it just looks tidier) that’s not really good enough reason to set up a network site. You have to realize that enabling Network comes with a lot of implications on how you can use and extend your WordPress site. For example, only a small percentage of the plugins in the WordPress repository have been tested and made to work in a Network environment.
Maybe it’ll be different in the future, but right now you can achieve that by creating a sub-blog called forum at forum.mysite.mydomain, then you install bbPress 2.0, network enable it and enable it on the ‘forum’ blog. Just find/make a really minimalistic theme if you want to focus on the forum itself. With a little bit of tweaking you could pretty much do away with all the Blog/CMS elements and be left with just a clean forum.
Maybe it’ll be different in the future, but right now you can achieve that by creating a sub-blog called forum at forum.mysite.mydomain, then you install bbPress 2.0, network enable it and enable it on the ‘forum’ blog. Just find/make a really minimalistic theme if you want to focus on the forum itself. With a little bit of tweaking you could pretty much do away with all the Blog/CMS elements and be left with just a clean forum.
I’ve grown to really like the theme used in these forums. Is it one of the defaults that comes with v2.0?
Nope, afraid not. This theme was custom made for the bbpress.org website, and furthermore it’s made for bbPress 1.0, not the bbPress 2.0 plugin, which I believe handles theming somewhat differently.
Maybe whoever made the theme will be willing to look into it seeing as the new bbPress is going stable any day now.
I’ve grown to really like the theme used in these forums. Is it one of the defaults that comes with v2.0?
Nope, afraid not. This theme was custom made for the bbpress.org website, and furthermore it’s made for bbPress 1.0, not the bbPress 2.0 plugin, which I believe handles theming somewhat differently.
Maybe whoever made the theme will be willing to look into it seeing as the new bbPress is going stable any day now.
Great, thanks for letting me know. So there is no speed arguments, e.g. a site with 1’000’000 posts could get bogged down if it has thousands of incoming links?
p.s. sorry for repeatedly posting in ‘Installation’, I just don’t take notice of it very easily.
You might be interested in my suggestion for distributed conversations.
From where I’m standing, your opinion seems swayed in our favor already 
Anyhow, stay swayable!
I of course agree, there is an abundance of fun ideas when threaded comments are added to the mix.
I can run another cool use-case by you: I’ve always had big plans for DJPaul’s Achievements plugin. The one feature keeping me from implementing it in my community site is the lack of a visible in-forum reward, as we rely on BP’s forums much more so than the activity stream. With comments, the Achievements plugin could post awarded achievements as comments to the “instigating” post.
As for nested comments in the average forum, I actually see it as a positive evolution. Yes, the goal is linear conversation, but anyone who’s spent some time on a forum knows that linearity is a fragile thing. Over the years, moderators have been given some good tools to stand their ground in the name of good practice, such as splitting, merging, and deleting of individual posts. I believe (single-level) nested comments are a fine addition to these tools, especially if moderators were given the ability to convert posts into comments, and vice versa.
Lastly, though maybe you’ll think me odd for wanting to make this separation, I for one commonly make two-sided posts: “A personal gesture” + “Down to business”. In the case of this thread, I for one would not have minded entering my first paragraph as a mere comment to your post, and then make the rest of this post the actual on-topic reply. Actually, I think there’s a way of going about that without it seeming weird. I’ll try mock something up.
Edit:
Alright, here’s a mockup of my idea:
https://i.imgur.com/sBzHj.png
Call it like you see it 
Keep in mind though, that the bbPress forums will not auto update like P2 does for posts. That would be a huge custom job to accomplish.
Are you sure? I mean, for posts, sure, but if bbPress incorporated StackExchange-style threaded comments, i.e. ‘comments on replies’, I don’t see why that would be very different.
Will this plugin also cover the BuddyPress (1.2) -> bbPress Plugin conversion? This is the set-up I’m ready to help test extensively, so give us a shout when it’s on the table.
And guys, thanks a lot for taking this development upon you.
Will this plugin also cover the BuddyPress (1.2) -> bbPress Plugin conversion? This is the set-up I’m ready to help test extensively, so give us a shout when it’s on the table.
And guys, thanks a lot for taking this development upon you.
@tyskkvinna the two projects are going to co-exist happily 
JJJ is the lead developer of bbPress and in the core development team of BuddyPress. The BuddyPress bundled forum as it stands will eventually be replaced by the bbPress plugin, supported by a migration script of course.
More information in these threads:
https://buddypress.org/community/groups/requests-feedback/forum/topic/is-the-approach-to-bbpress-plugin-buddypress-integration-up-for-debate
https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/comparing-speed-differences-of-buddypress-with-or-without-bbpress-plugin
I’d love to use a standalone bbPress, but that option was long since abandoned I stand by the reasoning behind the plugin route though, I still think it’ll make our lives a whole lot easier.
Thanks for the pointers John. It’s also comforting to know that BuddyPress forums will be seeing some speed improvements in 1.3.
I’d love to use a standalone bbPress, but that option was long since abandoned I stand by the reasoning behind the plugin route though, I still think it’ll make our lives a whole lot easier.
Thanks for the pointers John. It’s also comforting to know that BuddyPress forums will be seeing some speed improvements in 1.3.
I still find being sent to a singular reply utterly confusing. I definitely acknowledge the value in this functionality, but in an ordinary forum context I prefer just being sent to the #reply in question plus the whole thread loaded with it, like here.
I hope this is just being done to see if it works
