Kind of a long story, but more cliffnotes…
BuddyPress is a social networking plugin for WordPress, that actually comes bundled with bbPress inside of it to create group discussion forums.
bbPress has always been a stand-alone platform (like WordPress) but is being turned into a plugin for WordPress to make integration as seamless as possible. So right now, there are two distinctly separate versions of bbPress, stand-alone and plugin.
As far as I know there isn’t a migration script between SMF and bbPress, but I could be wrong. There most likely is not one for the bbPress plugin since it hasn’t been publicly released yet.
Documentation, is limited. 
There is almost none on the plugin so far, but there will be once it’s released and in the wild. We’ll put some documentation up here at bbpress.org to help answer all of these kinds of questions easier.
Right now probably the best example of the plugin in action is over at http://testbp.org/discussion. It’s using some of the shortcodes and minimal CSS tweaks to mimic the look of the forums here at bbpress.org.
Right now probably the best example of the plugin in action is over at http://testbp.org/discussion. It’s using some of the shortcodes and minimal CSS tweaks to mimic the look of the forums here at bbpress.org.
The bbPress plugin will fully integrate into any existing WordPress 3.1+ installation. Since it’s using WordPress to power the database interaction, it is immediately integrated and available in any way you need it to be, depending on your level of skill, etc…
Technically WordPress doesn’t really have conventional ‘profiles’ but they do use the exact same user account for everything. In the future bbPress profiles will be merged with BuddyPress profiles, providing a seamless experience.
You’re on your own with advertisements.
Other things of note:
* The stand alone version of bbPress has been in a feature freeze for a majority of the past two years.
* The community surrounding bbPress isn’t as large as WordPress.
* The transition between versions (0.9, 1.0, and now the plugin) have caused some unrest for people passionate about the project.
So, that’s the cliff-notes of the story.
The bbPress plugin will fully integrate into any existing WordPress 3.1+ installation. Since it’s using WordPress to power the database interaction, it is immediately integrated and available in any way you need it to be, depending on your level of skill, etc…
Technically WordPress doesn’t really have conventional ‘profiles’ but they do use the exact same user account for everything. In the future bbPress profiles will be merged with BuddyPress profiles, providing a seamless experience.
You’re on your own with advertisements.
Other things of note:
* The stand alone version of bbPress has been in a feature freeze for a majority of the past two years.
* The community surrounding bbPress isn’t as large as WordPress.
* The transition between versions (0.9, 1.0, and now the plugin) have caused some unrest for people passionate about the project.
So, that’s the cliff-notes of the story.
@miruru – You could filter
bbp_get_topic_last_active
and output your own time, or you could hook into
bbp_get_time_since
and have it return the second parameter that’s passed to it.
@JJJ
I’m not entirely sure what he’s asking either, but he’s not a PHP guy so sometimes doesn’t follow all the coding needed.
What I’m trying to do is color the background of stickies & super stickies differently. He’s trying to figure out how to inject his required CSS into the specific posts that are either stick or super sticky, but not other posts. And I’m kinda the flip side of him in that I’m a PHP guy but CSS mostly just confuses the hell out of me. So we’re kinda both not sure what the other needs. LOL
Not sure if this helps, but if you can shed any more light it would be great. I’ll also ask him to clarify what exactly he’s stuck on.
Thanks,
Jonathan
EDIT: OK it turns out he DID think I was asking him how to create stickies in the first place. Didn’t realize I just needed them colored and they were already there. So… I think we’re all good now.
@tooltrainer – I don’t understand the question. It sounds like an elaborate way of asking “How do I mark topics as sticky?” If what you’re asking is how to highlight a specific post in a different way other than sticky, the only way in core is by the specific ID of that topic or reply, without writing your own code to put something else in there.
@christopher-jon – Anonymous posts are still working for me? Edit lock time fixed here: https://bbpress.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3134/
CORRECTION to my previous post – it may have been a problem of type. My coder did this to solve:
$forum_ids = array_merge( (array)$private, (array)$hidden );
Also regarding my question about styling stickies, got this question from my designer:
“bbP Team –
With regards to adding the .sticky classes to important posts, (‘They are .sticky and .super-sticky respectively’), how would one then go about isolating a specific post? I am currently going through the loop-forums and loop-topics.php files, and while I see where the tables are being generated, the topics themselves are being generated seemingly dynmically through PHP.. so how would I go about selecting/isolating a specific topic/<tr> that I would like to apply the .sticky class to??”
Any light you can shed on this JJJ or anyone else?
Thanks!
Jonathan
@tooltrainer – There are. They are .sticky and .super-sticky respectively. You can do something like tr.type-topic.super-sticky { stuff } too, depending on the strength of the override you’re trying to achieve.
padams: I think JJJ is thinking of getting them into the alpha or the first major release of the plugin.
padams: No, forums are made using custom post types. bbPress will soon introduce its own feeds.
Sounds good.
I’ve found working with the plugin to be pretty easy. Beneath all of the code, it’s still wordpress at heart.
The next thing I want to try out is modifying the single topic loop to display certain topics with a different style, something similar to a featured post on a blog.
This is where the meta box was needed, adding a check box to notify the loop to use a different style for those topics.
The default theme has something similar already in place with the first topic posting having slightly larger text than the replies. An additional conditional check should do the trick.
Sounds good.
I’ve found working with the plugin to be pretty easy. Beneath all of the code, it’s still wordpress at heart.
The next thing I want to try out is modifying the single topic loop to display certain topics with a different style, something similar to a featured post on a blog.
This is where the meta box was needed, adding a check box to notify the loop to use a different style for those topics.
The default theme has something similar already in place with the first topic posting having slightly larger text than the replies. An additional conditional check should do the trick.
Never mind the stupidity! I was jumping the gun too quickly.
Will post my solution for a completely custom Topic a bit later.
Never mind the stupidity! I was jumping the gun too quickly.
Will post my solution for a completely custom Topic a bit later.
Chris –
Actually I do have an event post type working. I think I am only confused because the hooks I add in the function.php of bbbTwentyten theme do not affect the plugin files at all. So I went ahead and modified the files in my comment above.
I do believe there is a better way of doing it. But probably will not realize until I break some stuff.
Chris –
Actually I do have an event post type working. I think I am only confused because the hooks I add in the function.php of bbbTwentyten theme do not affect the plugin files at all. So I went ahead and modified the files in my comment above.
I do believe there is a better way of doing it. But probably will not realize until I break some stuff.
@JJJ – that’s okay. The shortcode was to be used so that I could create a list of new forum topics that displays the following:
[Topic Title] Posted in [name of forum] on [topic date] by [topic author]
unless the bbPress topics/replies list can be modified to display the above info. I’m currently using the Query Posts plugins to do this as it allows me to display the page the topic is on etc, and when i used [entry-author], it displays the wordpress user (author/name), not the bbpress user (user/name).
@whitehats – You should never, ever, modify any core files. The WordPress actions/filters system is in place to let you inject code and modify existing values as needed. Anywhere you feel the need to hack the core, there should be another way.
The only times when hacking core files makes sense are specifically when fixing a bug in the software or when creating new features to be inserted into core.
@whitehats – You should never, ever, modify any core files. The WordPress actions/filters system is in place to let you inject code and modify existing values as needed. Anywhere you feel the need to hack the core, there should be another way.
The only times when hacking core files makes sense are specifically when fixing a bug in the software or when creating new features to be inserted into core.
Thanks. The error I get is call to undefined function add_meta_box() in bbpress.php, so was wondering if it was supposed to be differently.
Sorry about noobish questions! I am learning most of it.
Thanks. The error I get is call to undefined function add_meta_box() in bbpress.php, so was wondering if it was supposed to be differently.
Sorry about noobish questions! I am learning most of it.
“Did you have to call any additional function to add meta boxes? Have you tried that yet?”
Nope. Using the default wordpress code should work. Just remember to set the correct page type (forum/topic) or you wont see it.
Here is part of my code so you can see where I changed the page type to the “topic” custom post type.
$meta_boxes[] = array(
‘id’ => ‘forum_options’,
‘title’ => ‘Forum Options’,
‘pages’ => array(‘topic’),
‘context’ => ‘side’,
‘priority’ => ‘core’,
“Did you have to call any additional function to add meta boxes? Have you tried that yet?”
Nope. Using the default wordpress code should work. Just remember to set the correct page type (forum/topic) or you wont see it.
Here is part of my code so you can see where I changed the page type to the “topic” custom post type.
$meta_boxes[] = array(
‘id’ => ‘forum_options’,
‘title’ => ‘Forum Options’,
‘pages’ => array(‘topic’),
‘context’ => ‘side’,
‘priority’ => ‘core’,
