> I assumed that it would be seemlessly integrated with the
> style of my WP site.
It does not work that way. Integration is for logins and function only. To get the look and feel, you need to do some work on your bbPress CSS.
The reason the theme isn’t there is that you installed it to /bbpress/ when you told it it was installed in /forums/. Unless you want to mess with rewrite rules, move your bbpress install into a subdirectory called /forums/ and things should pop into place.
Chris,
Thanks for the reply. I went back to my wp-config file to compare the two. And here is my problem. wp-config is a nice orderly formatted file. everything is laid out nice and neatly and I can see what it is requesting from me.
the bb config.php file is one long run-on sentence. It was very difficult to understand what I needed to change, and what I did not need to change.
So I compared the 2 files, and got through the installation. But the forum has no stylesheet associated with it? Check it out at: http://condofyi.com/bbpress/
I assumed that it would be seemlessly integrated with the style of my WP site. Maybe I do not have the config.php setup correctly? And more importantly, the forum and topic links seem to be invalid.
Any further advice would be great. You have really got me going in the right direction now.
Let me know what you think.
Don’t be scared, full steam ahead. It will be fine. I agree bbPress as standalone forum software is better than a WordPress plugin. Worst case you learn alot as you go along.
WordPress uses wp-config.php and bbPress uses config.php (although I thought there was talk of prepending bb_ to some files, including that one.)
Anyway, having it in a subdirectory as you do is perfect. If you cannot select the database, then something is wrong in your config.php. The connection details should be the exact same ones as in wp-config.php. Are they? The table prefix should be different in bbPress config.php and can be left as bb_. The table prefix in WordPress wp-config.php might be wp_.
Is there more to the error message? There has been some other trouble recently but it gives a different error message.
I don’t know if this is helpful, but I have installed bbPress in its own subdirectory /public_html/bbpress/ whereas all WP elements are installed in the /public_html/ directory.
I noticed that both WP and bbP had a config.php file, so I figured they could not coexsist in the same directory.
I hope this helps.
Hi guys. Trying to install bbPress along with my current WordPress 2.3 installation.
WordPress was a snap! I had that sucker done in about 5 minutes.
bbPress is a different animal. my install.php page says “Cannot select DB”.
Is there a comprehensive Install doc that I am missing? I feel as if I have a lot of questions about the info on the page http://bbpress.org/documentation/installation/
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks for responding Chris,
I haven’t yet made up my mind which way to go. My gut tells me that bbPress is better long-term. I’m also guessing that if my forum gets popular, bbPress might be better – in other words I’m thinking that a plugin might do the trick if the forum is doesn’t see much action, but that I might need something more powerful if it gets busy.
I’m pretty sure I can get bbPress installed, I’m now most concerned with integration, pretty perma-links ect. Making new files, adding and deleting code scares me.
thank you very much guys. I really appreciate it — I have a lot of great recommendations to go on! (I haven’t had a lot of time to spend on wordpress or bbpress and I appreciate your help to make my customization time easier!)
You can always load bbpress and then check, by:
require_once( 'path/to/bb-load.php' );
Otherwise you could check if the cookie is set and has a password parameter. You won’t be able to check if it’s a correct password, of course.
Hello.
I’m trying to make a bar that stays constant in every part of my website and I want to include the login form/profile link in it, but I have to check if the user is logged in or somehow be able to use bbpress functions out of bbpress.
Any recommendations for this?
I’m really just thinking of an extremely simple one-thread message board (where the users don’t ever get a choice to pick a thread, instead they just post to an ongoing line of comments). I want exactly what this thread is doing without the rest of the functionality, like creating new threads etc. I can tweak this software to do this — I don’t mean to make this over complicated, but was just wondering if anyone had already created a tweak like this or could point me to some other software that could easily/quickly do this. A guestbook might solve this problem, but I’d rather tweak bbpress (if no one else has already) to do this because it’s such a great base to work from…
thanks a lot for any advice.
thanks for your quick reply.
using wordpress would work and that’s a good thought, but I would have to customize it quite a bit I think…?
I’m wondering if there’s an easy way to dumb down bbPress (or wordpress) so I can really just utilize its comments functionality — so I can have a page with a one thread based conversation and that’s it. (I’d like other users to be able to add their comments like they can on a wordpress blog entry…) Any recommendations on how to do this easily?
Is there other software that just focuses on this?
thanks very much.
I’m running a discussion on bbPress at WordCamp Melbourne this weekend and I’m looking for a good WordPress/bbPress integrated site (or two) to show as an example.
Preferably one run by someone here, with a reasonable amount of traffic, so I can prod them with questions about it.
Anyone?
Also, I didn’t realize there were forum plugins for WordPress until you posted this. From the looks of them, this one (of 4) appears to be most current and most actively maintained:
http://www.stuff.yellowswordfish.com/simple-forum/
Never used it, but just learned about it after you asked the question.
Yes, use the same database (it’s easier later with integration) and you can even leave the default table prefix in the bbPress config.php. By default, WordPress uses a table prefix of wp_ and bbPress uses bb_, so there is no conflict, and even if bbPress goes horribly wrong, it won’t hurt WordPress at all.
Good luck. I’m in Chicago too if you need any help.
Ok, I see that I can use same database…thanks anyway
OK, thanks for responding guys.
I think I’m going to go for bbPress. If I can’t do it or it just becomes too much of a pain, I’ll try the plugin.
One question though…It is Ok to use the same database as my wordpress right? It makes sense to me to do so, just want to be sure.
Thanks
Hi — I’m looking for a very simple rendition of bbPress where I can just have one thread displayed on my main page and have users interact with just that one thread (and nothing else). Ideally, I’d like to utilize the comments part of the software only — where I can have a page where people can post comments only and post them indefinitely…
Can someone point me in a direction to configuring the system to do this? Is this easily possible?
thank you very much.
Copy and pasting per se is not a problem. It simply irritates me that you ask for help but cannot be bothered doing more than the minimum in doing so.
You can always backup your databases. See https://codex.wordpress.org/Backing_Up_Your_Database; this will mean that no matter what you do, you can get a fully functioning wordpress install back.
Thanks for getting back to me and sorry about the copy/paste. I didn’t know it would be a problem.
I really like the look and feel of bbPress. I’m leaning toward using it.
As long as it’s no harder than installing WP, I think I’ll be fine. My only concern is screwing up my database (not bbPress screwing it up, but me screwing something up).
Thanks again
Uh, yeah, thanks for copy-and-pasting. When you are asking other people to spend their time helping you, the least you can do is take a little time to make it easy and appropriate for them.
> So, as a newb to using databases and php, should I choose a stand-alone like bbPress or a plugin I just upload to Wp?
If you can install wordpress, you can install bbpress. It’s no harder. Integrating them is also not difficult. Despite never having used one I’d assume a plugin would be a little easier though.
But if you care about the potential and speed of your forums, you should go for actual forum software, not something tacked onto something unrelated. In this case you should choose bbPress.
You can certainly do both; which is better for you is something you’ll be best at deciding.
Not my site, a forum at a WP plugin author’s site:
http://gbellucci.us/forums/
I didn’t realize it was a bbPress installation for a few minutes until I looked at it. It was just a support forum, nothing screamed out kakumei to me 
(I cross posted this in the WP Support forums)
Hi,
Last night I did my first install of WordPress with a little help from the nice people hanging out in the Installation Forum – thanks again everybody. BTW, it took me a long time to do as I’m very new to mysql, php, ect.
Today, I’d like to add a forum. I’m very worried about screwing up my database or having to tinker with too many files. I’d like to add it now because I’ve yet to start customizing my site (WP is my main page BTW)and figure I should get all the things I want in there first, then go to work adding content ect.
I’ve read (or at least looked at the headlines for the first 100 post in these forums related to forums plugin).
So, here’s my question:I want a forum that will have about 10 or so categories listed under about five different cities. For instance: Chicago Jobs, Housing, For Sale, Events, ect.
Of course I want people only to log in once and I understand that bbPress and some plugins can do that.
It doesn’t have to be fancy or anything.
So, as a newb to using databases and php, should I choose a stand-alone like bbPress or a plugin I just upload to Wp?
I’m asking you assuming you are much more experienced with these things than I and will know which is better for someone at my level.
Thanks for reading this long post
hi, I have bbpress and wordpress fully working together, the only issue is that when a user registers with bbpress and leaves a comment it appears as anonymous. I have tried adding post_author but no joy, any ideas?