[daniellaf]

Hi Everyone!

Just got a WordPress and BBPress integrated site working. I adapted the default theme to make it match our custom WordPress theme. Comments appreciated!

Site: http://www.planningpool.com

Forum: http://www.planningpool.com/forum

[timskii]

Below is the code I wrote for “SEO”-related tweaks. It tries to fill the description meta with something relevant, and adds keywords based on a combination of tags and site-wide words (added via the admin screen). It’s still rough round the edges. For example, it will produce duplicate descriptions on multi-page topics, and descriptions may not be terribly different from the title tag.

<?php

/*

Plugin Name: SEO Tweaks

Description: Adds description and keywords meta to the header.

Author: Tim Howgego

Author URI: http://timhowgego.com/

Version: 0.1.rc

*/



add_action('bb_admin_menu_generator', 'seo_config_menu');

add_action('bb_admin-header.php', 'seo_config_process');



add_action('bb_head', 'seo_meta_description');

add_action('bb_head', 'seo_meta_keywords');



function seo_meta_description() {



switch ( bb_get_location() ) {



case 'topic-page':

$description = get_topic_title()." - ".bb_get_option( 'description' );

break;



case 'forum-page':

$description = get_forum_description();

break;



case 'tag-page':

if ( is_bb_tag() ) {

$description = __('Topics tagged')." ".bb_get_tag_name();

} else {

$description = __('List of tagged topics.');

}

break;



case 'profile-page':

$description = __('Profile for')." ".get_user_display_name()." - ".__('includes contact information and posting history.');

break;



case 'view-page':

$description = get_view_name()." - ".bb_get_option( 'description' );

break;



default:

$description = bb_get_option( 'description' );

break;

}



echo '<meta name="description" content="'.attribute_escape( $description ).'" />'."n";



}



function seo_meta_keywords() {



// Includes enhancements by _ck_



global $tags;

$keywords = array();



if ( !empty( $tags ) ) {

foreach ( $tags as $t ) {

$keywords[] = $t->raw_tag;

}

}



$default_keywords = bb_get_option( 'seo_keywords' );



if ( count( $default_keywords ) >0 ) {

$keywords[] = $default_keywords;

}



if ( count( $keywords ) >0 ) {

echo '<meta name="keywords" content="'.attribute_escape( implode( ", ", $keywords ) ).'" />'."n";

}

}



function seo_config_menu() {

bb_admin_add_submenu(__('SEO'), 'manage_plugins', 'seo_config_page');

}



function seo_config_page() {



?>

<h2><?php _e('SEO Tweaks Configuration'); ?></h2>



<form class="options" method="post" action="">



<fieldset>

<p><strong><label for="seo_keywords"><?php _e('Default keywords') ?></label></strong> (<?php _e('these words will be attached to every page, so only use words that describe the forum's overall content'); ?>):</p>

<textarea name="seo_keywords" id="seo_keywords" cols="100" rows="4"><?php bb_form_option( 'seo_keywords' ); ?></textarea>

<p><?php _e('Separate keywords with a comma. No formatting.'); ?></p>

</fieldset>



<fieldset>

<?php bb_nonce_field( 'seo_config' ); ?>

<input type="hidden" name="action" id="action" value="update_seo_config" />

<input type="submit" name="submit" id="submit" value="<?php _e('Save Changes &raquo;') ?>" />

</fieldset>



</form>

<?php



}



function seo_config_process() {



if ($_POST['action'] == 'update_seo_config') {



bb_check_admin_referer( 'seo_config' );



if ($_POST['seo_keywords']) {

$value = htmlentities( trim( $_POST['seo_keywords'] ) , ENT_NOQUOTES );

if ($value) {

bb_update_option( 'seo_keywords', $value );

} else {

bb_delete_option( 'seo_keywords' );

}

} else {

bb_delete_option( 'seo_keywords' );

}



$goback = add_query_arg( 'seo_updated', 'true', wp_get_referer() );

bb_safe_redirect( $goback );

exit;

}



if ($_GET['seo_updated']) {

bb_admin_notice( __('Changes saved.') );

}



}



?>

[timskii]

The memcached information is useful to know. And based on what I’ve found below, will logically make an absolutely huge difference. Closer to “requires memcached” on a busy forum.

You see, I’ve done some more tests. And BBPress seems to do a lot of simple queries to check information that generally doesn’t change.

I’ve hooked up _ck_’s excellent BB-Benchmark, and started looking for patterns. I assume this picks up everything in 1.0.

As a general rule, page rendering (after queries) is very slightly slower with 1.0. That can probably be explained simply by twice the volume (in bytes) of files typically being executed from 0.9.4 to 1.0. Only about 10ms difference. So, not an issue.

The crux of the problem is the volume of queries. The fastest query execution is 1ms – measured, it seems, to within 0.1ms – although I’m unsure of that accuracy. This may be due to the way the database is hosted – mySQL is on a separate machine, which is logically going to impose a delay in getting results back.

1.0’s slowest query is faster than 0.9.4. But 1.0 executes vastly more queries: It’s almost inevitable that 40 queries will takes longer to execute than 10 queries, because there is such a significant overhead associated with “running a query”, regardless of its complexity.

Here are examples of what I found:

On the front page, forum views, and tag views, many pairs of queries are being run that look like:

SELECT * FROM wp_users WHERE ID = ‘n’

SELECT meta_key, meta_value FROM wp_usermeta WHERE user_id = ‘n’ /* WP_Users::append_meta */

My first thought was that my templates or plugins were broken. But disabling everything, and switching to the default theme, still causes all these pairs of queries to be executed.

The only reason I can see for the first query is to extract the display name for each of the last post authors. I can’t see any requirement for the second query, unless you were trying to augment the name with some extra information, like a title.

The topic table contains a last poster field, but it cannot contain the display name, presumably because the display name can be changed on a whim, while the old username was unchanging. If you have a lot of active posters (rather than a handful), a 20-post-per-page view could easily require 40 individual queries, just to check a piece of information that probably has not changed.

Now, we can argue that there should be some element of caching of the display name in the topics table. I wouldn’t have a problem with, for example, always seeing the name the user displayed when they posted, rather than the name they are currently using. But there’s also a compromise position, where the last poster name is only checked against wp_users at intervals.

Profile views repeat this a lot:

SELECT meta_key, meta_value FROM bb_meta WHERE object_type = ‘bb_post’ AND object_id = n /* bb_append_meta */

And I’m only displaying recent replies.

Turning to a topic page. I’ve looked at the first 20 posts in a 260+ post-long topic. A real mix of users, some who have added a lot of custom data (I allow quite a lot to be added, which is stored in wp_usermeta). This is painful: 30ms total query time on 0.9.4, 120ms on 1.0. 14 queries plays 79 queries.

Again, the key weakness is duplication of ostensibly similar queries. Line after line of:

SELECT meta_key, meta_value FROM bb_meta WHERE object_type = ‘bb_post’ AND object_id = n /* bb_append_meta */

or

SELECT * FROM wp_users WHERE ID = ‘n’

or

SELECT post_id FROM bb_posts WHERE topic_id = n AND post_status = 0 ORDER BY post_id ASC LIMIT 1

In contrast, 0.9.4 manages to decide all the IDs it needs, throws them all into one query, and presumably lets the PHP split out the results. The wp_usermeta data continues to be pulled out in such a manner:

SELECT user_id, meta_key, meta_value FROM wp_usermeta WHERE user_id IN (n,n,n,n…) /* WP_Users::append_meta */

In 3ms. Bargain.

Keep in mind, you won’t see this pattern if your forum contains 20 posts by you. You must have the variety of posters, that tends to only be found on larger forums.

My gut feeling is that some of the loops aren’t terribly well optimized. Or not well optimized for remote databases. Or not well optimized for operation without a secondary cache. Something’s instinctively not right.

[raphaelb]

Using bbPress 0.9 and WordPress 2.7 — when a user tries to perform a password recovery, it’ll accept anything. It doesn’t give an error message if the username doesn’t exist.

Case study (this actually happened):

A user “forgot” his password, but it turned out he had actually never registered. So he goes to the password recovery page, enters a username that doesn’t exist, and is then greeted with the default reset password text, saying “An email has been sent to the address we have on file for you.” That text made him expect an email which never came.

A. Is this something that can be fixed? B. Is this something that should be filed as a bug?

[michael3185]

Apologies! I just re-uploaded it after you downloaded it, so grab it again. I added a needed plugin to the bbVanilla.zip file, which you should FTP to your my-plugins folder (no need to activate it). That provides a consistent warning/error page for various things.

Also, if you really want the Latest Topics at the top of the front page (a mess in my group’s eyes) then I can show you how add back it easily, or do it for you.

Just noticed on your site (looking sxc by the way); there’s a gap in front of .com in the title (intentional?), and you’ve left the default ‘Just another bbPress community’ message in the banner (Admin, Settings to change).

[michael3185]

The URL (for one that’s not active yet) is http://letsdoo.org I’ve just switch Bad Behaviour back on, and IE7 is just sitting there ticking away. Chrome still loads it fine though. I haven’t had anything like this before, and am on Vista Home Premium with the default firewall active.

[woodlandstar]

The complexity of discussion boards simply exceeds my patience level for user “Unfriendly” software. I have played with a few of them (phpBB, SMF,bbpress) and have concluded that they are just to damn difficult to integrate into a web site. Most will install easy enough, and the default themes are about as ugly as you can get. Every one of them claims to have easy configuration etc. What a pile of crap. The worst of the lot is the BBpress board. Which is surprising since their blog is so easy to install and changing themes is a snap.

The “how to” support pages for all of them must have been developed by computer geeks who rarely speak English. Instructions which should be simple are garbled and about as user friendly as a wet cat.

My intention was to attempt to integrate a discussion board with my blog (http://woodlandstar.net/WSblog/): something Word Press should have developed a long time ago. How difficult can it be to extend Comments into a simple discussion board? Until something is developed that easily installs and easily integrates with the existing web site, I will hold off on using BB.

[RWB]

I dleted the tables. I deleted the user files for bbpress.

This is the error message I get now.

The database failed to install. You may need to replace bbPress with a fresh copy and start again.

SQL ERROR!

>>> Database: lilienbr_wpmu (localhost)

>>>>>> CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS bb_forums (

forum_id int(10) NOT NULL auto_increment,

forum_name varchar(150) NOT NULL default ”,

forum_slug varchar(255) NOT NULL default ”,

forum_desc text NOT NULL,

forum_parent int(10) NOT NULL default 0,

forum_order int(10) NOT NULL default 0,

topics bigint(20) NOT NULL default 0,

posts bigint(20) NOT NULL default 0,

PRIMARY KEY (forum_id),

KEY forum_slug (forum_slug)

) DEFAULT CHARACTER SET ‘utf8’ COLLATE ‘uft8_general_ci’;

>>>>>> Unknown collation: ‘uft8_general_ci’

SQL ERROR!

>>> Database: lilienbr_wpmu (localhost)

>>>>>> CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS bb_meta (

meta_id bigint(20) NOT NULL auto_increment,

object_type varchar(16) NOT NULL default ‘bb_option’,

object_id bigint(20) NOT NULL default 0,

meta_key varchar(255) default NULL,

meta_value longtext,

PRIMARY KEY (meta_id),

KEY object_type__meta_key (object_type, meta_key),

KEY object_type__object_id__meta_key (object_type, object_id, meta_key)

) DEFAULT CHARACTER SET ‘utf8’ COLLATE ‘uft8_general_ci’;

>>>>>> Unknown collation: ‘uft8_general_ci’

SQL ERROR!

>>> Database: lilienbr_wpmu (localhost)

>>>>>> CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS bb_posts (

post_id bigint(20) NOT NULL auto_increment,

forum_id int(10) NOT NULL default 1,

topic_id bigint(20) NOT NULL default 1,

poster_id int(10) NOT NULL default 0,

post_text text NOT NULL,

post_time datetime NOT NULL default ‘0000-00-00 00:00:00’,

poster_ip varchar(15) NOT NULL default ”,

post_status tinyint(1) NOT NULL default 0,

post_position bigint(20) NOT NULL default 0,

PRIMARY KEY (post_id),

KEY topic_time (topic_id, post_time),

KEY poster_time (poster_id, post_time),

KEY post_time (post_time),

FULLTEXT KEY post_text (post_text)

) TYPE = MYISAM DEFAULT CHARACTER SET ‘utf8’ COLLATE ‘uft8_general_ci’;

>>>>>> Unknown collation: ‘uft8_general_ci’

SQL ERROR!

>>> Database: lilienbr_wpmu (localhost)

>>>>>> CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS bb_terms (

term_id bigint(20) NOT NULL auto_increment,

name varchar(55) NOT NULL default ”,

slug varchar(200) NOT NULL default ”,

term_group bigint(10) NOT NULL default 0,

PRIMARY KEY (term_id),

UNIQUE KEY slug (slug),

KEY name (name)

) DEFAULT CHARACTER SET ‘utf8’ COLLATE ‘uft8_general_ci’;

>>>>>> Unknown collation: ‘uft8_general_ci’

SQL ERROR!

>>> Database: lilienbr_wpmu (localhost)

>>>>>> CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS bb_term_relationships (

object_id bigint(20) NOT NULL default 0,

term_taxonomy_id bigint(20) NOT NULL default 0,

user_id bigint(20) NOT NULL default 0,

term_order int(11) NOT NULL default 0,

PRIMARY KEY (object_id, term_taxonomy_id),

KEY term_taxonomy_id (term_taxonomy_id)

) DEFAULT CHARACTER SET ‘utf8’ COLLATE ‘uft8_general_ci’;

>>>>>> Unknown collation: ‘uft8_general_ci’

SQL ERROR!

>>> Database: lilienbr_wpmu (localhost)

>>>>>> CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS bb_term_taxonomy (

term_taxonomy_id bigint(20) NOT NULL auto_increment,

term_id bigint(20) NOT NULL default 0,

taxonomy varchar(32) NOT NULL default ”,

description longtext NOT NULL,

parent bigint(20) NOT NULL default 0,

count bigint(20) NOT NULL default 0,

PRIMARY KEY (term_taxonomy_id),

UNIQUE KEY term_id_taxonomy (term_id, taxonomy),

KEY taxonomy (taxonomy)

) DEFAULT CHARACTER SET ‘utf8’ COLLATE ‘uft8_general_ci’;

>>>>>> Unknown collation: ‘uft8_general_ci’

SQL ERROR!

>>> Database: lilienbr_wpmu (localhost)

>>>>>> CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS bb_topics (

topic_id bigint(20) NOT NULL auto_increment,

topic_title varchar(100) NOT NULL default ”,

topic_slug varchar(255) NOT NULL default ”,

topic_poster bigint(20) NOT NULL default 0,

topic_poster_name varchar(40) NOT NULL default ‘Anonymous’,

topic_last_poster bigint(20) NOT NULL default 0,

topic_last_poster_name varchar(40) NOT NULL default ”,

topic_start_time datetime NOT NULL default ‘0000-00-00 00:00:00’,

topic_time datetime NOT NULL default ‘0000-00-00 00:00:00’,

forum_id int(10) NOT NULL default 1,

topic_status tinyint(1) NOT NULL default 0,

topic_open tinyint(1) NOT NULL default 1,

topic_last_post_id bigint(20) NOT NULL default 1,

topic_sticky tinyint(1) NOT NULL default 0,

topic_posts bigint(20) NOT NULL default 0,

tag_count bigint(20) NOT NULL default 0,

PRIMARY KEY (topic_id),

KEY topic_slug (topic_slug),

KEY forum_time (forum_id, topic_time),

KEY user_start_time (topic_poster, topic_start_time),

KEY stickies (topic_status, topic_sticky, topic_time)

) DEFAULT CHARACTER SET ‘utf8’ COLLATE ‘uft8_general_ci’;

>>>>>> Unknown collation: ‘uft8_general_ci’

Database installation failed!!!

Is bbpress compatible with wordpress or am I wasting my time?

[michael3185]

Ahem. Spoke too soon. I tested my forum in Firefox and IE7 after working in Chrome, my default browser. I got an error page in IE7 from Bad Behaviour;

Error 403

We’re sorry, but we could not fulfill your request for / on this server.

You do not have permission to access this server.

Your technical support key is: (blah blah).

You can use this key to fix this problem yourself.

If you are unable to fix the problem yourself, please contact badbots at ioerror.us and be sure to provide the technical support key shown above.

On the ‘fix it yourself’ page there are no useful details of how to, and the email I sent got returned as failed.

Any ideas?

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

You mean to pull from you bbPress database to populate the members of your mailman list?

In theory, anything that worked for WordPress to do that could be tweaked for bbPress. Just be careful that the default is to leave people NOT getting emails, so they can opt-in if they want. Otherwise you’re practically spamming

[thekmen]

chrishajer – not sure what you are getting at?

I have been through that & many other searches and still don’t see a solution. Is there a specific one there I should be looking at?

This issue happens on a default install on 2 domains with no modifications made.

[michael3185]

I tested Vanilla out for a week or so, then bbPress (I’d tried every other flavour out there in the two weeks before). Vanilla is cool, and I love the look of version 2, but bbPress is what I’m going with now for 2 community forums.

As to speed, I haven’t done any ‘proper’ testing, but find bbPress very fast. Also, all the plugins I need worked first time without problems,and the default theme is very easy to adapt. bbPress only uses 8 core tables compared to 14 in Vanilla. I guess that might speed things up a little, as there are less eggs in the air..?

[Derek Herman]

// Custom Topic Starter Avatars

function topic_author_avatar( $size = '48', $default = '', $post_id = 0 ) {

if ( ! bb_get_option('avatars_show') )

return false;



$author_id = get_topic_author();

if ( $link = get_user_link( $author_id ) ) {

echo '<a href="' . attribute_escape( $link ) . '">' . bb_get_avatar( $author_id, $size, $default ) . '</a>';

} else {

echo bb_get_avatar( $author_id, $size, $default );

}

}

[tribsel]

Not sure if this belongs into this thread as it looks like its not a bug, but “feature”. At least in bbpress 0.9.0.4.

I dont think this is the way it should work.

You are adding new topic – and forget to enter something – eg topic title. Then press submit. Error message gets displayed with link to go back to forums. but there are two problems in this:

1. your custom template is suddenly not used (very confusing for users).

2. there is a link “Back to <your forum frontpage>” – this should point back to previous page not homepage! And fields you entered before should be “pre-filled” by your previous input. not cleared.

this default behaviour is pretty annoying for regular users, in my opinion.

[mortiferus]

Hello fellow bbPress admins!

I have wordpress and bbPress installed on a Mac OX Leopard server running PHP Version 5.2.6 (Safe Mode Off) and am having problems activating bbPress themes and plug-ins. Mind you everything else is working fine as well as WordPress which is working perfectly, but in bbPress I get the following errors:

Your attempt to switch themes has failed.

Please try again.

In the case of Plug-in’s I get

Your attempt to do this has failed.

Please try again.

In terms of Troubleshooting I have:

1. Tried the Akismet and Bozo plugins and the two default theme(s) included by themselves and I cannot switch between the two default themes nor activate the default plug-in’s.

2. Tried each plug-in individually. None will activate.

3. Tried adding the underscore (_) to the name to force the loading, they still wont work, but the show up as “Automatically Activated”.

Heck, I even Added the .htacesss rules for name friendly urls, did not help.

My questions are, do I need to set anything up differently for bbPress Plugins and Themes an two is there an error log for bbPress that I can view to try and sort out?

Is this a known issue on unix/linux variants?

Thank You in advance for your help

[tribsel]

Hi, I have exactly the same problem. Do you have any ideas what could cause this? It is problem with theme obviously, because when I switch to default one, everything works. I just have no idea what could i break to do this error. Didnt touch anything important as far as I know

btw – another thing which doesnt work is redirect – like when you forget to enter topic title and then press submit. You will get some error in default green layout (not inside my theme) and displayed link “back” leads to forum homepage, not to the topic post form – where it should…

[chrishajer]

If you deleted the topic that was tagged with bbPress (it’s the default first post/first topic I believe) then you just need to recount. There is an option there something like “Delete tags with no topics.” If you go through the recount, just check them all and the phantom tag should go away.

[shawncampbell]

With version 1.0-rc-1 and the default template (or if the current template includes <?php bb_topic_admin(); ?>) and you are logged in with the proper credentials for moving a post you should see the “Move this topic…” dropdown. With Kakumei it appears under the Reply form.

Lines 49-55 of kakumei’s topic.php:

<?php if ( bb_current_user_can( 'delete_topic', get_topic_id() ) || bb_current_user_can( 'close_topic', get_topic_id() ) || bb_current_user_can( 'stick_topic', get_topic_id() ) || bb_current_user_can( 'move_topic', get_topic_id() ) ) : ?>



<div class="admin">

<?php bb_topic_admin(); ?>

</div>



<?php endif; ?>

[websydaisy]

Thanks, I gave that a shot, but sadly it did not make any difference. I had turned on multiviews so I could use pretty permalinks, but changed it back to default and turned off multiviews, but I still get a 404.

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

You have to tell bb, when you set it up, where wp is Default assumption is that it’s the same folder. You’re going to need phpMyAdmin or something to fix it.

Go into your XXX_forum database and open up the bb_meta table.

Look for:

user_bbdb_name

user_bbdb_user

user_bbdb_password

The first one is the NAME of your WordPress database (so XXX_wrdp1), the second is the ID used to access said database (sounds like XXX_wrdp1 from your post) and the third is (heh) your password for that ID.

Set those up to point to WP and you should be able to log in.

[ndrwld]

Hey,

I’ve a problem with bbPress integration with WPMU. All installation steps going fine. I enter cookie integration fields, the same database, use default prefix’es, but nothing solves the problem.

In 3 step of bbPress installation when I enter existing user “admin” in key master field it shows me an error – “The key master could not be created. An existing user was found with that user login.”. But even if I choose new user, forum installation ends fine but when trying to login, it redirects me to install wizard once again.

With single install (without integration) bbPress works fine.

[Dolugen]

I’ve setup the role map, and WP integration ages ago, but newly registered users get “inactive” role by default… ? (WP2.7.1&bbP1a6)

[indivio]

My new forum is the Alpha. And the theme is the one that comes with it by default (kakumei).

The old forum was 0.9.0.4 that I upgraded to the Alpha in order to export.

Any ideas? Thanks so much for your help!

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

Yes but defining ‘better’ is really subjective!

Look, better for ONE of my sites is a barebones bb. Better for the other is Invision. It has to do with what you, as an admin, want to support, what kind of users you have, what you need to integrate your site with, etc etc etc.

In short: Any answer you get will be based on the specific individual needs.

You’re never going to get a definitive answer. Instead, you need to ask a better question: “What features do you feel are important in forum software?” Then you get a list of the default features in each board software and list them all.

From THAT, you can make a breakdown of ‘Who handles which plugin better?’ and have multi-choice.

Which would kind of be a cool app to help people pick the right forum software, but it still rolls back to ‘what’s right for you?’

[Filipe Deschamps]

After some searching @ this forum, I’m really confused on how to make replies links to open on a new window by default. I’ve found some tweaking plugins by CK, but I think that was a really early version and didn’t worked out.

I’m using 9.0.4. Anyway to target=”_blank” links and bbCode-lite?