[pwagner3]

Hi guys. Trying to install bbPress along with my current WordPress 2.3 installation.

WordPress was a snap! I had that sucker done in about 5 minutes.

bbPress is a different animal. my install.php page says “Cannot select DB”.

Is there a comprehensive Install doc that I am missing? I feel as if I have a lot of questions about the info on the page http://bbpress.org/documentation/installation/

Any help would be appreciated.

[tgallaud]

thank you very much guys. I really appreciate it — I have a lot of great recommendations to go on! (I haven’t had a lot of time to spend on wordpress or bbpress and I appreciate your help to make my customization time easier!)

[chrishajer]

> using wordpress would work and that’s a good thought,

> but I would have to customize it quite a bit I think…?

No, not at all. Find a theme you like, create a static page, make that your home page, strip out the stuff you don’t want in the sidebar (for archives, pages, categories, search, blogroll, meta, etc) and that’s it. One topic with comments.

Or, a guestbook

[tgallaud]

thanks for your quick reply.

using wordpress would work and that’s a good thought, but I would have to customize it quite a bit I think…?

I’m wondering if there’s an easy way to dumb down bbPress (or wordpress) so I can really just utilize its comments functionality — so I can have a page with a one thread based conversation and that’s it. (I’d like other users to be able to add their comments like they can on a wordpress blog entry…) Any recommendations on how to do this easily?

Is there other software that just focuses on this?

thanks very much.

[Sam Bauers]

I’m running a discussion on bbPress at WordCamp Melbourne this weekend and I’m looking for a good WordPress/bbPress integrated site (or two) to show as an example.

Preferably one run by someone here, with a reasonable amount of traffic, so I can prod them with questions about it.

Anyone?

[chrishajer]

Also, I didn’t realize there were forum plugins for WordPress until you posted this. From the looks of them, this one (of 4) appears to be most current and most actively maintained:

http://www.stuff.yellowswordfish.com/simple-forum/

Never used it, but just learned about it after you asked the question.

[chrishajer]

Yes, use the same database (it’s easier later with integration) and you can even leave the default table prefix in the bbPress config.php. By default, WordPress uses a table prefix of wp_ and bbPress uses bb_, so there is no conflict, and even if bbPress goes horribly wrong, it won’t hurt WordPress at all.

Good luck. I’m in Chicago too if you need any help.

[chrishajer]

Sounds more like a blog than a forum. Wouldn’t WordPress allow you to do this, with you posting the topic, then leaving comments open?

Do you have a WordPress installation already? I think it might do what you want, unless I missed something in reading your comment.

[chgogrrl99]

OK, thanks for responding guys.

I think I’m going to go for bbPress. If I can’t do it or it just becomes too much of a pain, I’ll try the plugin.

One question though…It is Ok to use the same database as my wordpress right? It makes sense to me to do so, just want to be sure.

Thanks

[fel64]

Copy and pasting per se is not a problem. It simply irritates me that you ask for help but cannot be bothered doing more than the minimum in doing so.

You can always backup your databases. See https://codex.wordpress.org/Backing_Up_Your_Database; this will mean that no matter what you do, you can get a fully functioning wordpress install back.

[fel64]

Uh, yeah, thanks for copy-and-pasting. When you are asking other people to spend their time helping you, the least you can do is take a little time to make it easy and appropriate for them.

> So, as a newb to using databases and php, should I choose a stand-alone like bbPress or a plugin I just upload to Wp?

If you can install wordpress, you can install bbpress. It’s no harder. Integrating them is also not difficult. Despite never having used one I’d assume a plugin would be a little easier though.

But if you care about the potential and speed of your forums, you should go for actual forum software, not something tacked onto something unrelated. In this case you should choose bbPress.

You can certainly do both; which is better for you is something you’ll be best at deciding.

[chrishajer]

Not my site, a forum at a WP plugin author’s site:

http://gbellucci.us/forums/

I didn’t realize it was a bbPress installation for a few minutes until I looked at it. It was just a support forum, nothing screamed out kakumei to me

[chgogrrl99]

(I cross posted this in the WP Support forums)

Hi,

Last night I did my first install of WordPress with a little help from the nice people hanging out in the Installation Forum – thanks again everybody. BTW, it took me a long time to do as I’m very new to mysql, php, ect.

Today, I’d like to add a forum. I’m very worried about screwing up my database or having to tinker with too many files. I’d like to add it now because I’ve yet to start customizing my site (WP is my main page BTW)and figure I should get all the things I want in there first, then go to work adding content ect.

I’ve read (or at least looked at the headlines for the first 100 post in these forums related to forums plugin).

So, here’s my question:I want a forum that will have about 10 or so categories listed under about five different cities. For instance: Chicago Jobs, Housing, For Sale, Events, ect.

Of course I want people only to log in once and I understand that bbPress and some plugins can do that.

It doesn’t have to be fancy or anything.

So, as a newb to using databases and php, should I choose a stand-alone like bbPress or a plugin I just upload to Wp?

I’m asking you assuming you are much more experienced with these things than I and will know which is better for someone at my level.

Thanks for reading this long post

[Trent Adams]

There is a plugin that you can find over at https://bbpress.org/plugins/ but I just use one of the RSS widgets for wordpress and then use your bbPress forum RSS feed to do it.

Trent

[defaultkitty]

I want to know if there is a way to display the titles of forum topics in WordPress with a link to the thread so that visitors to the front page will be able to see if there is something new on the forum without having to check it.

[fel64]

Yo!

What you could do is make bbsync look at your custom data, create the tables and hang them onto the post it puts into bbpress. However, there’s a better way IMO.

Every synced topic has the attribute wp_post, giving the id of the wordpress post. Since you probably run wp when you run bb (if you’re fully integrated), you can do (something like …) this in your bbpress template:

if( isset( $topic->wp_post ) ) {

$wp_post = get_postdata( $topic->wp_post );

if( isset( $wp_post->custom attribute you're interested in ) ) {

// some code to output a table into your template here

}

}

Much more interestingly, you could probably make that into a plugin so you can switch this behaviour on and off, and probably reuse it somewhere too. Could be very neat.

It’s feasible to replicate the functionality to want, but the best way would be to write a seperate plugin that only relies on bbsync for one thing: providing the ID of the wordpress post you’re interested in.

[As a general note: every wordpress post in wordpress has the attribute bb_topic too, giving the topic id for bbpress.]

[andorko]

Are the two fully integrated? Just users or functions as well?

With MU 1.2.4/bbpress 0.8.3 I am able to put this in the end of the wp-config.php file just fine.

// Include bbPress functions

define('WP_BB', true); // Avoid duplicate functions

require_once( ABSPATH . '../forums/bb-load.php');

With MU 1.3/bbpress 0.8.3 having that yields a Cannot redeclare update_user_status error.

[dreamstruck]

Hey fel…

Basically the way I use it right now is I have about a dozen custom fields that I’ve created and I use these to put certain data into a table format in my posts. I have the custom fields hard coded into my my wordpress templates inside the loop section. If on a certain post I need to put data into this table format I fill out the custom field section on the Write Post screen when I’m writing the post. Then of course when I publish the post the custom fields that I’ve filled out show up in the table format in my post. I hope that makes sense…

Basically I guess what I need to know is if there is a way for me to hard code the custom field tags into the bbsync.php file so that it would pull those from the word press post and if so where I would put them in the bbsync.php file. I guess I don’t really need to use the plugin I told you about in my earlier post. If I could just put the custom field tags into the bbysync file and have them pull in that would be great.

Anyway, I hope that makes sense… Thanks for your help!

[zmsan]

Over my head …. hmmm … any idea what actions to hook into or import from WordPress? I guess WP does this of course every time a new post is made…

[fel64]

Write a plugin to do it. There’s some actions you can hook into. Writing bb plugins is like writing wp plugins: https://codex.wordpress.org/Writing_a_Plugin

However the actions are different. Look for the actions on http://bbpulp.org/wiki/API/actions .

[dreamstruck]

Hi fel64…

Wow, thanks for the quick reply! I use the Get Custom Field Values plugin in WordPress and this allows me to pull in custom fields that I’ve set up in my posts. I typically use this if a post is going to have some information that needs to be laid out in a format thats a little different than my regular post format. I’m not sure how these custom field values could be pulled into bbpress. Here’s the link to the Custom Field Values plugin if that helps:

Plugin: Get Custom Field Values

Thanks for looking…

[dreamstruck]

One other thing that I noticed is that I have some Custom Fields that I use in my WordPress posts. These custom fields don’t show up on the bbPress posts that bbSync is making. Is there a way for me to add these Custom Fields to the bbPress posts?

Thanks…

[problogger]

For some reason I can’t activate this plugin in WordPress version 2.3.1. Any ideas?

[chrishajer]

There is absolutely a solution for it: fel64 explained it above. bbPress is not a forum plugin for WordPress, it’s standalone forum software. It’s configurable enough that you can use the same login and password from WordPress, you can create a link to it from you WordPress installation, and you can style it to look just like a WordPress page. You can even use bbPress functions in WordPress, and vice versa. The thing is, you have to do some work. But at least it’s possible to make it look like your WordPress site. Try that with phpBB or some other forum software.

If you look around these forums you will see many examples of installations where the bbPress installation is formatted to look exactly like the WordPress blog.

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/strut-your-bbpress

https://bbpress.org/forums/forum/pimp-your-press

[lstelie]

Hello,

There is really no solution for that ?

It’s a pitty to have a WP companion forum and been unable to really use it….