[chrishajer]

Adding that to bb-config.php just allows you to use WordPress functions in bbPress. What did you want to happen?

[chrishajer]

@kevinjohngallagher

I posted the last couple weeks of IRC logs. No one stepped up to do the Dec 30 one, and PeteMall was going to post the first January one, but got stuck on something, so I finished that post. I posted yesterday’s about an hour after the meetup was done. The logs are always available here, even if they’re not posted to the blog. We’re just reposting, verbatim, information available elsewhere:

https://irclogs.wordpress.org/chanlog.php?channel=bbpress

As a participant in a couple of the recent meetups, I will share my observations.

I disagreed that anonymous posting and email notifications were at all important. I think email notifications happened because the work was largely done (from somewhere) and it was easy for Matt to add. And filosofo had an anonymous post plugin largely done, so that was added.

From the beginning, I’ve argued that bugs need to be fixed first (see number 5 here from Joel http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html,) things that are built in but just plain not working. I think it’s important to fix bugs before adding new features. At yesterday’s meetup, I think I got that point across.

And with regard to your observation, which I agree with, that the 3 most used tags are WordPress, Integration and plugin: the decision has been made to make bbPress a WordPress plugin. That takes care of the first two: WordPress and Integration. Plugin as a tag here never meant “make bbPress a WordPress plugin” it meant one of these things:

• you can do what you want with a plugin (i.e. don’t hack the core)
• there is a plugin available already, here’s the link
• I’m having a problem with *this* plugin

Until the structure of bbPress stabilizes a little bit, I think there is going to be a problem getting people involved in creating plugins for bbPress, a moving target. It happened with the move from 0.9 to 1.0. Things changed radically enough under the hood that many plugins broke. I wouldn’t waste any time developing plugins for a platform that I know is going to change in the near future, possibly breaking my plugins again.

My gut feeling on the whole thing is:

• fix bugs in existing functionality
• ignore anything to do with integration of either themes or logins right now
• when the 1.x release is less bug ridden, focus on integrating more tightly with WordPress, theme integration, function integration, login integration.
• focus on plugins that are needed at that point

That’s my take on it, from the outside.

I also think that the development will gel a little bit after the initial flurry of talk, if not activity. Right now I think it’s important to get people involved, show people something is happening, maybe drum up some additional volunteers, and after that the direction can be set more clearly.

The beginnings of projects like this always remind me of the top part of this graph:

http://www.mascoatsingapore.com/Images/Combo%20sound%20graph.gif

At the beginning you’re not very focused, swinging wildly from side to side, but eventually you narrow your scope and direct everyone’s efforts toward a single point.

[karlbaillie25]

In light of whats being talked about in this thread ” http://bbpress.org/forums/topic/whats-happening-with-bbpress “, is it such a good idea to install this and perhaps start using it?

I do feel that the project has a strong community spirit, though mostly I feel its mainly because its closely linked to WordPress.

I really want to use this forum software as whilst its simple and kind of goes back to the roots of the forum days in that ever talked about “web 2.0” style, I dont want to build up a site using this software for the project to be binned later on down the line.

Many thanks.

[ipunkbali]

I finally embedded bbpress into my wordpress theme, but the background is kinda transparent or gone. Can anyone help?

http://www.justinbieberzone.com/forums

i was using this tutorial http://tinsology.net/2009/05/seamless-wordpress-bbpress-integration/

thanks

[Raize]

From a management perspective, vBulletin has tons more functionality and control over the forum. Ironically, I integrated a vBulletin forum with WordPress last week and it took about the same time/work as integrating bbPress (it’s basically just a wordpress plugin).

If all you want is a “light” forum then bbpress is definitely the way to go, because vBulletin can feel quite heavy sometimes, especially if you don’t benefit from all the features (attaching files is built in).

[chrishajer]

It’s easiest to just use the same database that you use for WordPress. It makes things easier when you go to integrate the two. Just be certain the table prefixes are unique for bbPress and WordPress. WordPress uses wp_ and bbPress uses bb_ by default, so if you don’t change them you will be fine. You do NOT want to install bbPress using a wp_ table prefix. Bad things will happen.

[chrishajer]

It goes in bb-config.php, not wp-config.php, but I’d put it right at the top, after the opening <?php:

<?php

require_once('path/to/wp-blog-header.php');

/**

The path/to/wp-blog-header.php it not to be typed literally. It will be a filesystem path, something that is dependent on where WordPress is installed on your server. Be sure you change the path to the correct value for your installation.

[ipunkbali]

i Read somewhere

“In order to do it, you need to put require_once(‘path/to/wp-blog-header.php’); in bbPress’ bb-config.php (wp-blog-header is in the same directory as WordPress’ wp-config.php file).”

Where do I exactly insert this code in wp-config.php file?: require_once(‘path/to/wp-blog-header.php’); ??

This is what i see in my wp-config.php file. Thanks

<?php

/**

* The base configurations of bbPress.

*

* This file has the following configurations: MySQL settings, Table Prefix,

* Secret Keys and bbPress Language. You can get the MySQL settings from your

* web host.

*

* This file is used by the installer during installation.

*

* @package bbPress

*/

// ** MySQL settings – You can get this info from your web host ** //

/** The name of the database for bbPress */

define( ‘BBDB_NAME’, ‘metroadv’ );

/** MySQL database username */

define( ‘BBDB_USER’, ‘metroadv’ );

/** MySQL database password */

define( ‘BBDB_PASSWORD’, ‘xxxxxx’ );

/** MySQL hostname */

define( ‘BBDB_HOST’, ‘localhost’ );

/** Database Charset to use in creating database tables. */

define( ‘BBDB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8’ );

/** The Database Collate type. Don’t change this if in doubt. */

define( ‘BBDB_COLLATE’, ” );

/**#@+

* Authentication Unique Keys.

*

* Change these to different unique phrases!

* You can generate these using the {@link https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/bbpress/ WordPress.org secret-key service}

*

* @since 1.0

*/

define( ‘BB_AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’ );

define( ‘BB_SECURE_AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’ );

define( ‘BB_LOGGED_IN_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’ );

define( ‘BB_NONCE_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’ );

/**#@-*/

/**

* bbPress Database Table prefix.

*

* You can have multiple installations in one database if you give each a unique

* prefix. Only numbers, letters, and underscores please!

[ketchupguy]

Step 1: Database config — is this a new Database that I need to create? Or should I use the same database that WordPress is using?

[arpowers]

Just checking again, has anyone figured out why WordPress plugins don’t work in integration?

[arpowers]

definitely a cool site.

[ncsilva]

Hi Everyone –

I’ve searched around the forum trying to find a solution to the issue I’m having, but didn’t have any success.

When a user comes to my forum, and clicks the “Add New Topic” link, without being logged in, they are presented with a Forbidden error. As it stands, the address they are being linked to is:

http://mysite.com/forum/bb-login.php?re=http://mysite.com/forum/?new=1

If I manually edit the URL to display as:

http://mysite.com/forum/bb-login.php?new=1

the user is presented with the login page before being able to post.

I currently have my bbpress installation integrated with wordpress. I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary when integrating, and followed the directions perfectly.

[kevinjohngallagher]

I’m really confused. I’ve read the IRC chat meetings (not sure why it took 13 days to post them but anyway), and I have to say that I’m really confused.

Right off the bat I hold my hands up to very little development outside of customising WordPress and writing BBpress plugins in the last 2 years, so this is all from a Project Management / BA perspective.

• Your 3 biggest tags from posts are: WordPress, Integration, Plugin.
• Every week, you have more posts on WordPress integrations thatn any other single topic.
• You advertise as one of your key features “wordpress integration”.
• You hold a poll to see what features people want, “wordpress integration” tops it. Infact it wins with 50% of the votes, or 520% more votes than its nearest competitor.

Now, seems to me, that the top priority in terms of new features, documentation and communication should be fairly obvious.

[21:28 GMT] <photomatt> 1. bug fixes

[21:29 GMT] <photomatt> 2. email notification

[21:29 GMT] <photomatt> 3. anon comments from filosofo

And obviously that’s… Email notifications? No… wait… Anonymous Comments?

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

From a Project Management standpoint, here’s the problem:

• BBpress0.9 has both of these features as working plugins. But it cant integrate with WordPress.
• BBpress1.0.2 doesn’t have these features, but can integate with WordPress. (Can anyone confirm that 1.0.2 integrates with 2.9.1 out of the box? – I can’t get it to work)
• So now we’re working on BBpress1.1 which will have these 2 very important features working but may or may not integrate with WordPress.

If BBpress 1.1 doesn’t integrate with WP2.9.1 (or the latest point release at the time of BBpress1.1’s release) or heaven forbid WordPress 3.0… then it’s exactly the same position as BBpress0.9 – just two years down the line and with less plugins working. We’ll have features we had 2 years ago and still not be able to integrate BBpress and WP. All we’ll have done is move 2 plugins into the core – and that’s really all we’ll have done in 2 years.

I’m not quite sure if this analogy fits across the world but in PMI terms (and I think Prince2 if you’re a European like myself) this is called “building a House on Sand”. Adding a turret aint going to help when the tide comes in (or a new version of WP is released).

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

If I move this away from features a minute (as everyone wants different features and I want to make this an abstract point not a specific one).

When will BBpress1.1 be ready?

I’m not looking for an exact date, we all know that’s impossible for any project like this, but roughly when will it be ready – any good PM knows this.

If there’s no bugs, and email subscription is working, that leaves Anonymous Comments to convert, +testing + release etc. Either way, I’m sure Matt has a rough idea in his head about how long until 1.1, even if it’s a ballpark figure. (Matt, im not expecting you to give us even a rough date as people will only keep you to it, and that’s not the sort of pressure you need right now/at all).

So, when is WordPress 3.0 coming out? What is the likely-hood, given both WP and BBpress’ history, that any existing integration will no longer work with WP3.0? Would it be too pessimistic to think its at least 50/50 that it’ll break?Is it too optomistic to think its 100% likely to work first time?

If we take the best case scenario, that BBpress1.0.2 works seamlessly with WP2.8, WP2.9 & WP3.0 and that BBpress1.1 works seamlessly with WP2.9 & WP3.0 – what’s going to happen to BBpress once we hit 1.1? Matt’s the sole developer, and there’s no way he’s not going to be involved in some format in WP3.0 not to mention all the WordPress Camps and the usual stuff.

It either means that BBpress gets handed over to someone else (again), or there’s a large amount of time between BBpress 1.1 and BBpress1.2 as WP3.0 has to be developed and released in between them. Given that BBpress1.1 is effectively cosmetic (2 features with used to work now working again), are we seriously looking at over a year between releases with new functionality?

And that’s the best case scenario!

Even if BBpress 1.1 does integrate nicely with 2.9, what if it doesn’t integrate with WP3.0? Are we going to get a patch or a plugin for BBpress 1.1 to make it work with WP3.0 if it doesn’t integrate? Will BBpress integration be Matt’s priority once WP3.0 comes out, given that 1) heck its not a priority now and 2) the plan is to make BBpress a Canonical Plugin from 1.2(-ish) ?

[21:26 GMT] <photomatt> bbPress will definitely be a WP plugin

[21:26 GMT] <photomatt> but don’t want to change the data structure decision until 1.2-ish

No, if BBpress 1.02 or BBpress1.1 don’t integrate with WP2.9 or WP3.0 is Matt or Automattic (cos i’m not wanting to pin this on Matt the person) going to suddenly reverse its decision and make BBpress integration a company priority? Of course not, that makes no sense.

Realistically, its integrate it now, or accept it ain’t going to be integrated.

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

This post looks rather doom and gloom, and I’m sorry for that, it’s not my intention. Here is my intention: Any Project Manager worth his/her salt would look at the above scenario with scepticism/fear/consider-quitting

Spending time developing software to hit a target that has 1) moved since first developed (WP2.7 -> WP2.9) and 2) will move again (WP2.9->WP3.0) soon after the software is released is, respectfully, lunacy.

This madness is then going to be compounded by rewriting the software in less than 6 months time? Then what is the upside/point of BBpress1.1?

The return of 2 features? The galvanising of the forum? BBpress has bloated in size since 0.9, moved away from what it was originally coded for, and lost useful functionality in the process. Going further down this path simply to rewrite it (mostly) as a WP plugin after 3.0 is out defies logic.

The only upside is if you can guarantee that BBpress1.1 can integrate with the latest version of WP and the release after that. Otherwise we’re developing software that has a shelf life of 3-4 months at most. Of course that can’t be guaranteed as WordPress Integration isn’t being worked into BBpress1.1.

If WP3.0 is being worked upon just now, if its in the early Project Management / Scoping stages, why isn’t the idea mooted that BBpress be reworked now as a Canonical Plugin?

The people that use BBpress now, for the most part, aren’t going anywhere. If we’re here now, we’re locked in to its current form – and we’ve already had to accept that keeping our system secure by keeping up to date with WP is not going to happen, we’ve accepted the last 6 months-ish of no updates.

BBpress’s major setback has been the fact that it’s on a different release cycle to WordPress and that integration has never been easy, simple, straightforward and infact that integration documentation has never been written.

By developing BBpress1.1 independent of WP3.0, we confine ourselves to a project that promotes itself with one major selling point that it doesn’t live up to; not to mention waste development time and turn people away from the project.

The BBpress project is/”was 6 weeks ago” at its lowest point, development had stalled for 6 months, the developer had quit, moderators had quit, plugin developers had quit, integration doesn’t work, plugins don’t work, information on the website is hideously wrong/out of date/wrong/misleading/wrong, the documentation website is now a porn links website etc etc etc.

From a PM/BA point of view, that’s the perfect time to start scoping and moulding the software to where you want to take it.

Hold up your hands and say “sorry its gotten like this, we dropped the ball, lets do this in a way we wanted to”. Don’t be tied into the same mistakes by chasing the dragon of “just one more release then we’ll fix integration”.

If you want BBpress to be a WP plugin, now is the time to develop for that. Take the code that works and run with it, don’t let history repeat itself with the idea of adding more and more to paper over the cracks – when WP updates or Plugins don’t work those cracks are very obvious.

<br />

WP:---2.3

2.5

2.6

2.7

2.8

2.9

3.0?

<br />

BB:

0.9

1.0a

1.0

1.1?

1.2?<br />

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it – George Santayana

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

Matt,

please please please read your own blogs: Setting Scope

What’s our proposal? We take a page from the world of project management and we make a project plan before we jump into the dev cycle.

As an open source project, we accomplish more when we work together than we do following individual agendas, and we need to keep our project focused on commonly-agreed-upon goals instead of following tangents…

Surely, as i stated at the start, the commonly agreed goal is WordPress Integration:

• Your 3 biggest tags from posts are: WordPress, Integration, Plugin.
• Every week, you have more posts on WordPress integrations thatn any other single topic.
• You advertise as one of your key features “wordpress integration”.
• You hold a poll to see what features people want, “wordpress integration” tops it. Infact it wins with 50% of the votes, or 520% more votes than its nearest competitor.

While “instead of following tangents whenever a community member starts to take us on one, regardless of whether it’s to follow a cool idea that everyone loves” is:

• email notification
• Anonymous Posting

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

Thank you all for reading, i know its not a short post,

Take care.

[grassrootspa]

@michayu & nerieru:

bbPress can top vBulletin but downgrading it from a standalone product to a more-complicated-to-install WordPress plugin is not the way to go.

[michayu]

“It’s time for Drupal to take on vB4”

(Some interesting thoughts from Drupal community)

“vbulletin 4 was released late last year and there seems to be a consensus that it’s a disappointment. Jelsoft (the company that brought us the original software) was bought out and the current developers are, imo, more concerned with quick turnover than delivering a solid project. This thread is not to bash the current programmers, as I’m sure they work very hard. But since vb4 comes with a CMS (a buggy, feature-anemic one at that), now seems like the perfect time for Drupal to take the charge.

There has never been a fully functional integration between vbulletin and a robust CMS. If a webmaster wants a great CMS and a great forum, we have to settle for a buggy bridge/plugin/module (Drupal/Wordpress to vbulletin). If a webmaster wants true user and content integration with no bugs, we have to settle for the inferior forum (Drupal). A complete solution has been in high demand for years, but I suspect it’s never come to fruition because it would require months of hardcore coding to duplicate the functionality of vbulletin. Maybe programmers feel their time is better spent developing paid services, or contributing to an open source forum like phpBB.”

Full post:

http://drupal.org/node/682094

[Raize]

vBulletin comes with this functionality built in, and I find it very useful. I used it for the “School News” category on my forum, where it pulls in headlines from the school newspaper. In this case, they have chosen not to include full text in the RSS Feed, but for feeds that do, it can be readily displayed in the thread that is created. I’m looking for a similar application here, to allow me to pull feeds from other sites in my network and drive traffic to them from my forum community.

Hope this works out, I’m looking forward to applying it.

[chrishajer]

You can edit header.php in your theme file, and just put the link wherever you want in there.

More reading:

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/link-header-image-to-wordpress

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Abbpress.org%2Fforums+link+home

[grassrootspa]

@Maurice: I’m with you. Very disappointed to hear bbPress will become a WordPress plugin. Grrr, I do not want to have to install WordPress every single time I want to install bbPress!

[nerieru]

@chris, I think that’s still faaaaaaaaaar off tbh, and I do hope he reconsiders as well. As a plugin would be bloody slow compared to dedicated software. My honest opinion is it should be 2, standalone and there should be a plugin to make that standalone integrated with wordpress! So people will have a choice. Personally I think this is one of the fastest/most secure forum software out there. It would be as silly as making a wp plugin for bbpress. They should be separate and linkable through plugins. (1 at the wp side, 1 at the bbpress side)

@HSeatSleeper, I hope you will still continue this, because even if it’s gonna happen it’ll still take a long time till it reaches the stage of WP plugin. Your theme could still be used for the standalone version, even if it becomes obsolete.

[Maurice]

You can always check all the logs here before they’re posted on the blog:

https://irclogs.wordpress.org/chanlog.php?channel=bbpress

Cool I din’t know that. It seems bbPress will NOT stay standalone and will be a plugin after 1.2, shame.

[ipunkbali]

@Kamil_D, can u tell me how did you do that? i wanna talk to you, please add me on yahoo or msn messenger ipunkbali [at] yahoo.com thx

[Michael]

I see. There is a thread somewhere here about that. They tried to get this result:

your.domain.com/<forum-name>/<topic-name>

I’m sure this will surface one day – it would be nice if it were a plugin that adds to the list of permalink types in the admin panel. I too will be implementing something like this. Nice thing about it is that Google will filter your result into a hierarchical display (breadcrumbs).

That type of thing will also increase crawling speeds.

[Kamil_D]

Yes, I know about it.

What I mean is that this kind of link: _http://www.example.com/forum/forum_name/topic_name/ is a little bit better for seo en much more beautiful than this one: _http://www.example.com/forum/topic/topic_name

And therefore this: _http://www.example.com/forum/forum_name/ instead of that: _http://www.example.com/forum/forum/forum_name

But my priority is to get faster indexed in Google so I do not worry much about it.

[Kamil_D]

I am happy too that from now on you know i’m not a spammer

In “User photo” plugin for wordpress you can adjust the settings so that if there is no uploaded avatar on the server, then it shows a gravater. So my example is a better alternative then to just use a (standard) gravater.

[chrishajer]

Null, the log from the December 30 and January 6 logs are up now:

https://bbpress.org/blog/2010/01/2010-01-06-meetup/

https://bbpress.org/blog/2010/01/2009-12-30-meetup/

You can always check all the logs here before they’re posted on the blog:

https://irclogs.wordpress.org/chanlog.php?channel=bbpress