Listen to me about plugins. I have had enourmus success with BBPress, with over 110 users and counting. This is what BBPress needs:
1. Polls
2. A chatbox on the side of the forum, like a widget. With simple design: Names and messages, nothing else.
3. Custom Avatar, with image resizing done at upload.
4. Administrate posting for users. Post length minimum, post allowed per minute and so on. Auto moderation really.
Can you give us a screenshot or a link so we can see what’s happening?
The realism is, bbPress is not currently aimed at folks that are not technically minded. That’s not said to put you or anyne else down, it’s just the reality of where we are.
If you like the look of this software, or if you chose it for a particualr reason, then i’d spend some time searching the forums and seeing if any questions you have have already been asked; because documentation is non-existanct.
In terms of your Akismet problem:
- Go to your admin area
- click on the “plugins” link
- click on “activate” link under akismet
- now the step that they tell people about for wordpress but not bbpress
- click on the “settings” menu on the left hand side
- the bottom sub menu will say Akismet, click it.
- input your key
- click save
- spent time taking actual posts from users out of spam que because akismet is not optomized for forums
Take care…
I will, check back on this later.
The problem is this: No save button on polls during topic creation. Using BBPress v1.02. Code untouched.
I’m just starting to consider moving our forum from Invision Power Board over to bbpress.
One thing I know we need is the ability to attach files to posts.
We will also need to be able to use bolding, underlining, etc., etc.
And the crew is really fond of smilies.
Also, we need a board which will be totally private.
So, I guess my real question is if bbpress is what I’m looking for at all.
If your PHP knowledge is little, bbPress and specifically user created plugins with no admin section are not ever going to be a reliable solution. We’ve really only had a reliable admin section for 7 months, and very few plugins have been written since then.
In this instance, and for your own needs, the best way to do this is via JavaScript. Googling an example is easy, should only be really 5-6 lines of code, and you won’t need to know any PHP or bbPress commands.
It should, in theory, look like this:
$(‘form’).submit(function() {
if( $(‘input#post_content’).val().length < 20 )
{
alert(” Please write more than 20 letters “);
return false;
}
});
Of course you’ll have to check the code yourself and put it in your theme, but that *should* work.
Marius mate,
Testing these things on a local/development enviroment first is really going to help you. bbPress plugins sometimes require quite a bit of web-dev knowledge, and being able to work out all the hic-ups on your own machine before letting your users see it will make your life alot easier 
By the looks of it, yourself and JohnHiller could be on different timezones, I’m on all day fixing the last few bugs in the bbProgress admin section, so shout if it goes back up and we’ll try and help.
I got like thirty users who are all twelve year olds, it would have been a mess, sorry. I can turn it on again tonight, when they have all gone to bed 
I volunteered for the documentation team. The problem has been that I’ve been really busy so haven’t had much chance to devote time to it. One thing I did do was document all the template tags (https://bbpress.org/documentation/template-tags/), and there have been some changes to some of the other documentation pages by others.
There hasn’t been any talk among the documentation teams as far as I am aware, and there haven’t been any announcements of IRC meetups. So, I’m not really sure what is happening at the moment.
Do you want to change the size of avatar in your theme? I don’t know how that plugin works. It should be calling the bbPress function only. Try getting something from here – http://blog.ashfame.com/2009/08/change-gravatar-size-bbpress-theme/
To anyone who is having issues with avatars. Check out the ‘Bavatars’ plugin. It’s much more user friendly and it ‘just works’ in the same way that many WP plugins do. Upload and hit activate. A dream.
@kevinjohngallagher I say all of this respectfully, but realize that I have a different background and come from a different place.
You “hear this from time to time” because it’s a recurring problem. Maybe not for some, and certainly not for you, but it is for many given the comments that I’ve seen go unanswered on the forums. I don’t know what ‘free’ has to do with this conversation. There are many ‘free’ software projects that are way more friendly than the existing ‘situation’ with BBPress. WordPress itself is more user friendly.
“90% of the requests people make”…? The different between ‘basic’ and ‘standard’ is semantic at this point and doesn’t move the conversation forward. It’s a status quo argument that I run into on a daily basis in my profession. I don’t accept it there, nor do I accept it here. @Chrishajer is exactly right. If’ we’re going to discuss this from percentage perspective. My point is that avatars should be in the 10% of the included feature set. I’m not asking for anything special here. Just the ability to place a tiny image next to my name when I post. It’s 2010.
I integrated WordPress and bbPress and I got to the final stage of changing the settings in bbpress and tried to log back in and got the “user does not exist” error message. Now I can’t log in at all. Does this have something to do with matching the roles in the User Map? Quite a problem as I can’t log in to check anything.
I just came back to check it out, but looks like you turned off the poll feature.
Oh well, good luck!
Alright, I will activate it for you now, if you can do it within the next hours.
http://www.michaeljackson.no/forum
Its on topic creation now, so you will have to register to try it.
–
Alright closing it again now. Im going off to bed, and users are gonna be on early tomorrow morning, so I cant have them freak out with an unfinished plugin.
Maybe we could time this better tomorrow
Post a link to your site? I’d like to run some quick tests…
Both are turned on, and it doesnt work.
The script is there, you can create the poll during topic creation, but it doesnt work. It doesnt get included.
There is only a Cancel-button.
Marius- That’s an option in the admin: “Ask for poll during new topic creation? (requires AJAX on)”.
Set that to yes, and also this one: “Use AJAX-like actions if javascript enabled?”… and it should work!
As long as it retains the way themes, plugins etc are handled I don’t see a problem with bbpress finally being a ‘real’ part of wordpress and sharing its functions. Hopefully the plugin will encourage more wordpress.org users to get involved.
I have just installed it, and here is the problem:
When you decide to create a poll during topic creation, there is no save button. Only a a Cancel button. And when you type in question and alternatives, and click Send in the postform, it doesnt include the poll at all.
It only works when you go into the topic when its created, and add a poll afterwards.
It’s been there for a while: “Last Updated: 2010-1-13” and says, “Don’t download me yet. I’m in the beginning stages of development.”
But its already there in the extend section – https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bbpress/
Yeah, I know, but it’s good to have alternatives!
I dunno mate, i’m happy for the discussion (as there’s alot of discussion to be had from both sides of any point of view), but this “article” doesn’t really say anything we’ve not known already. Matt mentioned in a weekly IRC meeting in december that bbPress was going to be a WP plugin.
I don’t know if Binary Turf is actually a really well known and respected website (i’ve never heard of it before – but that might not mean much), but either way 2 paragraphs on bbPress from someone not involved in the project isn’t really going to bring us any new info.
