[paulhawke]

“bbPress without backpress” is not the same as “bbPress 0.9”

In version 0.9 there was bbPress specific code to perform a variety of functions. Those method calls were migrated to use a sub-set of the WordPress codebase (“backpress”). That became version 1.0 … and what was done was to move from “a subset of WordPress” to “the whole of WordPress”.

A more accurate statement would therefore be that bbPress specific code was dropped, it moved to using WP features divorced of the rest of WP, and then was made to work with WP as a whole — a continuation of forward momentum and not a step backward at all.

[Scott Kingsley Clark]

r-a-y,

Thanks for your interest in the project! It’s definitely heading in that direction

[kevinjohngallagher]

So this will be another of my unpopular posts, i’ve had a whole week of working on bbPress, so this is my 3rd of the week – apologies to all.

It’ll really help this conversation if you read http://bbpress.org/forums/topic/future-of-bbpress#post-60022 which is written by the wonderful Andy Peatling who has integrated bbPress with BuddyPress (and therefore into WordPress). Basically, he is the authority on the matter.

I bring this up because I thought today, what the heck are we doing? WordPress integration is the single most asked for feature, it’s the reason a large number of people choose bbPress, and according to Matt:

Strategically the most important thing we need to figure out is how to integrate bbPress better with WP

-http://bbpress.org/forums/topic/future-of-bbpress

Ok, but if we look at what Andy has said, in order for this to happen we need to remove BackPress from bbPress. Except… 90% of the changes from bbPress0.9 to bbPress1.0 was adding BackPress.

So, if integration is the plan (even as a plugin), and integration = no backPress, then whatever platform we build the fully integrated bbPress out of is bbPress without BackPress, or as we commonly call it bbPress0.9.

So then why are we building on top of bbP1.0, when we’re going to have to port that code back to 0.9 in the future or worse, attempt to combine the two. Why are we focussing on features that are already in WordPress as standard, given that they will work as via the WP functions once integrated.

How far down the rabbit hole are we going to go before we take a slightly longer term look?

Anyone have any thoughts for a Friday evening?

[kevinjohngallagher]

Any webmaster that isn’t really tech savvy…

bbPress is not aimed at non-tech-savvy people. Infact the same with WordPress really. Editing of files and the ability to use FTP is a must or the thing won’t work (you have to edit and upload a config file).

Editing or changing anything involves some basic-PHP knowledge really, and this is pretty much always going to be the way of it – if you don’t got for a premium theme/framework/plugin.

It’s unbelievable actually in this day and age.

We hear this from time to time, and i can’t understand why it comes up. But it comes down to “basic” features and what is now considered “standard” features for forums. The difference is that “basic” features are things that forums need to do it’s job. “Standard” features are from a personal perception based on what other forum solutions have – that doesn’t make them any less valid as feature requests.

bbPress is always going to be feature-less in comparison to other forums out there, with the reliance on people writing plugins or editing the code to customize things for themselves – thats an aim, not a side effect. As much as the people on this forum try and help out those that are new or not quite sure, the realism is we’re years away from a free “out of the box” solution for 90% of the requests people make.

[af3]

Dailytalker, i’m not a coder, so i hope this will point you to the right direction:

1. i’m running wpmu+buddypress+bbpress and installed bp-fbconnect plugin

2. for bbpress, i followed the fbconnect instruction in facebook website; it has a step by step instruction how to get the fbconnect installed in a page (meaning, hack your bbpress theme files).

[Ashish Kumar (Ashfame)]

Integrate them so that user tables are shared

http://blog.ashfame.com/2009/07/integrate-bbpress-10-with-wordpress-28/

In WP setting, change the setting that only required users can comment

and then in bbPress disable registrations or redirect them to WP register page

http://blog.ashfame.com/2009/11/disable-bbpress-registrations/

Hope that helps!

[jonto]

I agree. It’s unbelievable actually in this day and age. I have been unable to get the plugin working yet.

[chrishajer]

You could rename the tables with the prefix that works, to get around this. But you’d have to update the data in the tables as well, I think there are permissions maybe that refer to the table by name.

Or, you could further troubleshoot connecting to that database and selecting data from the tables with the prefix you currently use.

I’ve not heard of that problem before, but there probably aren’t many people who upgraded from .9 to 1.0 AND had a custom table prefix. The fact that it wants to perform a new installation when the bb_ tables don’t exist makes sense, since bbPress does not know there is a current installation.

I haven’t looked at the upgrade code to see if maybe there’s a bug where the database connection fails due to a non-default table prefix, but you could check that as well.

[admingsc]

Hi, all. Is it possible to change the wording on the registration page through the Admin dashboard alone? I’d like to add additional instructions for users, but I don’t know how to code (the BB was built by a design team, and I’d like to avoid having to pay them to make such a small change.)

My theme is Navigation for bbPress 1.3

Thanks!

[elforesto]

I’m attempting to do an upgrade of bbPress from 0.9.2 and get the following error every time I attempt to access any bbPress pages:

ERROR: Could not establish a database connection

I did some experimenting and found that when I change the table prefix from the one I’ve been using back to the default of bb_, I’m prompted to perform a new installation. The problem with this is that I don’t want to lose the existing contents of the forum.

Any advice or suggestions would be most appreciated.

[paulhawke]

Where are we now?

Aside from the questions surrounding integration with WordPress, another of our big questions is “how do I import from _____” (insert a different forum product of your choosing)

Right now the approach is ad-hoc at best: We are handing a PHP script around hand-to-hand that is able to convert a phpBB v2.0.x forum over to bbPress v. 0.9, and if you want to convert a different forum (say, SMF) the accepted wisdom is to install phpBB, convert to that, then convert to bbPress 0.9 and then upgrade.

The official coding standards for WordPress state:

Avoid touching the database directly. If there is a defined function that can get the data you need, use it. Database abstraction (using functions instead of queries) helps keep your code forward-compatible and, in cases where results are cached in memory, it can be many times faster.

As it stands bbPress imports clearly violate that principle by using the script we are passing around.

Solving the problem

Importing data clearly is an example where a strategy pattern solves things in an elegant fashion.

The strategy pattern (also known as the policy pattern) is a particular software design pattern, whereby algorithms can be selected at runtime.

The strategy pattern is useful for situations where it is necessary to dynamically swap the algorithms used in an application. The strategy pattern is intended to provide a means to define a family of algorithms, encapsulate each one as an object, and make them interchangeable. The strategy pattern lets the algorithms vary independently from clients that use them.

More concretely, this means creating a bbPress Import plugin which provides an overall multi-step process, and delegates to an external sub-plugin to retrieve the external datasource specific steps. I would argue that this ought to be a plugin (and remain a plugin rather than being pulled into the core of bbPress) because once you’ve imported from a given external forum, you can deactivate and uninstall the “import” code as its no longer required.

Roadmap

1. We need to create a basic import plugin. — This I have done, it’s experimental and I’d like some more eyes on the code before calling it “done”
2. We need to create import strategies for external forums, starting with phpBB2 — This I have done, by extracting SQL from the script we all pass hand-to-hand. Again, it needs more eyes on the code as a QA step.
3. We need to create import strategies for other external forums, specifically SMF and phpBB3 — this is where the strategy pattern comes into its own – each can be developed independently and combined later. Its also a great place for community input.

Looking further out

The import plugin relies on calling the internal bb_new_post, bb_new_topic, bb_new_forum and to a certain degree the bb_new_user methods. As we move toward bbPress being a plugin to WordPress, these will become the only way to import data, as the script we pass around will become evermore obsolete.

Secondly, WordPress itself has an import framework. I suspect that any “import plugin” we write now will become somewhat obsolete in that timeframe. That said, if we do things right, the import strategies we create might migrate over. What I dont know is the timeframe. Is the bbPress-as-a-plugin-to-Wordpress change close enough on the horizon that we should simply target the WordPress import framework directly?

Thoughts / comments?

[Ashish Kumar (Ashfame)]

No worries! You are at the right place

[Ashish Kumar (Ashfame)]

BuddyPress 1.2 can install on normal WordPress too and BuddyPress itself offer integrated bbPress forum.

Try WP 2.9.2 + BuddyPress 1.2

[jasbg]

Hi

Been trying to install Buddypress onto a clean BBPress instalation – but it keeps giving me an error:

---

Warning: require_once(WP_PLUGIN_DIR/buddypress/bp-core.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in C:wampwwwbbpressmy-pluginsbuddypressbp-loader.php on line 19

Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required ‘WP_PLUGIN_DIR/buddypress/bp-core.php’ (include_path=’.;C:php5pear’) in C:wampwwwbbpressmy-pluginsbuddypressbp-loader.php on line 19

---

Does anyone know if this installation is at all possible (clean BBPress + BuddyPress forum) ?

I would like to avoid using WordPress Mu – to keep things as lean (simple) as possible !

Thanks in advance for any advice on the subject !

Jens

btw. – I have for a couple of weeks been doing research on how to run the best and most sufficient frontend bases open posting site (or almost open) – and has ended with bbPress (has 12 different test systems running on wamp and easyphp – among them Word MU – Drupal version 6 and 7 and others. It’s close to chaos for sure)

[Ashish Kumar (Ashfame)]

Create a blank page with the slug forums and it will automatically takes you to the forum on your site

Either you design a matching bbPress theme for WordPress or use deep integration which is quite an overhead if you have a good number of users.

Read this – http://blog.ashfame.com/2010/02/deep-integration-bbpress-wordpress/

and http://blog.ashfame.com/2010/02/bbpress-deep-integration-advantages-disadvantages/

And then decide what you want to do.

[Ashish Kumar (Ashfame)]

Trunk is the bleeding edge version which is under development. Like a newer version under development. Trunk means the latest code in development stage. I am running a little busy right now. If left with some time tonight, I might try to catch it on trunk

[Ashish Kumar (Ashfame)]

Either wait for the next stable version or extract the code from the trunk & make a plugin out of it

[Alex Luft]

Thanks for your answer chris!

But that’s very strange. I have it activated in my-plugins.

And for some reason, that link goes to the blog (hosted in root) as opposed to a bbpress not found page.

Really don’t know what to do at this point

[Steven Hodson]

@Gautam .. I did manage to find one of the things that was causing a problem. It has to do as I suspected with the PHP $_SERVER[“DOCUMENT_ROOT”] variable. It doesn’t exist in an PHP install on IIS.

Now I have found a work-around that <gasp> works and when tested returns the proper path (eg: C:/Domains/winextra.com/bb-attachments/ – which from what I can tell in the “instructions” is exactly how it is suppose to be)

But when I try to upload a file (text/image) I get the following two errors and I was hoping that maybe you could help figure out what might be causing them

---

Warning: filesize() [function.filesize]: stat failed for 83def462ed888db6e1ad898505ea40b6 in C:Domainswinextra.comwwwrootforumsmy-pluginsbb-attachmentsbb-attachments.php on line 342

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at C:Domainswinextra.comwwwrootforumsmy-pluginsbb-attachmentsbb-attachments.php:342) in C:Domainswinextra.comwwwrootforumsbb-includesfunctions.bb-pluggable.php on line 228

---

any help (from anyone ) would be greatly appreciated as this is the last real big complaint my members have.

EDIT: The files are getting uploaded but to the root folder and they are not being entered into the bb-attachments table – http://screencast.com/t/Y2UyZGQ4

[Ashish Kumar (Ashfame)]

Try clearing cache and cookie. Its browser specific. Try a different browser for once

[Steven Hodson]

@Gautam I gave your ‘fixed’ plugin a shot but it still isn’t wanting to play nice with my set-up (PHP / IIS) as you can see from the screenshot – http://screencast.com/t/MTQ1NDFl

back the to hair-pulling I guess

[Taeo]

Did I say Dan? It was late. I meant to thank Tom! lol

[kevinjohngallagher]

I suppose what I might not have put across well is that I don’t want bbPress to become the monster that some of the other boards out there are. I’m very cool with lightweight and fast, it’s more that… bbPress has never had a “fixit” release y’know.

• 0.8 added some new functionality while removing alot of the hardcoded stuff (remember when you HAD to set the time displayed to the time zone you server was physically located in?).
• 0.9 added loads of new functionality
• 1.0 added backPress and new admin section.
• 1.1 is adding Anon posting and Email notification.

For me, having things like https://trac.bbpress.org/changeset/2377 sitting in trac (for the 2nd time btw) for over 5 months is crazy. Why do we have to have a year between releases?

I guess the way i’d put it is that there’s a difference between “basic” features and “standard” features in terms of forums. Simleys, BBcode, private messaging are fairly standard these days. I can absolutely live with them being a plugin. But the ability to delete a user from the backend inside the ‘3 click rule’ is a “basic” feature (why isn’t it one click?).

There’s a whole lot of places, especially in the backend, where there is legacy code or integrated plugin code that’s just made to work with 1.0. Take editing your forums placement, it uses an old AJAX routine from 0.8 to send to a page that’s not actually part of the current admin set up, and has no hooks/actions/filters/triggers. No plugin can interact with it. (I’m not against AJAX or the use of javascript, but there’s only 1 place in the whole admin area where there’s no actual posting back of info, and it just so happens to also be the one place where there’s hooks/action/fiters).

In my opinion, at some stage someone more intelligent than myself (not difficult) needs to have a look at bbPress on the whole, not in terms of X bits of code, but more in terms of the coding philosophy behind it. Not to make radical changes, but to make sure that it’s all going in the same direction.

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@johnhiler

Thanks, i’d be very keen to know how you got round that particular issue, i personally got round it by writing a plugin after abandoning _ck_’s approach in her plugin.

Finally,

That said, please don’t (even jokingly) refer to anyone as an idiot!

You’re right of course, apologises to anyone i did offend there. I write on these forums at about 3-4am my time as that’s the busiest time for the rest of [the board], and sometimes i forget to edit myself. I am sorry

[gruff1927]

This is currently a problem for me as well. Like nonegiven above, I need dual language WordPress/bbPress integration, i.e. I need the facility to be able to switch the language of the bbPress forum interface from within the forum interface. Ideally this could tie in to the user’s stated language preference, or the language of the referring webpage.

However, I can only currently change the interface language by changing the settings in the bb_config.php file. This changes the language of the interface globally, which.

Like nonegiven, I’ve tried the bbPress Language Switcher plugin by _ck_ as well as User Languages and these don’t seem to work on v1.

Unfortunately, this undermines the usefulness of bbPress for multilingual websites.

Any chance that this will be on the roadmap for the future?

[Taeo]

Thanks for all the compliments!

And thank you Dan for pointing out my mistake! Doh! I’m sure there are a few other things I’ve missed along the way.

Btw, less than 48 hours since it has been live and I’ve already seen over 1,400 unique visitors