[kevinjohngallagher]

Hi Marius,

Thanks for contributing. I suppose that the issue comes down to one of stats and hard facts versus beliefs – and as we all know stats dont always win.

I think you are giving Facebook way too little credit.

I’m not, its a wonderful website and tool that i use often.

But these exact arguements were heard during the rise of MySpace, Okurt, LiveSpaces, MSNmessenger, AoL, Bebo etc etc etc.

Nothing lasts forever, and in the internet world, becoming the most popular and staying the most popular are two different things.

The question remains though, and no-ones given me any data otherwise to come up with a case we could debate, how benefitial would spending the time on an FBconnect plugin be for BBpress?

When it comes to instant messenger, MSN has been top dog for ever, contradicting your philosophy about topdogs

Except, that isn’t true!

AoL was top dog for a very very long time. Infact, MSN piggybacked onto AoL’s AIM service for its first 2 years, because by that time, AoL had been top dog for 5 years.

Then Yahoo and MSN were tied for years, infact Yahoo prospered greatly during Microsoft’s failed Hailstorm/myPassport/MSN-messenger-is-tied-into-outlook-express failed rollout.

Its easy to say with hindsight that MSN has always been top dog, but if you were there, you’d know its simply not true.

MSNmessenger really took off with WindowsXP, and as a Microsoft developer at the time, i can tell you that before then its market share of IM chat was alot lower than its percentage of possible users.

Everyone in my country uses MSN, and has for the last 10-12 years

Awesome. Its only been out 9 years though (unless you had Windows ME where this could be in your 10th by 7 weeks), but i’ll not quibble. The problem with these sort of statements is that “Everyone” is a statistical statement that means 100%. I’m confident not 100% of people (that use internet or even instant messaging) in your country use MSN messenger for the last X years.

The same is my issue with these generalisations about Facebook (or any website) once it become incumbant in its field. “everyone” uses facebook, like “everyone” or “most” use MSN simply isnt true.

Facebook has redefined the whole genre of social communication on the internet

I fail to see how it has redefined it actually. Simplified? Unified? Sped-up? I’ll grant you all those.

But publishing data to a group of people who’ve you’ve preselected to be allowed to see said data is not new; Neither is the instant messaging, sharing of photos, emailing each other etc.

It has become so widely used, that it’s incorporated in Playstation 3, Xbox 360, several cellphones, and in many countries – Facebook has been the platform for actual change

Thats a massive leap there mate, loads of things are on PS3, Xbox360, Cellphones etc.

Heck they all have an API so people can develop applications for them.

Bebo is on all of those platforms, are we now suggesting that Bebo is the platform for change? (and btw, Bebo is the # 1 social network in my country – not facebook).

My phone in 2004, and as i recall to some degree my xBox in 2005 – at least in signing in, had MSNmessenger on it. Sharing status updates, chatting, emailling and sending photos. Surely, given that this was on game consoles and cell phones over 5 years ago, this would be far more likely to be the platform for actual change than Facebook (was wasn’t even built then).

I think Facebook is pretty much gonna be the number one social website for a very long time

Again, its based on “i think” and not stats. For the record, I also think the same as you, but when it comes to committing resources, i base them off facts and not randoms hunches. Plus, i’m sure there were countless people who said the same about AoL, MSN, MySpace etc etc.

=====================================================

I’m real happy for these conversations, but i’m worried that we’re getting away from teh original point. I am not being disparaging of Facebook the website, platform, nor movie (is it still going to be Aaron Sorkin writing??).

But with so many people posting so often about how Facebook Connect should be the top priority/feature in BBpress, i am asking for your data so we can see if its worthwhile

[johnhiler]

This is very tricky stuff. There is a field in the posts table called post_position… but bbPress basically ignores it at this point, and uses the post date instead to sort the posts in order.

But one day, splitting or merging topics may be supported in the API and post position will become important again. Then any posts you split or merged to another topic (even using a plugin) may no longer be in the right order!!

More on that here:

https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/edit-post-attributes/

and here:

https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/move-it/#post-393

Note: since there’s no clear API support yet and I don’t want to mess up my posts database, what I do instead is grab the text and repost it manually as a new thread. Then I use ck’s “edit post attributes” to change the author from my username to the original author.

https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/edit-post-attributes/

Then I delete the old post.

[brayjason]

I am using the default template. The kakumei one.

I have not done too much work yet at all. Unfortunately I deleted all of the files off of my server and the reuploaded them via ftp (cyberduck)

After that I had to go through the installation step one and when I entered in the information it said its already installed! (weird since I had deleted everything)

I’m going to try and delete everything again. Re download the files from bbpress, and re upload them. Maybe it will work

thank you so much for a quick reply btw

[eyashwant]

I installed wordpress mu and bbpress in single database and installed integration plugins of respective ones on both. And configured it.

As of today mine is the latest wordpress mu version and bbpress version. The problem I am facing is :

1) Login integration

2) User roles integration

3) Theme integration

In detail :

1) Login integration :

When I login in to wordpress and then move to forum, I am logged in. Also when I logout of wordpress and then go to forum I am logged out. This works perfectly. The problem is when I login in to forum and then move to wordpress, it does not work. Also when I logout at forum and then move to wordpress I am still logged in. I can access wp-admin. When I access wp-login it seems like I am logged out. But if I access wp-admin I am logged in. If I press log out I get error :

You are attempting to log out of Test 1

Please try again.

URL of where I am getting is http://test1.soulblog.net/wp-login.php?action=logout_wpnonce=f3ec0d7e0f

2) User roles, in wordpress I installed Role manager. In bbpress I see the registered users as “Inactive (no role)”

3)I want to integrate wordpress theme in the forum. I followed the steps below :

____________________________________________

styling your forum

1. Open bb-config.php and add the following line (replacing PATHTOYOUR with the

relative path to your blog):

require_once(‘/PATHTOYOUR/wp-blog-header.php’);

2. Navigate to the folder for the theme you are using on the forum (the default is

Kakumei, which is in /bb-templates/kakumei) and open the header.php

file. Replace the contents with <?php get_header(); ?>.

3. After the <?php get_header(); ?>, ����������������������������������insert the following line of code:

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”<?php bb_stylesheet_uri(); ?>”

type=”text/css” />.

4. You can do the same with the footer, replacing it with <?php get_footer(); ?>

if you wish.

5. Open the style.css file for the bbPress theme you are using. Search for the

following line in the header: class.

background: url(‘images/page_header_bblogo.png’) no-repeat

Remove that line and save the file.

6. View the forum. It should now be very similar in look and feel to the rest of the

blog network.

__________________________________________

This replaced the header and footer, but did not integrate well.

So some one please guide me with these 3 issues and get me solved asap.

[chrishajer]

Looks like you are using a modified template maybe? If so, please try the default, unmodified template.

If you are already using the included kakumei template, make sure all the files were properly uploaded. It looks like some things are missing.

If you haven’t done too much work yet (either modifications or posting) I would just save the bb-config.php and delete everything else, then reupload all the bbPress files and try accessing the forum again. It just doesn’t look complete.

If you did anything other that just install the bare bones bbPress, please post here what you did. Things like integration, modifications, 1-click install from your host, anything interesting about your hosting setup. Thanks

[brayjason]

Hello and Merry Christmas bbpress’ers

My forum is at http://musclecontrol.org/tmpftp/bbpress/

For some reason I cannot post at all? I edited the only topic I had, but could not post a reply or start a new topic? So I deleted the only topic and now have nothing. I have no idea how to fix this. I looked all over the admin panel. I searched the forums but nobody seemed to have this same problem.

Any ideas?

[kevinjohngallagher]

@dailytalker

Merry Christmas mate,

The reason i was asking about what features SMF had that BBpress didn’t is that most of them you’ve listed so far have plugins to complete that task. Not all, i agree, but 90%.

Its not ideal, but they are there and they do work.

… SMF had a sophisticated bozo-user ban protection. You could ban by member-name, ban by IP-Number, ban by email address

BBprogress had 1 or 2 plugins that handled that.

EDIT: Infact form the last 4 plugins listed on their website:

– Admin block posts based on keywords

– Sin Bin functionality.

– Black mark functionality.

– Check registar against spammer database.

Why not just include the majority of them?

Because we dont have anyone to build them.

[kevinjohngallagher]

I belief that they would login if they could login with their facebook login.

The thing is, all the data we’ve seen from 18 months of Facebook Connect, not to mention people believing that they could pull people away from AoL/MSN/MySpace onto their own site in the past 10 years, all suggestes otherwise.

Thats not to say that it wont happen, it could and if it did i’d be very happy for you, but we have alot of data that says Facebook Connect will not be overly benefitial, and no-data to say otherwise.

Maybe it works, maybe not. It’s try and error. What’s wrong with that?

We don’t have the development resources. Right now we have 0 developers from automattic working on BBpress, though Matt is now taking an interest. If there was a huge desire or need for FBconnect someone would have build a plugin in the last 18 months. Sadly no-one has, and i think that on the whole, is the most damning thing. There has been a plugin for almost ever other feature mentioned on this thread – apart from FBconnect.

[Il Gatto]

Hi,

bbPress is being used by the Italian Expat Community in Malaysia at

http://forum.nellaterradisandokan.com/

bbPress in a excellent forum software

[grassrootspa]

He also released this one too:

Topic Freshness Filter (https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/bbfreshness/)

Great to see him cranking these out!

[wabanator]

We are using latest WP and BBpress + BBsync. The problem is that when unregisted users post comment to the blog their post is copied to forum as blank post. Forum shows their name right, but the post is totally blank.

What should we do about it? Any fix?

[hpguru]

http://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/bb-topic-icons/

Demo: http://keskustelu.hpguru.net/

Really good and necessary bbPress plugin. Thank you for the fact that this has been done. Facilitate both the owner and user by providing good information on the topics of clear icons. Thanks to the author.

I am happy with that plugin in my forum.

[Michael]

Unfortunately, I am not a plugin developer – but I think the idea is good. At the end of the day, there might need to be a little ‘push’ to get bbPress active again. This could be it.

[grassrootspa]

@kriskl:

I like where are going. Perhaps you are on to something. Building off your initial idea, what about some sort of 2010 plugin development contest?

As you noted, several people here chipped into _ck_ and got their money returned. I’m sure those same people might be open to something like this.

Heck, if we had some ‘bbPress plugin contest’ I’ll chip in something.

Anyone else like have any thoughts on this? Would anyone else be willing to donate toward a bbPress plugin development contest?

If we can get 10 folks to match one another at $25 or $50 each we can get a small but sizable initial pot built.

The Sandbox development contest back in 2007 initially had $500 total to distribute between 1st, 2nd and 3rd place (http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2007/05/31/announcing-the-sandbox-designs-competition/) After some sponsorships the total in competition prizes rose to $1950. (http://sndbx.org/details/)

Look, the top prize is most likely not going to be a zillion bucks, but it its not a bad idea to stick a steroid shot in the plugin development arm and get some more people fired up (or fired up once again) about bbPress development.

Heck, even if someone took an existing plugin that didn’t work with bbPress 1.02 and updated it, this would be an improvement.

Perhaps this plugin contest could be scheduled/built around around the revamping/relaunching of the bbPress.org site and the introduction of the new bbPress codex section.

Thoughts? Anyone else willing to match a small donation toward such a contest? Haha, if people like this idea, the bbPress Theme contest comes next

[hpguru]

Not included to bbPress just now.

[chrishajer]

kjg (sorry, too tired to type):

see this http://www.lawserver.com/forums/

Do the totals work the way you want for forums/parents/subforums? That is bbPress installation I integrated with Joomla of all things. I believe I fixed the problem with a plugin or some custom code so if this is the end result you’re looking for, let me know and I will look back at how I did it.

[chrishajer]

> Why not just include the majority of them

Finite resources. WordPress didn’t become great by cramming a bunch of features in. WordPress is great because of the ability to add plugins and themes. Any feature you want, and any look you want, is available in WordPress using a plugin or a theme. If there needs to be a new hook added to WordPress to allow a plugin to accomplish something, they generally do it.

It’s taken WordPress a long time to incorporate into the core a lot of things that used to be plugins, and maybe should still be plugins. bbPress is nowhere near that stage yet.

[chrishajer]

> What’s wrong with that?

Again, the only thing wrong is that there are finite resources and there needs to be a good case made to devoting resources to adding new features to bbPress. There’s nothing preventing anyone from developing FB Connect as a plugin for bbPress. If there’s an itch, someone will scratch it.

[Dailytalker]

Kevin, the thing is that I have several facebook groups. Each group has its own forum. What I want is to bring all those groups together in my forum. Each group forum would become a category in my bbpress forum. I’d like to invite the people of some facebook groups to join my forum. I belief that they would login if they could login with their facebook login.

Maybe it works, maybe not. It’s try and error. What’s wrong with that?

Merry Christmas

[Dailytalker]

Kevin, before I changed from SMF to bbpress I checked the extensions. I use the following plugins:

Activated:

allow images

image rezizer

bbvideo

Bavatars

BBcode Buttons Toolbar

BBcode Lite

bbPM

bbpress signatures

bbpress smilies

bbpress user directory

bozo users

members online

Not activated:

Askimet (do not like it)

Remove topic forum (unfortunately there is no updated version, it would be a cool thing for users who like SEO-friendly pretty urls)

open-ID (no facebook login and does cause problems with the current bbpress version; wait until its updated)

bbpress polls (causes some problems with my template)

bb topic views (did not find out how to change the language; does not work with poedit and in the files I did not fiend the word “views” so I cannot translate it in german)

ignore user (needs to be updated for the current bbpress version)

All this plugins are nice but with all this bbpress is ways apart from SMF. Thats why former members complaint about the change from SMF to bbpress. SMF allowed to write drafts before posting and other things not mentioned yet…

Regarding the spam problem: SMF and wordpress did solve that problem (wordpress has a lot of good spam protection plugins as well..no need for askimet). I have a pr 5 page and no problems with spam. Register option 3 usually is secure enough. Email-address needs to be proved and there is a captcha-code. If this is not enough you can use register option 4 (member approval) With member approval the admin has to activate new members. With this spam can be avoided. Further SMF had a sophisticated bozo-user ban protection. You could ban by member-name, ban by IP-Number, ban by email address etc.

Regarding the design of the new forum:

The new forum design is better than the design of the old forum. I am not a designer, therefore I don’t think like a designer. I am somebody who likes to have the overview. The new theme is better to keep the overview. On the top you have the latest posts. Beneath you have the different categories and subcategories. This structure is easy to understand. Further the new design allows me to place more ads. Also I work with a drop down menu. Did you use it? It helps too to keep the overview.

[kevinjohngallagher]

Personally,

i doubt _ck_’s main reason for leaving the project was money – she just wasn’t that sort of person. She’d thrown so much time and effort into a project that had gone off at a tangent to what it set out to do, and then its lead developer (actually, only developer) quit. _ck_ was basically left holding the bag, and (again, my own opinion) it may have appeared to her that things weren’t going to change for the better any time soon.

Your idea’s a lovely one, but a little impractical. Given the lack of documentation, huge changes to the codebase, and amount of hardcoded outputs – writing any sort of plugin for BBpress easily becomes somewhat of a quagmire. It gets to the stage where the cost (in terms of time) for developing the plugin would be huge, and i’m not sure that donations from the board are ever going to come close to matching that.

A slightly modified suggestion, is that if someone pays for a developer to edit/fix/create something for their own BBpress installation, then they could donate that code to the site. That’d be far more likely to produce tangible results.

Merry Christmas

[kevinjohngallagher]

Thanks for the info Dailytalker, always great to hear real world examples.

The issues i have is that almost all of features which your users could use are availible for BBpress as a plugin. TinyMCE, Quotes, report users/posts, are all availible as plugins. Changing login requirements and temporary bans are also availible as a plugin.

Private messaging (and there is a plugin) is a funny one because some people love it, most think its useless when there’s such a thing as e-mail. Not to mention it just leads to added spam.

“high security level no spam” is something i doubt, because so far, no-one has been able to elimate spam. Google/microsoft/apple – you name it – they get spam. Its more than likely that your particular board got no to little spam, and it was picked up.

For me, these 2 stand out:

you could move posts from one topic to another in a very easy and very nice way

sophisticated admin-section

These are the issues i face with BBpress everyday. I know that different people will be faced with different problems, but when we simply can’t fully administer BBpress, surely its the feature that has to come first.

If you dont mind me saying also DailyTalker, your old forum looks far more like a forum than your new BBpress one (which looks very plain and boring). I’d definately suggest creating a theme to make your two forums look the same. This will make life easier for the users

Thanks for the discussion, and have a merry christmas.

[Dailytalker]

Kevin, you can check yourself:

Old forum:

http://www.dailytalk.ch/forums/index.php

(I had pretty urls before but I removed them when I moved this forum into another folder.)

New forum:

http://www.dailytalk.ch/forum/

The old forum had a tinymce-editor with a lot of cool features…drop-down menu for font-size, drop-down menu for different font-style, drop-down menu for different font-color, you could put some letters up (for example “CO2” you could write with the 2 higher than the other letters and also deeper etc.) movies, pictures, links, quotes with name of the original author, message function to reporte abusive messages to the moderators, you could temporary ban members, you could move posts from one topic to another in a very easy and very nice way, sophisticated privat messaging, high security level no spam, you could in an easy way change the login requirements, sophisticated admin-section, admins could see the IP-Number of the visitors, very easy mod (=plugins) upload through integrated ftp-upload, ssi-functions and so on….

The change to bbpress was not an easy decision for me. In my opinion bbpress is still an adventure. Many bbpress-projects are on release candidate level. I used SMF for 3 years and was happy. The problem is that I also have blogs on wordpress and wordpress mu. I had some problems with integration of SMF into wordpress. There are certainly some very old bridges but the different codings didn’t make it easy to me. I integrated SMF with SSI-Functions to wordpress…but I think that because of the similiar coding bbpress is much easier to integrate into wordpress. Thats why I finally decided to give bbpress a chance. I’m somebody who likes to try out new or other things.

@hpguru, what you say is not true at all!!! I never ever had problems with spam when I used SMF!!! SMF offers different register opportunities. They have in the admin-section a so called registration management which offers four different options for registration:

1) Registration Disabled:

Disables the registration process, which means that no new members can register to join your forum.

2) Immediate Registration

New members can login and post immediately after registering on your forum.

3) Member Activation

When this option is enabled any members registering to the forum will have a activation link emailed to them which they must click before they can become full members

4) Member Approval

This option will make it so all new members registering to your forum will need to be approved by the admin before they become members.

Further they have captcha-codes which need to be entered in a registration field. (You can even change the level of those codes. They have different difficulty-levels).

New updates are shown in the admin section…is very simliar to wordpress and you can easy update with integrated ftp-upload.

[Lexey]

Hello everybody!

Unfortunately I have no mysql extension installed on my hosting. Has anyone the latest version of BBPress with MySQLi support?

[johnhiler]

fel64 and henrybb made plugins like this… then _ck_ improved on them with this:

https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/unread-posts/