[kevinjohngallagher]

I can shed some light on that.

Matt, I apologise in advance for this; but the constant slog in using this website in the months since the “bbpress2.0” theme release has been very tough. Did you know the homepage was a 404 for almost a week? And text was under 8px if you weren’t on a Mac or Linux. Patches and Changes were uploaded, changes not tested. We’ve a 6 page thread on it somewhere (it was sticked in the last 48 hours).

Anyway, the worst of those bugs meant that all HTML was parsed without exceptions (it wasn’t added to BackPress), so for just under 8 weeks, every single line of code we type into this forum has been converted to lots of & lts; and & gts; etc. It’s made giving solutions… difficult. Especially when copy/pasting. Especially for non PHP people.

Someone fixed the bug and added the fix to BackPress, but no-one picks up on the BackPress trac / forums (was bumped for 5 weeks) and no mails in the mailing list by a developer for almost 16 weeks. Eventually I reached out to Westi, who was awesome (no surprise really), and he stepped up and applied the patch (actually a few patches for us). It took another 13 days for it to be applied to this website. (I am also confident he’s now v easily contactable for everyone about backPress)

I ain’t intending on dredching up the past man, just… I know there’s some “ill will” around right now. Its not about “5 years of pent up anger” or anything like you said in the other post, it’s about last week, last month, the month before that etc.

With no intention of starting a long debate, would you have let the WordPress.org homepage be a 404 page for almost a week?

If no-one could give code exmaples on the WP.org support forums, would that have lasted from May to July?

We all drop the ball dude, its life, but if you wanted bbPress to help itself, it did. Ok, so not brilliantly or specacularly but it’s the dependancies placed upon us let us down, and the people we depended on were too busy making publicly disparaging comments at their WordCamp KeyNote speeches.

I often wonder if objectively you’d look at this post and think how you’ve done with bbPress: http://ma.tt/2009/08/kill-your-community/

I’m really glad you’re here and I’m thankful for your tone. I’m thankful for the information you’re giving. I, and I’m sure many others, are ok with us disagreeing on things, it’s the uncertainty coupled with the lack of respect (WordCamp comment + this website constantly breaking) thats stoked the flames of discontent.

In honesty bro, fair crack of the whip + information to make up our own mind = happy + repsectful community.

P.S. Sorry for the WTFmatt person. and haha, someone will be along to apologise for me in a minute

[Pete Mall]

I talked to JJJ about weekly dev chats last night and we would definitely like to revive them. http://bbpdevel.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/weekly-dev-chat/

[johnhiler]

I think most developers who run highly trafficked websites will prefer keeping stuff out of the core, to minimize bloat and to maximize scaling. Whereas most casual webmasters running a smaller forum will want as much in the core as possible.

It’s a natural tension. I think the best way to split the difference is to keep the core lean and mean, and then to have a set of pre-packaged plugins that are included in the main download that can be turned on (or can even default to being on). I think WordPress experimented with this direction last year? Not sure where it ended up though.

A few things were moved out of bbPress plugins into core, and it hasn’t really gone that well. “Subscribe to topic” was added to the core, and then promptly had a problem with spammed topics being blasted out over email. It’s a lot easier to apply a patch to a plugin than it is to get the patch approved in the core.

The “Page Links for bbPress” plugin was also moved into the core in 1.0. There were a number of code inefficiencies in that code that are now locked into the core. There was a recent patch released for the plugin version of Page Links (only for 0.9) that fixed this; that’s an example of how it can be helpful to keep non-essential stuff out of core.

[_ck_]

As far as your question about bbpress as plugin, it’s going to be many many months before there’s an official release. If it’s done this year it certainly will be a fraction of what bbPress is currently (it’s nearly a complete rewrite).

Back to your cookie problem, keys are not the only issue. You have to make sure your cookie path in both bbPress and WordPress are the same, depending on where each are installed. There are a few integration topics about this, though bbPress has evolved to the point where you can change things more easily now.

[kevinjohngallagher]

This is an excellent point Matt, and actually one of the strong selling points of bbPress in the past 18months has been how little is in the core.

I, like i’m sure others out there, have had wrangles with moulding bbPress to work in the way I’d like (e.g. between 4-7 clicks to delete a user, and having to leave the admin area to do it, and not be able to do it in bulk = eek). But other than some core hacks (like adding actions / filters all over the shop), it can be modified quite nicely. I often describe bbPress as “90% there”. In part, down to the excellent base, and in large part to _ck_’s plugins.

That said, I feel that one of the issues with the current development line “we” kick started in December time is that we took 2 feautres which worked brialliantly as plugins and added them to the core; without any real need for that to happen.

Why? because they were features for the end-end user. Not the person running the forum. It’s like the people who say that people won’t post on their forums without a WYSIWYG editor or Smilies, we could add them to the core, loads of folks would be happy, but we’d still not be able to moderate all those nicely styled posts with loads of ” ZoMg >.<” etc

If you look at the features you’ve added to the core of WordPress, they rarely have been for the sole benfit of the person reading the blog. They’ve mostly been to benefit the person running the blog, in the theory that that enables the end-user too.

So reguardless of what version of bbPress/WordPress/other-software we’re talking about, even if somethings in the 80/20 split, please think who it benefits and who it causes issues for. We all know there’s good and bad to every decision, but let me assure you, i’m losing sleep over moderating a bbpress forum with anonymouse posting!

WP3.0 was effectively a “developer release”, or at least not end-end-user focussed. Not sure about you, but I think it’s the smoothest, least-buggy, most impressive release in a long long time. Maybe thats what bbPress needed instead of adding core features we already had as plugins.

Of course, hindsight, pretty wonderful thing.

[Matt Mullenweg]

I think this is worth discussing since it seems to be a core philosophical issue that comes up a bunch, with people citing text I wrote for the about page!

The general rule we’ve followed in WordPress, which has been successful for user adoption, has been that something is “core” functionality of it is something the vast majority (80%+) will appreciate, or if it something that makes WP more robust even if they don’t care about it (revisions), or if it’s something we want to promote because we think it will make WP or the web an intrinsically better place (oembed).

Something might be a hugely popular plugin but not perfect for core because: it ties in a commercial service (Akismet), it needs to update more frequently than core does (faster dev cycle), or it adds more overhead than is worth it. For the last, we can often bring in the bare minimum or framework into core and leave the rest as a plugin (podcasting support in WP, and PodPress, or SEO improvements we make).

A bonus of core is that (in theory) the code gets better reviewed, can be relied on by new plugins to be there and build on, and maintained as part of the overall package. It also often brings new folks who may have just worked on plugins before into improving core which increases exponentially the impact of their work.

Of course there is lots of common sense along the way, this is just meant as a general framework for approaching the problem.

[Matt Mullenweg]

_ck_ maybe my tastes have changed? It’s not a perfect name but it does have historical significant and attachment for me. The integration will be the completion of the arc that started with my first checkin, because I felt the data structures of author-started versus user-started discussions were fundamentally different, and I could do it much faster on a DB structure just like minibb, which is what we used to use on WordPress.org and one of the first forums I really liked. (After attempting vBulletin and phpBB a number of times.)

We also have a history of major changes in 0.1 releases. We might indulge in a little bit of inflation with a 2.0.

I’ve been wondering that if addition to being part of the plugin directory for people already using WP, we could offer a pre-bundled download here on bbPress.org that could set up WP + bbP seamlessly so from a user experience point of view they’re still getting a “standalone” piece of software, just with a far more robust admin and update system. (Just a thought, we’ll figure it out when we get there.)

[Matt Mullenweg]

Here’s the link:

https://bbpress.org/blog/2010/07/wordpress-integration/

[_ck_]

It will take me a little while to find the original post but years ago you said you didn’t like the bbPress name.

If I can’t plead with you for a name change for a completely different forum program (it will likely share 10% or less of the original code) than at least don’t call it 1.2

1.2 has way too many implications that it’s a minor upgrade to 1.1 when in reality it’s a major overhaul (most especially if you aren’t running WordPress or WordPress 3).

All themes, plugins, hacks, advice will be invalidated.

That’s not a x.1 to x.2 update!

[Matt Mullenweg]

I rather like the bbPress name. The reason TalkPress was registered for a hosted service was to avoid the confusion we have between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. (Which I would not repeat if given the opportunity.)

As I spelled out in roadmap discussions before, better integration with WordPress is the single most important item for the future of bbPress.

(Trimming the rest of this to turn into a blog post.)

[Matt Mullenweg]

_ck_, why did you delete your post showing the bug? Is it fixed already?

With regards to the bugs you pointed two, there has been nothing urgent enough to push a 3.0.1, all fairly minor or affecting just a few people, hence the “no rush” on the bugfix release. We’ll probably roll one up next month, or if any security issues come up. You cannot deny that 3.0 is the most stable release (and has had more adoption, 10 million downloads and counting) we’ve ever done in WordPress.

_KB_, could you you start a new thread with any outstanding questions you have?

[Satish]

I will check out the cookie thing and post here again.

I am using WordPress 3.0 and bbpress 1.0.2, on a test site and I am facing the exact same problem as outlined by @jmharrington.

_ck_, I have another question, for which I don’t want to open another thread – because people may get annoyed.

I read this whole – “bbpress as standalone v/s plugin”, instead of understanding things, after some point of reading things, I got confused. I am so confused now to whether I need to wait till the plugin is released or can I go ahead and install present release? The problem is, I want to know – if I will be able to upgrade to plugin version later easily without loosing the current thread entries, users etc. ?

I tested almost all the forum software available and have settled with bbpress because its easy for users to understand and use.

[namelesshorseman]

Hi Kevin,

Are you aware of any plugin for bbPress that forces all registration through a local WordPress install? I can’t seem to find it through google etc.

If not, if I search (through NetBeans / Eclipse + PID) for all strings of bb-login.php or register.php will I find them all?

Or is the easiest way to simply change the header to not show the defualt Login + Register form, and forward people onto the wordpress pages?

Thanks,

Tomek

[_ck_]

I’ve just tested bbPress 0.9 with WP 3.0’s cookies and the Freshly Baked Cookies plugin DOES work properly.

Just make sure your cookie paths for WordPress and bbPress are pointing the same place (ie. /) which was always required for proper integration anyway and is not done by the plugin but inside wp-config and bb-config – see the numerous integration guides around bbpress.org

Make certain you are using version 0.0.4 of the plugin or higher which supports the newer kind of WordPress cookies in use since WP 2.8

[ZKuJoe]

I was using WordPress for a while but I prefer forums over blogging software so bbPress was the best of both worlds! I just altered the default theme to look more like a blog. Let me know what you think.

http://www.jmd.cc

[Satish]

Awesome site. Awesome design.

[_ck_]

Is it possible to copy over the “stats” code from the WP plugin section to bbpress.org, or is it more complex than that?

ie. https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-e-commerce/stats/

vs. https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/bbpress-signatures/stats/

Even without the fancy graph, just the little History section would be handy.

I’m debating doing another full survey of active bbPress installations by the end of this year despite it’s replacement, but it’s still easy to believe it’s well over 10,000 – might even be 20,000 or higher if the growth has become exponential.

ps. somewhat related: the tag import (from readme.txt) in the plugin section has been broken since the bbpress.org 2.0 upgrade

[_ck_]

Actually 3.0.1 is long overdue, either hiding the bugs or just ignoring them, I’ll be polite and not assume the motivation. I just hope people aren’t being made to suffer just to win the bet:

https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?groupdesc=1&group=severity&milestone=3.0.1&order=priority&col=id&col=summary&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&col=component&col=version&row=description

https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?groupdesc=1&group=severity&max=1000&milestone=Awaiting+Review&order=priority&col=id&col=summary&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&col=component&col=version&row=description

https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?groupdesc=1&group=severity&max=1000&milestone=3.1&order=priority&col=id&col=summary&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&col=component&col=version&row=description

https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?groupdesc=1&group=severity&max=1000&milestone=Future+Release&order=priority&col=id&col=summary&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&col=component&col=version&row=description

[Matt Mullenweg]

I’m just a soul whose intentions are good / Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PipX3l1tEeU

I’m sorry if anyone feels surprised by the roadmap of having bbPress start to become a WordPress “core plugin” in the 1.2 timeframe, it was discussed (and posted to the blog) in the December 9th and 30th meetups, to a healthy debate that raised some of the same issues that have been brought up here.

It breaks my heart to see JJJ and PeteMall who are just getting started have to absorb the negative energy for 5-6 years of decisions they had nothing to do with so if like “wtfmatt” above you want to ascribe all of that to me I’m happy to bear the brunt of it. Let’s let them experiment, try something new, and see what happens. Then we can channel our worries (oh noes, this will break everything!) into positive outcome (you forgot an action in the template which breaks my plugin, here’s a two-line patch to fix backward compatibility).

We have to be careful with our words because they can have a demotivating effect beyond what you can know, which could stagnate bbPress’ development (again).

Finally, there is obviously some pent-up umbrage over many decisions that have been made in the history of bbPress, and I think it would be healthy to talk about those and do a post-mortem to see what we can learn from them. However this thread has already become tainted, and we don’t have message threading here, so it’d probably be best to start a new thread per issue. Tag it with “formatt” and I promise I’ll reply as thoughtfully as I can.

It’s a Sunday but I’m here again. Despite everything bbPress holds a special place in my heart as it was the first project I wrote from scratch applying everything I had learned from working on b2 née WordPress.

[John James Jacoby]

@gswaim If it comes down to name calling or aggression, that’s always an option, but usually the last one if we can all help it. Fortunately the moderation team over here is fantastic, so no worries there.

The decision to allow Pete and myself the opportunity to do the bbPress plugin conversion wasn’t only Matt’s to make, and was agreed on by a committee of all of our peers running the 3.org initiatives, in #wordpress-dev on freenode, and on the WordPress development blog.

The reason it’s bbPress 1.2 rather than bbPress 2.0 (at least as it stands today) is because part of the coding standards we adhere to is not inflating version numbers. Could always see if everyone agrees to inflate based on the amount of new code going in, but I don’t think that’s my decision to make, and I would wager that it’s unlikely to happen? Been wrong before though.

[johnhiler]

“I don’t get what you all want bbPress to do differently that would even require a new standalone version. I’ve asked that before, and there’s no answer; just frustration.”

I thought there were several pretty solid answers above, but I’ll give my take here. For me, it’s mostly about performance. bbPress (especially the 0.9 branch) is fairly fast. As the bbPress frontpage puts it, “bbPress is lean, mean and ready to take on any job you throw at it.” I agree!

WordPress is powerful and has many fantastic plugins and themes. But I don’t think many people would argue that it is lean and mean. It requires caching in order to have a reasonable number of queries and/or loading time.

When someone asks me if they should use WordPress, I always recommend they use a heavyweight hosting package. With bbPress, this hasn’t been the case. Now with a plugin version, that will change.

In any case, I’m not your target audience: I use bbPress to run larger sites. Most people who want a forum will have small forums. They will be perfectly happy with a bbPress plugin – in fact, happier because it will be easier to integrate.

But it won’t scale easily without lots of caching and expensive hardware. That’s why I prefer a standalone.

“In all honesty, all this back and forth is tiring, and all it’s doing is taking the team of people that are here to help keep bbPress alive, and make us the enemy to the people that are just happy to see life again. That, and it’s taken our ability to communicate news to the bbPress community away from us, and instead forced us to try and put out this fire for the past 4 days.”

I totally respect your right to take bbPress and “buddyPress” it into a WordPress plugin. My only request has been to use a different name.

[chrishajer]

To file a bug, go to http://trac.bbpress.org and log in with a wordpress.org login.

Also, you never mentioned https/SSL before. Maybe looking through these posts will help:

https://bbpress.org/forums/tags/https

https://bbpress.org/forums/tags/ssl

[namelesshorseman]

Ok, after reinstalling manually (I was using softaculous before), manual integration with wp, reinstallling again without integration, etc., still nothing works.

I’ve also tried installing in a folder that doesn’t have a wordpress install, just to see. Still the same. Every time, without fail, it tries to find a path such as, if installed in “forums”, it finds “forums/forums”. If installed in “sub/forums”, it finds “sub/forums/sub/forums”.

Where is the issue? I’m getting a little bit frustrated with ‘fresh-out-of-the-box’ software not working!? I appreciate open-source software, and would love to solve this bug for others as well, but I need help finding it first!

[KimJCastleberry]

Hey Chris, thanks for this info. I was struggling to figure out what part of W3 Total Cache causing the forum to report “Please complete your installation before attempting to include WordPress within bbPress” any time I attempted to use it. Turns out it was the JS Minify stuff which I checked after seeing your post. Thanks for sharing!

[xarzu]

I did everything I thought I should do.. Still, it does not seem that when a blog is made there is an automatic form addition. Isn’t that how this is supposed to work? It seems it is just cookie settings and sharing user ID and passwords