[Ashish Kumar (Ashfame)]

I am deep integrating bbPress with WordPress 3.0 and I am encountering this white screen of death. I have done several integrations this way and never got stuck.

I use this code above database constants in bb-config.php

if ( !defined('ABSPATH') & !defined('XMLRPC_REQUEST')) {

define('WP_USE_THEMES', false);

include_once(dirname(__FILE__) . '/../wp-load.php' );

header("HTTP/1.1 200 OK");

header("Status: 200 All rosy");

}

I checked the logs and there are no 500 errors, all are 200.

I loaded the WordPress in a separate php file which works fine, so I guess something is conflicting in between WordPress and bbPress.

bbPress has no plugins installed but WordPress does have some and its a live site.

I am going to check for any conflicting plugins.

Any pointers?

[WimTibackx]

Blaming matt/automattic or blaming eachother isn’t going to take us and this project anywhere, people!

Let’s stop bitching at eachother and get this thing moving.

To summarize :

-Matt will be making bbpress into a wordpress plugin, afaics in this quarter, as WordPress skipps a release cycle to focus on the website and other projects

-People are talking about forking bbpress 0.9 as an independant lightweight forum. Is this going to happen and who is going to do this.

-I’ll start a wordpress/backpress/bbpress fork probably at the end of next week, searching for extra devpower.

That’s the situation how it is, and there is little chance that it is going to change. Time to stop looking at the past and to start looking at the future.

[WimTibackx]

However, the fork in the topic on wptavern was a fork as just a wordpress plugin. My intend is to fork both WordPress and bbpress and rewrite them to get something like this structure (although with different names) :

-Backpress a-like thing, which is basicly a “core” thing with support for custom post types and such and with NO own post types

-Wordpress a-like thing, which would be an official/canonical/core blog Backpress plugin

-BBPress a-like thing, which would be an official/canonical/core forum Backpress plugin.

I also want to take the chance to raise the spec to php 5 and handle things more object-oriented.

I will start on this project probably at the end of next week, if you’d like to participate, develop, help of any other sort you can mail me at info at wimtibackx dot be . I’ll take the following days to work out a roadmap and such.

Any help or feedback is appreciated!

[WimTibackx]

I think that with the new 3.0 Custom Post Type functionality, a lot could be done to simplify the current WordPress as blog vs. WordPress as CMS vs. Buddypress vs. bbPress clutter. It seems to me that there is no good way of combining them all at this very moment. In wordpress you can’t change nor delete the default post types. If you want bbPress you need to link it up and such. I think it would be better if the current project group evolved into (but who am I in the community ^^):

*BackPress, which contains the whole base (a lot of things it doesn’t contain atm from WordPress)

*Wordpress, which could just be no more then a plugin to BackPress (on the download page you should have the option to either download the plugin or backpress+plugin)

*bbPress, (see wordpress)

*BuddyPress, (see wordpress)

This way, wordpress can evolve in a stable, clear and usefull cms. This way, development teams could be handled much more flexible (a team for backpress, and teams for the other projects only having to worry about the plugin).

This would make it more clear for users and certain wanted features could be implemented much quicker. There should be, however, the functionality of having “plugins on plugins”, thus, plugins on wordpress, …

Also, this way of working would permit developers to use the backpress/wordpress codebase without having the mess of the current post types. It would also ease combining these projects a lot.

Last but not least, it would give the teams the oppertunity to clean up codebases (raise spec to php 5, more object oriented way of handling things, …)

What do you guys think about it?

As a final note, I’d like to say the following to the developing teams : work with the community, not against.

Edit : And if there would be interested in starting such an initiative from the community, as automattic isn’t likely to do this, I’d be willing to help developing. If I’d had more time, I’d probably already started something like this, but I haven’t got the time to lead such a big thing.

[chrishajer]

Throw the “folder” below WordPress.

You should put it inside a FOLDER in the root of your WordPress site. The name of that folder determines the URL where the forum will be accessible on the Internet.

So, if your WordPress site is at http://www.example.com/ , and you create a folder called bbpress in your WordPress root (and put all the bbPress files in there) then your bbPress forum will be accessible at http://www.example.com/bbpress/

If you don’t want bbpress in your url, call the folder where you put the files something else. For example, here it’s called “forums”. You can use forum, discussion, community, etc. That will be part of the URL where you access the forum.

/var/www/html/wordpress/wp-content/

/var/www/html/wordpress/wp-admin/

/var/www/html/wordpress/bbpress/

That is where the folder will go; on the same level with wp-content and wp-admin. It is at the same level.

[jeremiahsjamison]

Thanks much Kev for helping me get started!

Quick ? : when you say, upload bbPress into it’s own folder below wordpress, is there a specific loc? I.e., should I throw this in wp-content, wp-admin, or just at the root level?

I think the docs say throw it on the root level, but I’m not sure that’s right.

[Rootside]

He even admitted that right now, it would be better off to use another plugin rather than bbPress.

Nevermind if it’s insulting, it’s just wrong. I’ve looked closely at a few WP forum plugins, and they’re all spectacularly ugly, near-impossible to customise, or criminally bloated. Or all of these things.

That said, he does have a point when it comes to installation. I’ll happily jump through a few hoops to get something working, but I’m not sure I’d recommend bbPress unless I was sure the person knows what they’re doing.

All in all though, I went for bbPress precisely because it’s still better than all the other solutions. I realise I’m only speaking for myself and other people might miss functions they consider to be essential; and I wish them good luck trying to tame Simple:Press or wrestle phpBB into their site, but I consider bbPress to be a niche product because it provides a simple, basic, themable forum, and I just assume that that’s what people who use it were looking for.

I’m further assuming that the majority use bbPress in conjunction with a WordPress site, and in that context, I don’t understand why it shouldn’t be a plugin. I personally can’t wait for that to happen, because as bloated as WordPress might be, most people are using it anyway, so the question whether it’s good or bad to load WordPress in order to use bbPress doesn’t even arise for most people.

(edit) If we’re talking loading WP core stuff on every forum page, fine, I get that argument, but again, I doubt that bbPress is the right solution for a big, high traffic forum anyway.(/edit)

And the way I understand it, if someone wants to run just a forum, wouldn’t they probably be looking for something more powerful and feature-rich than bbPress in the first place?

A bbPress plugin would surely be a lot lighter than the current bbPress, no? How is that not a good thing? Am I totally off with my guess that most bbPress users are also running WordPress anyway?

Maybe it can go different ways indeed (renaming it would be a good idea in that case, obviously). That would preserve all the good work that has gone and is going into bbPress.

By the way:

Has anyone considered the possiblity that Matt is keeping his eyes peeled on the current efforts of some people trying to use nothing but WordPress’ core functions to build a simple forum? I’m guessing that any WP plugin which makes that kind of thing easy to set up and enhances its functionality would be really lightweight.

On a different note, I also don’t get how anyone could read a flame war into any of the discussions here. At all.

[kevinjohngallagher]

No apologies needed for being new mate, we all were once.

bbPress is a standalone piece of software and not a WordPress plugin.

Ideally at some stage in the last 3 years someone would have put theat sentance somewhere obvious on this website, or in the readme or something because you’re not the first to make this mistake, and you won’t be the last.

You basically want to upload bbPress into it’s own folder below wordpress. You can call this anything you want (forums, support, bbpress, chat etc).

Edit your config file in that folder, and load that folder in a browser (same way you install wordpress basically) and an installer appears.

Now, there is a guide on this website found here: https://bbpress.org/documentation/installation/

Personally, i think it’s a clear and detailed as mud so I strongly recommend the following guide:

http://wpbbpthemes.org/integration/

It’s very procedural, but given that it takes 19 steps to explain to you what the official documentation explains in 1 step (“6.Follow the instructions in the installer”), i think thats a really good thing.

Any questions, come back and drop us a line.

Kev

[_ck_]

The WordCamp minute about bbPress is old news. I preserved it here so you don’t have to wade through the rest of the WP 3.0 stuff:

http://bbshowcase.org/forums/topic/matt-on-bbpress-wordcamp-san-francisco-may-1st-2010

Please note the plugin version of bbPress for WordPress will almost certainly be completely incompatible with all existing bbPress themes and plugins and all advice/knowledge to date will become useless.

It will be essentially an entirely different program just using the same name and I hope Matt just renames it to something else to prevent massive confusion.

[zaerl]

More than one hour of Matt is too much for me and it seems that “videopress” doesn’t let me skip the video.

The day bbPress will become a WordPress plugin, ehm, a core plugin I will run away fast. I began using bbPress cause it’s light software in a world of bloatware. If I need to load all WordPress 3 AND then all bbPress the “light” adjective will not be more valid.

[Taeo]

In case you didn’t it’s up on the WordPress 3.0 launch post – scroll down a bit.

http://wordpress.org/development/2010/06/thelonious/

If you work with WordPress in addition to bbPress I urge you to check it out. You’ll get alot of insight into how Matt sees things going in the future and how they (Automatic) approach open source.

If you don’t work with WordPress I still urge you to check it out! Towards the end a woman asks a question about the state of bbPress. He answers very frankly and cites these very forums.

I know there are many people on these forums right now that are not thrilled with Matt and Automatic’s handling of bbPress over the past year or so. For me his comments in this video really puts things in perspective and I now feel very good about the future of bbPress.

Earlier in the video Matt discusses how the WordPress team is planning on trying something new and releasing what he calls “core plugins” for WordPress 3 – basically large scale plugins that add powerful functionality and are officially supported by Automatic. I foresee bbPress becoming one such plugin.

Anyways enough of me telling you about it, go watch the video!

[garrik]

Thanks…your response was 6 minutes ago and I had already done all my back ups so I upgraded.

Now using WordPress 3.0 and BBPress 1.02 and so far, no detectable problems. Nothing wrong with that.

[Rootside]

metaboy: Yes.

1. bbPress generally seems to work fine out of the box with 3.0, at least for me and a few others, so that’s looking good

2. I needed zaerl’s plugin for deep integration, ie using WordPress functions/template tags to pull in the WordPress header and footer. I’ve tested it further since, and haven’t encountered any problems.

In fact, only the registration of new users was ever a problem. I had WordPress 3.0 RC and bbPress running for a few days before I even encountered that issue.

[zaerl]

I was reading through that and got a little lost. At the end you were able to get things working with Zaerl’s plugin?

Yes. There is only a little problem regarding registration (if you use deep integration) but this is solved by my plugin. If you don’t use deep integration don’t install it.

[btko]

I did a fresh install of both and everything is working as far as I can tell.

[garrik]

I was reading through that and got a little lost. At the end you were able to get things working with Zaerl’s plugin?

[Rootside]

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/wp-30-beta-2-integrated-user-registration

[garrik]

I have decided to hold off on upgrading to WordPress 3.0 because of my plugins and my fear of breaking something.

Has anyone using bbpress upgraded to 3.0 yet? Possible?

[zaerl]

The closing tag isn’t required.

The problem is that WordPress declare a global variable called $user_email and in bbPress core file register.php they use the double-dollar notation (variable variables) that are evil. EVIL. So a $$key become a $user_email that is already defined and than not assigned and blah blah blah.

[zaerl]

I’ve built a plugin for you. It’s called zaerl WordPress 3 fix. http://pastebin.com/JhJzLjvQ

Have a nice day.

[dmb06208]

Well you kinda beat around my question bush. I was basically asking if official development WAS GOING TO CONTINUE or not. Not much has changed with bbpress in the past year other than the plug-ins released by the public. The moral around here is not the best right now. Ive done some reading. I know its open source. You guys should group together and just fork it right now and say good bye to the head aches. I want to put my time and effort into bbpress, and hope it doesn’t go the way of a dead forum system in two years.

[Rootside]

Oh, thanks…

“Deep Integration” was never intended with bbPress sadly

I don’t know – of course I’d really like to have bbPress “deeply integrated”, and it’s particularly frustrating to see that everything seems to work except for the registration process (and some other, solvable little bits like title tag, current page body tag etc.).

But I would probably agree that deep bbPress integration shouldn’t be a priority for WordPress core development. In that respect, having bbPress as a standalone system that also works inside WordPress may simply be asking too much:

Look at other solutions – they’re either bloated or phenomenally ugly and near impossible to customise, or both. But I’ve tested several of them with WordPress 3.0 RC3, and they all get two things right straight away – integration and shared users, with just a few clicks.

They’re also all plugins…

For now, I’ll have to see if someone finds a way around this problem, or if I’ll have to replicate my WordPress theme for bbPress and leave deep integration alone. Stupid, really.

Then there’s also Justin Tadlock, who is building a forum using nothing but WordPress custom post types and custom taxonomies. Should be interesting to see how that pans out…

I’ll stick this on the WP boards – it seems WordPress 3.0 has been released just a few minutes ago, I’m pretty sure others will run into the same problem.

[kevinjohngallagher]

When you say it does not work mate, can you tell us what it does instead?

It might be a quick fix

[kevinjohngallagher]

Rootside, this is good methodical thinking, thank you for it.

“Deep Integration” was never intended with bbPress sadly, and it’s something that the Automattic folks have shy’d away from. I’ll look for Sam’s quote on it in a bit (as he summed it up brilliantly).

I’d throw this error on the WP board and see if it gets any traction (i reported the original bug form this thread and it recieved no responses at all), but it might not given that bbPress’s integration with WordPress is not a priority for either system.

If this still exists in 3.0 when it’s released, we’ll see if we can get a sticky made to warn people.

Good work!

[Rootside]

Wait a minute:

Looks like it might be deep integration that’s causing the problem:

https://bbpress.org/documentation/integration-with-wordpress/ recommends adding require_once(dirname(__FILE__) . '/path/to/wp-load.php'); to bb-config.php.

I just added that (using the correct path) to my working installation, and I’m getting the ’email is required’ behaviour again. Delete it, and registration works.

I’m not sure if that means deep integration doesn’t work at all with WP3.0…?