[swexican]

I just have to add that after looking everywhere in threads and forums and getting nowhere from the comments here I finally did what Zhen said.

Setting Site Visibility to “Allow search engines to index this site.” will make Activity Stream work for bbPress posts!

I tested this using WordPress 3.3.1, BuddyPress 1.5.3.1 and bbPress 2.0.2 so no nightlies involved.

Thank you Zhen!

Maybe you should add this info somewhere?

-swex

[SK]

Actually, it doesn’t. I think bbPress is a pretty good piece of software.

But while I have your attention, allow me to share my perspectives as someone who has been using Opensource Bulletin Board software for many years, but is just starting off with bbPress.

It’s great that bbPress can leverage WordPress’s autoupdate function to update itself and its plugins. phpBB (http://www.phpbb.com/mods/automod/), SMF (http://docs.simplemachines.org/index.php?topic=93) etc. are still trying to figure it out…they have some rudimentary patches, but nothing as elegant as WordPress’s system.

Another brilliant thing is the ability to use seo/pretty URLs/permalinks. Amazingly, at phpBB (http://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=105&t=35616) they are fighting over whether this is even desirable!

But what’s pure genius is the ability to use any WordPress theme! bbPress ships with a bbPress TwentyTen theme, and if your active WordPress theme does not have special support for bbPress, that is ok, because bbPress will use bbPress TwentyTen’s styling to present the forums in your active theme. Genius! Pure genius!

Add to this the fact that because bbPress is a WordPress plugin, there are additional benefits such as: SSO with WP, ability to use WP plugins (like Use Google Libraries), extendability, lightness, etc.

It is a massive shock to me that the number of people are using bbPress is incredibly smaller than what it should be.

I’ve thought about my experience, and think that the following factors could be critical in this regard:

1. Discovery: Discovery is an issue. I don’t know what the relationship is between Automattic/Wordpress/bbPress/BuddyPress, but I am sure you have considered putting bbpress.org link in wordpress.org’s “See also:” footer and decided against it. But what I do struggle to understand is wy wordpress.org would not even permit you to put a credit line (Powered by bbPress) in wordpress.org forums. That is a bit harsh. To add insult to injury, if I search for forum on wordpress.org forums (http://wordpress.org/search/forum?forums=1), Mingle is at the top and Vanilla forums show up on page 1, but bbPress doesn’t.

Google SERPs aren’t much better. bbPress is not on 1st page for any of “forums script”, “opensource forums script” and “php forums script”. I’m sure that would change if you could convince wordpress.org to show you a little more love.

2. Freshness: Even if someone chances upon bbPress plugin on wordpress.org (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bbpress/), there is little joy. The bubble is burst as soon as the explorer clicks on forum posts (http://wordpress.org/tags/bbpress?forum_id=10). There doesn’t seem to be any support and users appear to be completely lost without a paddle.

Of course the main reason for that is that you handle most support here at bbpress.org but the poor visitor doesn’t know that. He looks at wordpress.org forums for bbpress, concludes there is lack of support and goes away.

I think unifying support in one place (at wordpress.org forums), will be good for the community. You can have a clearcut, loudly stated division – bbpress WP plugin support at wordpress.org forums, legacy bbpress standalone support at bbpress.org

http://bbpress.org/forums/topic/why-separate-forums

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-bbpress-why-separate-forums

3. Migration: bbPress needs to face the fact that most people who want a forum, have already had a forum. The *new* market for forums is much smaller than the *installed base* of forums.

Consequently, most of the people who would want to use bbPress probably are already using another forum script and need help migrating. It is collossal mistake to leave this for community plugins.

If I have a forum software in a production environment, then one of the major factors influencing my decision regarding migration is whether or not there is a robust, stable, tried and tested and reliable migration path to the target software. This is extremely important for me. In fact, I would suffer a somewhat inferior software willingly rather than move to a better software if there is no clear migration path or there is a high degree of risk in migration.

It is a mistake on part of bbPress to leave migration to community plugin developers. Even if there were some plugins out there that did the job, it would be much less reassuring to prospective users compared to a migration/import path created by the bbPress team. As it happens there are only 2 import plugins (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/forumconverter/ and http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bbconverter/) out there and both of them are broken and not supported.

WordPress does it right in building an importer directly into the core.

I think it would be greatly beneficial to the project if the bbPress team build a bbPress importer that supports the top 4 forum software: phpBB, Invision, SMF and vBulletin.

Over the next 18-24 months, I expect to see a mass exodus from phpBB as they rewrite the software from ground up (http://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=41583). If bbPress provide a good migration path, it stands the chance to capture some of fleeing population.

4. I18n: 80%+ translations of bbPress are available in 13 languages, which is nothing to be scoffed at. But delivery is shambolic.

It is a nightmare trying to figure how to get bbPress working in a language other than English, even if you do the translation yourself.

There are 2 places to find translations: http://svn.automattic.com/bbpress-i18n/ and http://translate.wordpress.org/projects/bbpress/plugin

You can also use the .pot file found in /wp-content/plugins/bbpress/bbp-languages folder to create a translation, or you can translate at http://translate.wordpress.org/projects/bbpress/plugin with proper access.

It still doesn’t work. Very frustrating.

As it turns out, what you need to do is go to http://translate.wordpress.org/projects/bbpress/plugin, download language file by exporting to .po file, use poedit to covert to .mo, and upload it to wp-content/languages/bbpress/ (not to /wp-content/plugins/bbpress/bbp-languages which has the .pot file or /wp-content/plugins/bbpress/languages as most other plugins would). And the name of the file should be somewhat like bbpress-de_DE.mo not the standard de_DE.mo

Who would be able to figure that out? There’s not a single word about this in the documentation.

What a mess!

While some of the sharpest web developers comes from non-English-speaking countries, a high proportion of non-English-speakers are quite venturesome and decide to handle the technical aspects themselves as site owners, instead of farming them out to expensive developers, who are busy charging high rates for remote work.

These are the people that greatly appreciate the simplicity of WordPress. And these are the people who are a captive audience for bbPress, only if bbPress could make life a little bit easier for them.

bbPress should either be delivered in multiple language-specific packages like WordPress, or should be delivered with all translations included like most other plugins.

The .pot as well as language .po .mo files should be located in /wp-content/plugins/bbpress/languages

5. Documentation: This is another disaster area that is dragging a good software down. Documentation is just plain bad.

First of all, bbPress should clearly mention on the home page (http://bbpress.org/) and the download page (http://bbpress.org/download/) that while standalone version continues to be supported, it is not being actively developed.

Secondly, all the current documentation (http://bbpress.org/documentation/) is about the standalone version, and doesn’t say anything helpful for plugin users. This should be reversed.

6. Lack of basic features: Forum users, whether or not they own/manage forums, have come to expect certain basic features like:

– quote, multiquote

– topic view stats

– unread posts link

– Signature

– Profile photo/avatar

– bbcode

– WYSISYG editor

– forum search, context search

– uploading images

– members online

– private messaging

– smilies/emoticons

– forum moderation

– user registration approval

etc.

I understand that bbPress is built to be modular, and I think bbPress is right in leaving this functionality to plugins.

However, there are 2 problems:

– On wordpress.org plugin directory (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/) there is no good way of listing all bbPress plugins. Perhaps you should create a special nomenclature or special tag that bbPress plugins should use?

– If you look at bbPress plugin browser (http://bbpress.org/plugins/), most plugins are quite old…updated in 2010, 2009, even 2008! This is not very reassuring or confidence inspiring. Now, many of the old plugins may still be working fine, but when I see the “last updated” date is June 2010 for a plugin, I assume it is outdated, not developed and not supported anymore. I perceive that this will be a trouble plugin if I install it, and consequently end up with less functionality than I want. And I blame bbPress for it, saying bbPress doesn’t have all the features I want.

My suggestion is this: Every time there is a new version of WordPress or bbPress, the bbPress plugins should release a new version too, even if the only difference is to add a comment line that says “compatible with version so and so”. This will go a long way in reassuring prospective users that can install the plugin with confidence.

7. Forum sidebar: There is a plugin called bbPress WP Tweaks (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bbpress-wp-tweaks/). What it proposes but in my experience fails to do should be part of the core software. bbPress WP Tweaks was created so that the admin could relace the WordPress standard sidebar with a forum-specific sidebar on forum pages. This, in my estimation, would be useful for 90%+ of all bbPress users.

8. Custom fields: One of the most powerful features of WordPress is custom fields. bbPress should not disable this for forum pages.

9. Custom headers code field: bbPress should have provision for a custom header code field, wherein the admin can put in some code, which bbPress then inserts in the header on forum pages. In one flick, this would make bbPress customization so much more powerful.

To sum up, it takes a lot of persistence and determination to love bbPress. This is not great to attract new users. The software has a lot of potential, and I believe the number of installations can be increased multifold if the above issues are tackled in earnest.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings. And if you went tl;dr I have only myself to blame.

[SK]

No responses from the developers for over 100 days on their own website. http://www.bbconverter.com/forums/

Nothing here, nothing on wordpress.org

Is this plugin and support dead?

[SK]

Turns out that the location to place language files is wp-content/languages/bbpress/ and not anywhere inside your bbpress plugin folder.

It’s an odd location for language files, though, considering that most plugins need to be self-contained and have a /langauges folder within the plugin folder. (e.g. within in /wp-content/plugins/bbpress/bbp-languages folder which already exists)

Also, the name of your file should be of the format bbpress-de_DE.mo not simply de_DE.mo

Finally, you should download the file from https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/bbpress/plugin/ not from http://svn.automattic.com/bbpress-i18n/

In order to download the file, click on the language you want, then scroll down to the bottom of the page, and hit Export.

At the very least, I wish bbpress.org included all this in their documentation. The existing documentation has nothing to do with how bbPress work now…all documentation is really for the discontinued standalone version. (by the way, the discontinuation of the standalone version should also be clearly stated on the download page)

[SK]

Turns out the location is wp-content/languages/bbpress/ and not anywhere inside your bbpress plugin folder.

Also, the name of your file should be of the format bbpress-de_DE.mo not simply de_DE.mo

Finally, you should download the file from https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/bbpress/plugin/ not from http://svn.automattic.com/bbpress-i18n/

In order to download the file, click on the language you want, then scroll down to the bottom of the page, and hit Export.

I wish bbpress.org included all this in their documentation. The existing documentation has nothing to do with how bbPress work now…all documentation is really for the discontinued standalone version.

[funnycat777]

I currently have BuddyPress 1.5.3.1 + BBPress 2.0.2 on a WordPress site. I use the site-wide forum BBPress only (BBPress Forum only, not BuddyPress forum) on my site.

Is there a plugin available for BBPress 2.x to enable rating for forum topics?

I was close when I found Rating-Widget (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/rating-widget/) as the description said that it supported BP’s BBPress. However, I was unable to figure out the way to turn it on for a BBPress forum.

Can you advise if you know any plugins that can rate forum topics on a BBPress 2.x platform?

[SK]

I have just installed bbPress and this plugin.

I activated the plugin and in the bbPress widget, I placed bbPress search widget.

When I go to the forums page, the bbPress-specific sidebar doesn’t seem to appear – at least I don’t see the bbPress search widget. Also, the CMS/normal sidebar doesn’t seem to be removed – the sidebar seems exactly like the sidebar for the rest of the site.

Finally, I tried selecting single.php as default forum wrapper. But this doesn’t seem to make any difference at all – I still see the *normal* 3-column/2-sidebar page when I visit forums.

Please help!

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bbpress-wp-tweaks/

P.S. Searching on bbpress.org plugin browser does not show this plugin

[SK]

Oh, I see that in changelog it says phpbb is now supported

https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bbconverter/changelog/

This is important info and should really also be included in description

https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bbconverter/

where it still says “We are working on phpBB”

What does this in the description mean:

“This plugin runs in the background and converts passwords for your users when they log in, so the process is seamless even if your old forum uses different encryption methods.”

Does this mean that I should not uninstall the plugin after the conversion is complete?

[drsim]

i have been discussing this over …

https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-bbpress-topics-for-posts-parse-error-syntax-error-unexpected-in-indexphp-on-line-137?replies=7

[deanparkr]

Hi,

I’m running bbpress Version 2.0.2. I am thinking about trying out some of the plugins but I am not able to install any of them..

I have created a folder called “my-plugins” in the root of the bbpress folder.

However, I cant see anywhere to actually install the plugins? The documentation says “Click the plugins tab”. However, in WordPress all I can see is “Forums”, “Replies” and “Topics” with no “Plugins” tab?

I am logged in as the admin account (the same account that installed the forums).

Hoping someone can point me in the right direction

Thanks

[BlueDagger4Ever]

We just recently switched over to bbPress, but seem to have one nagging bug I can solve. On our topic freshness the time is incorrect and is showing several hours even when a post was made just a few seconds ago. I double checked the wordpress setup for time, but that is set correctly. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Here is a screenshot of a brand new post showing a freshness of 7 hours (which I’m guess is due to us being GMT -7 for Denver, CO.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/BlueDagger/Admin%20stuff/TimeError.png

[george123]

I’m uploading a new bbpress theme to:

wp-content/plugins/bbpress/bb-templates

Now what? I go into my admin panel of the site, and go to themes, and see these errors:

1. Your active theme does not include bbPress template files. Your forums are using the default styling included with bbPress.

2. Broken Themes

The following themes are installed but incomplete. Themes must have a stylesheet and a template.

bbPress (Twenty Ten)

The parent theme is missing. Please install the “twentyten” parent theme.

Where do I go to activate the new theme? Am I putting it in the right place?

Site is running the latest wordpress and the latest bbpress plugin.

Please help.

Thanks and god bless.

[newpress]

1. To disable automatical informing of new posts to threadstarters and subcribers t0 their emails

2. To disable entering emails to commenting and thread starting forms

( bbpress wordpress plugin )

[kailasweb]

I installed WordPress and BuddyPress, but found out that a moderator has no control over approving comments in forums. Our site requires that.

Then I found a plugin that allows me to moderate a forum in bbPress, which gives me hope that I could utilize bbPress for the forums, the plugin for the moderation/approval, and BuddyPress for the membership aspect.

Is this a realistic scenario? Or should I be using WordPress alone to give me the membership aspect and use bbPress with the plugin to create the forums?

I really like the way BuddyPress models the social aspect, but the main thing for me is the moderated and approved traditional “forum” aspect.

If anyone can give me some timely advice, it would be much appreciated.

Kailas

[monkey28]

im using the latest bbpress plugin for wordpress.. and the table borders is making my forum look not so pretty.. any help/suggestions?

Thanks!

[John James Jacoby]

If you can point me to a more specific problem, a plugin, a specific issue, I’m happy to help.

[John James Jacoby]

If there are places where bbPress is not busting the cache properly, I’ll need your help to figure out where and why. bbPress currently relies heavily on WordPress’s API’s to do this for us. bbPress runs very few manual queries of its own, and new or edited posts should be busting the cache automatically.

[John James Jacoby]

I felt the same way at first when I found WordPress, but check out how the functions work and what you can pass into them. Most of them accept a before and after attribute so you can customize the output.

[murrayac]

Hey Paul,

I’m using

bbpress 2.1 latest

Wootheme Canvas

Wordpress MU 3.2.1

It works on my local but when live it doesn’t.

[John James Jacoby]

bbPress 2.1 will come with support for the WordPress visual editor.

[Sean_A]

I am currently using this on our site:

http://bplike.wordpress.com/

which is a like button for BuddyPress. But it doesn’t let users like “posts” on the forums, only the “activity” of the user when they post…

[Satish]

[newpress]

thanks

[Paul]

drsim, Haven’t used it myself but there is the plugin bbPress Topics for Posts

[White Phoenix]

PowerNick, they are trying Orson’s Forum Converter. It sounds to me that it doesn’t work very well. I need to convert my phpBB3 forums too. But now I am thinking that WordPress and bbPress are not the answer. Even if the converter worked the idea that I would need a converter doesn’t really set well.

Yeah, I think I will ask my host to find something else.