[CEThom]

I’m in the early stages of setting up a forum for students in my local area. Here is my progress thus far:

http://www.cabbagemedia.com/students/forums

I have a few basic questions.

1) POSTING PICTURES

I downloaded this plugin:

http://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/allow-images/?replies=29

But have absolutely no idea what to do with it. The instructions tell me this: “Add the allow-images.php file to bbPress’ my-plugins/ directory.”

But where is the directory? I can’t find it anywhere in my admin centre on the forum.

2) CHANGING THE LAYOUT

My admin centre only gives me two choices – green and blue. How do I change the layout entirely, ie. adding my own banner at the top?

[kevinjohngallagher]

Four little bugs with the theme:

1) Pagination duplication on Profile page:

http://www.kevinjohngallagher.com/bbpress_duplication_of_pagination.png

2) Pagination on Profile page:

Posts started will only appear/work on the first page. As soon as you move to page 2 or above, it says you’ve not started any ( haha, we all know I’ve started more than i should have ;-] )

3) bbPress Edit area:

http://www.kevinjohngallagher.com/bbpress_edit_area.png

It’s not been looked at in the slightest. Even teh default styles haven’t been applied.

4) bbpress Edit area:

If you write some code in a <code> tag. and edit your post, bbPress now puts in <p> and <br /> tags into your code on every line. If yuo’re syslexic like me and struggle with the small font, and edit code based posts a few times to remove errors, you get alot of added code.

5) RSS feed:

The new RSS feed has new/added HTML. If you’re RSS reader is a mail client (say google or windows live mail) then it strips these extra tags, but if you’re not using an overly sophisticated RSS client, you see everything wrapped in a <p> tag.

From what I can tell, and this may be down to the latest trunk version rather than the theme, it appears to wrap each paragraph twice in the <p> tags.

Thanks to Noel or whoever at Automattic is working on fixing these, we apprecaite it

[kevinjohngallagher]

What’s wrong with it?

Far too little of bbPress’s output comes with relavant IDs or classes for theming; and far too much of it is is hardcoded into the core rather than in the theme, or even a functions file etc.

[kevinjohngallagher]

Ah right, well in that case what you want is this:

1) A “forum/category” that users can add to threads, but not make their own threads. (requires a bbPress plugin)

2) A plugin in WordPress that “posts” a thread in that same “forum/category” for users to comment on.

3) When someone clicks on a link on your blog to read comments, that link should go to the right forum (that’ll require a plugin too)

4) When someone enters a comment on your blog post, it posts it to the forum (another plugin – possibly an extention of the same one but new functionality). It should then link them to their comment (which is actually a forum post).

You’re basically looking at a WordPress plugin that has 3 main functions which go against how WordPress works. Its possible, totally possible really, but it’s neither simple or straightforward. Given that the work would have to be done at the WordPress end, you’d have more luck posting there than here sadly.

I’d also strongly suggest against this sort of thing. While in theory you’re moving the “conversation” to one place rather than two, you’re also duplicating the blog post into two places. That always confuses users. Its also worth thinking about whether you have the size of userbase where this will be benefitial. Lastly, people use blog comments and forums for different things. At a technical level they are very similar, and many experienced forum users look on both in a truly similar light; but your “average joe” sees a comment on a blog post as a comment on the blog post, while a forum is an open place to talk – or realistically have others argue against what was said.

A comment is a “1 to 1” communication (seen by others ofcourse), while a forum is an “many to many” communication; and users do treat them differently at a base level.

If you thought this was imperative for your site, i’d suggest ignoring the bbpress aspect of it, and pay someone very knowledgable to theme your comment sections to look/work like a forum. bbPress is going that wasy as a wordpress plugin, so pay for or putitng the large amount of time and effort into coding your solution might have very little RoI.

Good luck whatever you do, and keep us posted if you do anythign v cool!!

[kevinjohngallagher]

Ok, lets see what we can do here:

1) What version of WordPress?

2) What version of bbPress?

3) Are they integrated (share login cookies)?

4) Are they “deep integrated” (can call functions in the other program)?

5) Do you have the latest version of akismet on both WP and bbP?

6) What happens when you log in and post?

7) What happens when you log in and post as a new user (i.e. not as you)?

Are you using buddyPress?

9) Have to tried disabling all plugins and trying again?

10) Are you using a premium (paid for) theme?

11) If so, have to tried switching to the default theme?

12) When you say things appear in your akismet que and then akismet

13) Are comments getting through akismet on wordpress?

I selected the check box next to “Create a page that shows spam

statistics” on the Akismet page. The page showed there was 26 post in the spam section.

I selected spam in the drop down box but the messages do not show up even

after I click on filter. I don’t know of any other way to get to the

messages to see if they are all spam

Um, is this on the wordpress side or the bbPress side?

[kevinjohngallagher]

Sorry my friend, but you’re using BuddyPress and not bbPress.

Hype aside, they’re different, and you whouls take this to the buddyPress forum for help; we’d be close to helpless.

Good luck,

Kev

[bluesteel1]

Still no ideas. Here is the url if that helps.

http://ipadhelp.com

[kevinjohngallagher]

In theory, and really its in theory given the amount of “core” hacks that are needed for any real diversity in theming bbPress, you should add the encapsulating “<div>” tags into your theme instead.

Given that 1.1 (or 1.0.3 – as people use different names for the next release) will be a must upgrade from 1.0.2 if you ask me, i’d hold off on any core hacks for a while if possible.

1.1 (or 1.0.3) includes a good number of bug fixes that have been hanging around for years and years; as well as 2 new features that we already had as plugins.

Either way mZimmers, glad to see you on board and getting your head round it mate!

[Aermud]

I have a really weird issue, whenever I try to create a new group or forum on my BBPress forum, there is a split second delay where it goes to my 404 page, then it refreshes quickly and finishes what its supposed to do. Its kind of confusing to understand. check out http://www.pedalmovement.com to see the problem

[leander8728]

No i use an extern installation of bbPress. So not the integrated bbPress forum in Buddypress But i think that i have enough info. Thanks!

[kevinjohngallagher]

bbPress is not BuddyPress sadly,

BuddyPress used a heavily modified version of bbPress; but if you’re using BuddyPress nothing we say here can help you really. You’re definately on the wrong forum, sorry.

[kevinjohngallagher]

This is certainly possible with some custom code, though the real question remains as to why you want it. Given the WordPress comment systems have a far greater “forum-ness” about them these days (pagination, avatars, html/bbcode, wyswig threading etc etc). What would be the advantage to your users of having the same content in two different places on your website?

In fact, wouldn’t it be easier to just theme your wordpress to make your comments bigger and loko more forum like (maybe even removing the actual article on page 2 of the comments?)?

On one of my wordpress installs, the blog-post only appears on the initial page and with no comments, and all the comments are handled under “www.website.com/blog-post/comments” so they have their own pages with more space etc. It works really well for that site in a place where I couldn’t have used bbPress due to it’s complete lack of moderation.

[Rich Pedley]

oh.

I would like to get the same avatar in bbpress as in WordPressMU. On this moment, the WordPressMU and bbpress avatars are different. Is there a plugin to get the same avatar from WordPressMU in bbpress?

hmmm.

try asking on the buddypress forums then.

[chrishajer]

This topic has been derailed and I am going to delete the off-topic posts.

The design of bbpress.org will not be made available for download, that I know of. It didn’t happen with the last design, but there were many duplicates created.

If you would like to download the latest version of bbPress for testing, you will find it here:

https://trac.bbpress.org/browser/trunk

There is a link at the bottom center to “Download Zip Archive”, but I believe if you do that backpress does not get installed.

If you can install with subversion, you won’t have any trouble like that, as all externals are installed at the same time.

svn co http://svn.automattic.com/bbpress/trunk/ ./bbpress/

Will install the latest trunk version by subversion into a directory called bbpress.

[GW]

Hi,

I’m working on integrating my bbpress and wordpress sites, and I appear to have done some serious damage.

My forum now does not allow me to login. http://bit.ly/aJzdNs

Any ideas?

[Rich Pedley]

and since you mention WPMU:

http://premium.wpmudev.org/forums/topic/avatars-plugin-bbpress-integration

[Rich Pedley]

bbpress / wordpress avatar?

any use?

[leander8728]

Hmmmm okay! I hope there was an easyer way to do this, like a plugin or something. But i give it a try to look into the WordPress and bbPress files!

[Rich Pedley]

I’m not familiar with the setup, but yes if you have bridged your WPMU & bbPress installations then it should be fairly easy to do.

Find where the avatar is stored in WP and then use that information on the bbPress side to extract the data and produce the code for the avatar.

[leander8728]

“When joe average says “hey, how do i upload an avatar like jim bob over there?” and your answer involves him leaving your website, signing up for a wordpress account and then… etc. it’s over!”

But my WordPressMU blog en bbPress forum is connected with a bridge. So a user has one account for the WordPress en bbPress installation. If he upload a avatar on WordPress (because profile pages in bbPress links to the profile pages in WordPress, so i use only WordPress for profile pages) it cames on wordpress, but not in bbPress. And that is wat i would.

I use Gravatars for the standard avatars, but it is more personal to upload your own avatar. And to upload a avatar twice (WordPress and bbPress) isn’t very user friendly.

Thx,

Leander

[chrishajer]

Thanks for documenting how you did it. I’m sure it will be helpful to someone.

[honestscott]

Thanks!

I just did that, I changed the secret key in the bb-config.php file, thanks for the tip.

So to recap these are the steps I used to close my bbpress forum, and make it a “read only” forum.

1. I edited the header.php file in bb-templates folder (whatever template you are using, I am using the default Kakumei) and removed this line:

<?php if ( !in_array( bb_get_location(), array( ‘login-page’, ‘register-page’ ) ) ) login_form(); ?>

Now the register, and log-in form doesn’t even appear.

2. I changed all my forums to categories, now no one can start a new topic, or post on an old one, but everything is still readable, and this is what I wanted.

You can do this from the forums section in your bbpress dashboard, there is a box you can check to change each forum into a category.

3. I changed the secret key in the bb-config.php file located in the bbpress root folder.

This will expire all their auto log-ins and keep them from being able to log-in without a log-in form.

Thanks for the help everyone!

I hope this helps.

Scott

[chrishajer]

You can expire all their login cookies by changing the secret keys in your bb-config.php file. See the note (which is present in wp-config.php but not in bb-config.php I don’t think):

https://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/trunk/wp-config-sample.php#L41

[kevinjohngallagher]

Gravatars is a wonderful tool, and those of us who are technical or on multiple forums can see their advantage. The average joe blog, probably can’t; or doesn’t have one already.

When joe average says “hey, how do i upload an avatar like jim bob over there?” and your answer involves him leaving your website, signing up for a wordpress account and then… etc. it’s over!

Gravatars are a nice default, but it’s far from a solution for the majority of forums out there.

To give a few examples:

1) I only uploaded an avatar to Gravatars last week. This aint my first or only forum and i’m slightly more technical and active on forums that the average joe user.

2) On my largest bbPress site (which isn’t that big compared to others on here) less than 1% of users have a gravatar, and definately less than 5% of active users do ( i made on of those Gravatar walls for them last week after Matt posted a link to one on planet.wordpress.org)

It’s definaely something I’d recommend to everyone to see what teh Gravatar uptake on their forums is actually like.

3) Depending on the forum, human avatars aren’t ideal. I run a forum for my brothers warcraft group. 2-300 users, about 30 active each day. Since enabling avatars for them, not 1 picture of them; just loads of gnomes and green skinned dudes.

Sadly, as a forum, one of bbPress’ big downfalls from an end user perspective is personalisation (and Avatars being one).

[honestscott]

Here is what I ended up doing.

Even though my members still seem to be able to log-in (even without a log-in form) and post.

I changed all my forums to categories, now no one can start a new topic, or post on an old one.

You can do this from the dashboard forums section, there is a box you can check to change each forum into a category.

But everything is still readable, and this is what I wanted.

I really wish I could keep them from logging in too, but they will get tired of logging in for nothing.

I am so glad I found this solution, because if I had to set all 702 members to inactive, that would have taken quite a while…whew!

I hope this helps.

Scott