[kevinjohngallagher]

Hi BBpress team,

I wanted to raise a concern I’ve had for sometime, but every time I think it’s the right thing to do, there’s a new release and I thought that maybe it’d be fixed. With 1.0 in alpha stage, I figure now’s a good time.

I think we’ve got a lot of this wrong.

Not the code, not the plugins, not the community, but more the mindset behind the important features. We’ve not built forum software, we’ve built blogging software.

We make posts, and people comment on them. The focus of BBpress is on individual posts with things like tags, as opposed to the forum/section/category to which it was posted. I also appreciate the desire to streamline the code base, which is wonderful, but users and the internet-public at large expect forums to have certain features – to rely on user updated plugins for these features is not an ideal solution.

I don’t say any of this to criticise, because you folks have done amazing work given the small team and smaller community working on BBpress, and I’m massively impressed; but I think given the scale of the project you’re working on you’d want real feedback.

Let me give an example if I may, which might illustrate the issue I and other users face.

In the 1.0alpha, we finally get Categories as standard, a feature that is absolutely essential for a forum (not a blog), otherwise the ‘forums’ are just a list of wordpress categories.

The problem with Categories, is that we don’t have ‘forums’ belonging to them, instead we have ‘forums’ that are called categories. A simple 1/0 in a db. But it’s not enough. Why?

Well it means that the loop in front-page.php to iterate through forums has to check to see if it’s a category. There is no independent check for categories and forums. This of course makes no difference in the world of all forums being in a singular table (the category can just be an individual TR and we can use a PHP continue to end the loop), but as soon as we move to multiple tables (which is essential for accessibility focussed websites), or nested divs this becomes quite useless.

What we need its:

Category

Forum

Topic

Forum

Topic

Topic

Reply

Reply

Each belonging to the parent above it. But we don’t have that in BBpress for categories. It’s massively short-sighted.

Now, this may seem like a simple thing, but I raise it as more of a mindset. We’re coming across a bug/issue/problem/feature request and we’re solving that specific request rather than seeing how it fits in. Take, if I may, the brilliant UNREAD POSTS plug-in by _CK_. When it was built it added a class to the specific span of the name of the topic post in the list of topics. Upon request it then did the same to the name of the forums. At no time was the thought process – wait a minute, if I put this at the top level item of the iteration that means that all child nodes can use it. _CK_ fixed this oversight yesterday and his plugin is now brilliant and easily rivalling the methodology used in the bigger forum solutions.

But it’s the mindset behind it I think we need to change. Fixing a singular problem, or even adding a new requested feature, without planning how it will impact others or if it’s at a high enough level is starting to make BBpress look amateurish.

I’m not saying we have to emulate the big boys and their massively bloated software, but what we have to accept, as a community, is that the likes of PHPbb and IPB etc. all do certain functions as standard, and these are what our users will expect.

I can’t see a roadmap or feature list for a finished 1.0 anywhere, I can’t even see a feature list for 1.5 anywhere (and yes I’ve been to the TRAC site for both). I just get the feeling as we move towards 1.0 release, that we’re not really releasing forum software, we’re releasing blogging software:

WordPress: categories > posts > comments

BBpress: forums > topics > replies

These are effectively one and the same. I’m quiety confident that someone could write a WP theme that effectively does what BBpress does. The BBpress front page list topics then forums (with the number of topics /posts in it). A WP page could list blog Posts titles and then categories (with the number of posts / comments in it). They are, to an end user, the one and the same.

I mean, was XML-RPC absolutely essential for BBpress? It seems to me that Categories, or the Unread Posts feature would be far more essential in that other forums have them. Why haven’t we used the same folder structure as WordPress so that we can easily convince wordpress users to also use BB? Heck why isn’t even our website set out in the same way (this may bring over some WP plugin creators)?

These things are not complains, and I do not raise them to flame or criticise in anyway, I merely hope to kick start a little discussion that can see us move BBpress forward. To often in the past few months I’ve suggested BBpress to friends or fellow developers and they’ve told me that it just doesn’t meet their needs – I think that’s something we need to fix, together

Kev

[kevinjohngallagher]

Hi Vuuch,

You copy the contents of the “bbpress” folder into your “forum” folder. Basically, click through your ZIP file and all the subsequent folders until you see files (not just a folder). Copy everything at that level to your forums folder.

Good Luck

[vuuch]

I want to ask before a create a bigger problem. I have not installed anything yet. I have downloded the install and extracted it on my machine. I read the installation docs and it says copy the extracted files to my forum location. I AM NOT SURE WHAT TO COPY??? in my folder with the zip file i have a folder bbpress 0.9.0.2, in that folder there is another folder bbpress and in that folder there are files and folders. So if I plan to have the forum at mysite.com/forum then do i copy the folder bbpress 0.9.0.2 and it’s subs or do i copy the content of bbpress to my forum folder?

thanks, sorry for such a minor question

[mithrandir321]

Hello, I have this code (which comes from another support thread here) on my front-page.php:

<table id=”highest”>

<?php $top_topics = bb_top_topics(); ?>

<?php foreach ( $top_topics as $topic ) : ?> // line 70

<tr<?php topic_class(); ?>>

<td>“><?php topic_title(); ?>

</td>

<td class=”num”><div class=”rating-holder”><?php bb_rating();?>

<span class=”count”><?php bb_rating_count(); ?>

</span>

</div>

</td></tr>

<?php endforeach; ?>

</table>

And under it the code for latest topics.

It gives me this error:

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/home1/novapojistovna_cz/public_html/www/bbpress/bb-templates/kakumei/front-page.php on line 70

Can anybody help, please. Don’t quite understand what is wrong

Thanks

[Tom Lynch]

It works great but the thing is that I still cannot get cookie integration right.

[learningcomputer]

Wow, problem fixed, thanks chris.

[chrishajer]

No, it does not work like WordPress. There is nothing like a widget in bbPress. If you want to add adsense to your forum, you might want to read some of these posts:

https://bbpress.org/forums/tags/adsense

[learningcomputer]

i have difficulty inserting adsense on my bbpress installation the wordpress is installed in http://learningcomputer.info. The bbpress is in http://forum.learningcomputer.info. Can’t I insert it automatically just like regular wordpress? i mean using widget in the Design page?

Thanx for u’r attention

[Ed Torres]

In my case I tried to install this version using my laptop, under Firefox web browser and could not login or sometimes even finish the installation due to cookies problems.

I check Tools>Options>Privacy>Show Cookies… and my site was not there.

I then tried to add the site manually and the problem did not solved.

I deleted the /forum/ folder and the bb_ tables from the MySQL database and uploaded the bbForum again. This time I used my desktop and checked the cookies first. My site’s cookies were registered and the installation went smooth and the forum is operational.

Hopefully this would help somebody.

[chrishajer]

Yes, you can make a modification to that file to work around the disabled function.

getmypid() – often disabled on shared hosting systems

Line 43 of bb-includes/class-phpass.php needs to be edited to get around this function being disabled on your host.

[chrishajer]

Looks like your host has disabled a php function (getmypid) that bbpress needs. See this:

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/cannot-create-forum

[chrishajer]

No, do not post it here. If you like, you can email it to me as an attachment and I can check the syntax for you. You will find a way to contact me by clicking my profile, or just google chrishajer. I’m easy to find.

It’s important to not edit the file to hide passwords or keys because you could destroy valuable evidence.

[Meraj Chhaya]

Hi there

I have just installed bbPress in a new database, not integrated with WordPress. I manage to access the forum, which is located at thenokian95.com/forum, but I cannot login, it says:

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/nokisat7/public_html/thenokian95.com/forum/bb-config.php:1) in /home/nokisat7/public_html/thenokian95.com/forum/bb-includes/pluggable.php on line 188

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/nokisat7/public_html/thenokian95.com/forum/bb-config.php:1) in /home/nokisat7/public_html/thenokian95.com/forum/bb-includes/pluggable.php on line 228

My installation went successfully, and I can register users. Here is the installation log, with a changed password:

Referrer is OK, beginning installation…

Step 1 – Creating database tables

>>> Create table bb_forums

>>> Create table bb_posts

>>> Create table bb_topics

>>> Create table bb_topicmeta

>>> Create table bb_users

>>> Create table bb_usermeta

>>> Create table bb_tags

>>> Create table bb_tagged

Step 2 – WordPress integration (optional)

>>> Integration not enabled

Step 3 – Site settings

>>> Site name: The Nokia N95 forum

>>> Site address (URL): http://thenokian95.com/forum/

>>> From email address: only.meraj@merajnet.com

>>> Key master created

>>>>>> Username: admin

>>>>>> Email address: only.meraj@merajnet.com

>>>>>> Password: something

>>> Description: Just another bbPress community

>>> Forum name: First forum

>>>>>> Topic: Your first topic

>>>>>>>>> Post: First Post! w00t.

>>> Key master email sent

Installation complete!

I have left bb-config.php and pluggable.php in CHMOD 755. I read other topics in this forum, and I had looked to see if there were extra whitespaces, but everything seems ok.

What am I doing wrong?

Thank you in advance

[dchest]

_ck_, yes, currently the plugin doesn’t handle errors if recaptcha.net is down. It’s not difficult to add, though, and I’ll do it later. However, I’m not sure what’s better: just stop registrations for the period of recaptcha.net downtime, or allow registrations without captcha (and get spammed)? Maybe even fall back to your math solution?

[_ck_]

Just out of curiosity, what happens if recaptcha.net is down or gets hit by a ddos attack? Do thousands of sites that rely on them suddenly stop being able to register people?

I need to upgrade my Human Test so it doesn’t rely on sessions and then it should be even more useful for a completely local solution.

[feastoffools]

We are using WordPress 2.3.3 and Bbpress 0.8.3.1

This sounds wonderful, and will be really helpful in driving traffic around inside our site. Thank you!

Do you guys know of a developer that might be available to do this implementation for us?

[_ck_]

User rights is stored in usermeta not the main user tables.

You were actually the keymaster, not the admin, which is higher.

If you are user #1, try my fix admin access plugin to fix it.

https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/fix-admin-access/

[sc0ttbeardsley]

OK, I’ve looked at the other thread and looked at the cookie interaction on my site and have it working. I did have to make a change to my wordpress installation to get it to work. Here is what I did:

My wordpress installation is at sacbikekitchen.org

My bbpress installation is at sacbikekitchen.org/forum/

I added the following to my /forum/bb-config.php:

$bb->cookiedomain = '.sacbikekitchen.org';

$bb->sitecookiepath = '/';

I added the following to my /wp-config.php:

define('COOKIE_DOMAIN', '.sacbikekitchen.org');

define('COOKIEPATH', '/');

Then I made a couple additions to the wp-includes/pluggable.php file:

Around line 596 I added:

setcookie(LOGGED_IN_COOKIE, $logged_in_cookie, $expire, '/forum/', COOKIE_DOMAIN);

setcookie($auth_cookie_name, $auth_cookie, $expire, '/forum/bb-plugins', COOKIE_DOMAIN);

setcookie($auth_cookie_name, $auth_cookie, $expire, '/forum/my-plugins', COOKIE_DOMAIN);

setcookie($auth_cookie_name, $auth_cookie, $expire, '/forum/bb-admin', COOKIE_DOMAIN);

Around line 620 I added:

setcookie(LOGGED_IN_COOKIE, ' ', time() - 31536000, '/forum/', COOKIE_DOMAIN);

setcookie(AUTH_COOKIE, ' ', time() - 31536000, '/forum/bb-plugins', COOKIE_DOMAIN);

setcookie(AUTH_COOKIE, ' ', time() - 31536000, '/forum/my-plugins', COOKIE_DOMAIN);

setcookie(AUTH_COOKIE, ' ', time() - 31536000, '/forum/bb-admin', COOKIE_DOMAIN);

Hope it helps…

[fatbikez]

looks good. im going to check that out

[Meraj Chhaya]

Hi all!

I run wordpress 2.6 at phonereport.info. I tried installing bbPress 1.0 Alpha so that it could integrate with WordPress, but just as I concluded the installation successfully, I get the following error:

‘Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in /home/nokisat7/public_html/phonereport.info/test/bbpress/bb-config.php on line 20’

Line 20 is the following:

‘// the value of their equivalent keys in the WordPress file wp-config.php’

Here is the installation log, I changed the password:

‘Referrer is OK, beginning installation…

>>> Setting up custom user table constants

Step 1 – Creating database tables

>>> Modifying database: nokisat7_bbpress (localhost)

>>>>>> Table: bb_forums

>>>>>>>>> Creating table

>>>>>>>>>>>> Done

>>>>>> Table: bb_meta

>>>>>>>>> Creating table

>>>>>>>>>>>> Done

>>>>>> Table: bb_posts

>>>>>>>>> Creating table

>>>>>>>>>>>> Done

>>>>>> Table: bb_terms

>>>>>>>>> Creating table

>>>>>>>>>>>> Done

>>>>>> Table: bb_term_relationships

>>>>>>>>> Creating table

>>>>>>>>>>>> Done

>>>>>> Table: bb_term_taxonomy

>>>>>>>>> Creating table

>>>>>>>>>>>> Done

>>>>>> Table: bb_topics

>>>>>>>>> Creating table

>>>>>>>>>>>> Done

Step 2 – WordPress integration (optional)

>>> WordPress address (URL): http://phonereport.info/

>>> Blog address (URL): http://phonereport.info/

>>> WordPress cookie keys set.

>>> WordPress “auth” cookie salt set from input.

>>> WordPress “logged in” cookie salt set from input.

>>> Fetching missing WordPress cookie salts.

>>>>>> WordPress “secure auth” cookie salt not set.

>>> User database table prefix: wp_

>>> User database name: nokisat7_wrdp9

>>> User database user: nokisat7_forum

>>> User database password: something

>>> User database host: localhost

>>> User database character set: utf8

Step 3 – Site settings

>>> Site name: PhoneReport test forum

>>> Site address (URL): http://phonereport.info/test/bbpress/

>>> From email address: only.meraj@merajnet.com

>>> Key master role assigned to existing user

>>>>>> Username: admin

>>>>>> Email address: only.meraj@merajnet.com

>>>>>> Password: Your existing password

>>> Description: Just another bbPress community

>>> Forum name: PhoneReport test forum

>>>>>> Topic: Your first topic

>>>>>>>>> Post: First Post! w00t.

>>> Key master email sent

Installation complete!’

Please let me know what else you wish to have.

There are two different databases: one for the wordpress installation, the other for bbpress.

Thank you in advance, and keep up the good work!

[dchest]

johnhiler: It should work with 0.9. It won’t work with some rare strange (perhaps, Windows-based) PHP configurations with 0.9 and earlier that have empty PHP_SELF variable.

[johnhiler]

Has anyone had a chance to this with bbPress v 0.9?

[jasonfrank77]

thanks guys for releas))

[Klark0]

I count the number of blogs and the number of the posts using two queries. All posts from all the other blogs are copied to blog_id 1. So i do like so

$count_posts = wp_count_posts();

echo $count_posts->publish;

and

$stats = get_sitestats();

$tmp_blog_count = number_format ($stats[ 'blogs' ] );

print "".$tmp_blog_count." blogs";

Can bbpress grab those ?

[dchest]

Thanks! Commited and tagged.