[grassrootspa]

@ timskii, great observations. re: “There’s a risk of being unable to upgrade because a key plugin won’t work anymore” and “Joanna Average forum reader doesn’t care about any of that, and is probably keener on things like WYSYWYG, email, etc”:

This is exactly why some of the more widespread plugins and features should be incorporated into the core as optional features one can turn on or off. It seems silly to force someone to download a plugin and mess with the template to do basic bulletin board admin tasks like display how many times a topic has been viewed, throw an icon next to each forum topic, allow rich text for those posting.

My only major complaint after a year of bbPress use is the lack of features/polish that exist in vBulletin. Simply put, its just too bare after initial install. I know this will be extremely unpopular to many of you, but over the past couple years there have been many great plugins developed, like private messaging, TinyMCE/rich text, topic views, Allow Images, Smilies, User Directory, Members Online, Related Topics, Reputation, Top Posters, Terms of Service, and some of these features should really be incorporated into the Core as OPTIONS that can be turned and off. So should stuff like the ability to set default topic icons, human test for signups (@$%@%$ spam users), widgets for the sidebar, ability to delete topics, Post Rating, etc. I’m not saying every single feature out there should be incorporated, but what is the hangup with more stuff that can be optionally turned on or off in the admin? If its in the Core, its not going to break when a new version comes out, and additional plugins can be developed to customize those features even more!

Right now bbPress is VERY bare after initial install so multiple plugins are required to snazz it up…and you can’t even edit the css or template from inside the bbpress admin. And yes there are plugins for everything but the kitchen sink, but some of the older plugins don’t work in newer versions of bbPress! Not sure how many of use also use IntenseDebate, but bbPress software’s core admin should consider have some of the same stuff which can easily be turned on or off, like voting, reputation, smilies (http://intensedebate.com/features or http://intensedebate.com/plugins)

How cool would it be for a brand new bbPress install to optionally display which users are online, how many views a topic has, or topic icons right out of the box with no fiddling with the css or template files/additional plugin installs? I’m not saying a Nintendo emulator or Weatherbug display should be built in, but if bbPress remains so barebone, it won’t fill the free-easy-to-install easy-to-use vBulletin alternative niche (it should).

[Olympus]

Theme integration can still be performed without having to turn bbPress into a plugin, and in fact, it can be done via a simple CSS trick ( that means that the default CSS of bbPress should be rewritten so that it becomes more flexible, and every element ( forum tables, forms etc… ) should act as “objects” which can be automatically stretched vertically independently of their parents or I don’t know, where the parents will be objects in the WP stylesheet ) . So again, for theme integration, NO NEED TO TURN BBPRESS INTO A PLUGIN, because it’s just a CSS issue ( + little PHP coding, nothing serious ) !

Connecting the Admin sides of WP and bbPress ? This can be easily done via an OPTIONAL plugin ( or via XML-RPC calls, so that you can handle your bbPress forum even if it isn’t in the same host ) .

Turning bbPress into a plugin would be a nightmare, think of all the unnecessary WP calls … Why did I choose bbPress again ? To have a light forum or to have TWO frameworks ( WordPress and bbPress ) + unnecessary calls and files ?

The reason I choose bbPress at the beginning ( 3~4 years ago ) is because it’s from the creators of WordPress, so I hoped that it will be as easy to customize as WordPress, and that’s what I got ( even though, at the beginning it was really hard for me because I had to guess the function names, as there’s no Codex for bbPress ) and I’m very satisfied . I had the choice between bbPress, PunBB and Vanilla ( the lightest forums out there, and at the time, Vanilla had a greater number of plugins than bbPress ), but I stick with bbPress because it’s the easiest one to customize . So for those who think that bbPress can’t compete in the light forums market, you’re wrong !

[Michael]

I agree with Chrishajer. I didn;t know that bbPress does it without a plugin. This as I did not use my forum at all until I had some plugins installed (including bbcode).

@Chrishajer: I don’t think it would have anything to do with the CSS file. I’m sure there’s a file (I haven’t looked) that has the function that parses the post.

Regards

Michael

[bingsterloot]

Hi there

This might not be to any importance of you, but your forum has massive css problems on a Mac platform, so it messes up badly (

[chrishajer]

For # 1, just modify your front-page.php template and remove the secti0n that has the “latest discussions”. You can show only the forums if you want. Unless you’re talking about creating a new page that lists only forums?

For # 2, you will have to do some work on the front-page.php again. Just move the hottags div to wherever you want to show it in your template, and then modify the CSS to make it the size you want.

Both things are certainly possible.

[chrishajer]

The width of that #main div is set in the kakumei style.css.

#main (line 155) {

width: 760px;

}

Change that to something wider and you will make the whole layout wider. There might be other things to change to take up some of that space, but start with the #main.

[bingsterloot]

Hi all

I have been looking for the solution, but only found small hints here and there with no real complete guide on how to do it, so i have made a small one that should explain it in a simple way.

(THIS IS BASED ON WP 2.8.6 AND BBPRESS 1.0.2 WITH WP INTEGRATION VIA BBPRESS ADMIN.) If you have older versions installed, i recommend to read this exelent post by ck: http://bbpress.org/forums/topic/wordpress-and-bbpress-integration-101

step one: Add this string to your bb-config file in your bbpress folder:

require_once(‘/home/ your username/public_html/your wordpress folder/wp-blog-header.php’);

NOTE: The path might be different from host to host, but this is what my path looks like……you get the idea ;O)

step two:

Go to your WP template folder, and open up the file: header.php from your chosen template.

Copy over the content you want after the <BODY> tag, and copy it into your BBpress header.php template file after the <BODY> tag.

What i did here was to take a backup of the original BBpress header.php file, so i could paste in the things i needed from this file to the new one i just

created with the WP header content.

step 3 your css files

My approach to this was of course to take backup of both WP css and BB css files first. I used the BBpress css file as my main css file. I then took the css strings from the WP css file i needed, and simply copied them into my BBpress css file. In my case i needed the header and navigation strings.

NOTE: You might also need to copy the WP css body string, if your BB css Body string has different font measures. Some use EM´s and some use %. This will affect how your fonts react.

And that´s it folks. I hope you understand this, and if other people has something to add to this plz. do so we all can learn.

Mike

[paulhawke]

I would be glad to help out in any way I can.

I have an offline monthly fiction writers group I run, who coordinate via a bbPress forum. Administration of that’s been a breeze, and I can think of no better forum software to use. So I’ve had experience simply administering a bbPress installation (admittedly with only a couple of dozen active users).

I’ve been creating custom themes & plugins for bbPress for a while for my own enjoyment, aiming to bend the software into new and interesting places. For instance

1. making a very “blog-like” theme giving strong emphasis to opening posts with all replies looking like comments & discussion of the opening post
2. writing and enhanced form of the RSS portion of the site to use bbPress as a super-flexible podcast hosting site generating iTunes compatible feeds
3. Forum specific theming (a gaming site who wants an “XBox theme” active for certain forums, a “W.o.W theme” in others, etc)
4. creating a fine-grained access control mechanism for forum/topic/board ownership and read/write privilages (to support separation of gaming forum admin, and multiple podcasters for 2 instances of its use)

Prior to hacking on the bbPress codebase, plugins and themes I lived in WordPress land – themes and plugins – using it for blogs, CMS and podcast hosting.

I write HTML/CSS/PHP for pleasure. Java/XML/etc is the day-job.

[lokrin2000]

Well, I took the header, footer, index, style sheet and image folder from the WP theme and transfered them over to the bbP theme folder. I then renamed index.php to forum.php and combined both css files into one which is currently pretty bloated. After clearing out my browser cache the bbP page is pretty good looking, just like the WP page.

There are a few things that need tweaking, such as a blank line near the footer on the main page and the tag list on the message pages.

http://wp.angelwoodpines.org

http://bbp.angelwoodpines.org

Still have to add a physical link between the two. (Although the header image will still take you to the main blog site.)

[shansta]

Hello,

I have successfully integrated bbpress 1 and lastest wordpress but having trouble with the header and footer in the forum..

This is what I have done so far…

Copied and renamed kakumei to my-templates/newtheme/

Added <?php get_header(); ?> & <?php get_footer(); ?> to all the required php files.

I then added

define(‘WP_BB’, true);

if ( !defined(‘DB_NAME’) ) {

require_once( dirname(__FILE__) . ‘/../wp-config.php’);

}

define(‘WP_BB’, true);

if ( !defined(‘DB_NAME’) ) {

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

}

to the bb-config.php

& then added

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”/discussions/my-templates/newtheme/style.css” type=”text/css” media=”screen” />

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”/discussions/my-templates/newtheme/style-rtl.css” type=”text/css” media=”screen” />

to the WP theme header.php

The forum shows up in the with what looks like the header and footer of my WP theme…

I have a problem with all the css not working… Does adding the url for the css in the WP theme header work or do i need to do this another way?

Thanks

[chrishajer]

It’s styled perfectly here with the default kakumei theme:

http://chrishajer.com/bbpress/iappleit.png

And that stylesheet is right where you say it is:

http://iapple.it/forums/bb-templates/kakumei/style.css

[~/]$ curl -I http://iapple.it/forums/bb-templates/kakumei/style.css

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:40:14 GMT

[ciaravino]

When I try to go to http://iapple.it/forums , they aren’t styled even though I’m using one of the default themes. It says “Failed to load source for: http://iapple.it/forums/bb-templates/kakumei/style.css&#8221;, and I don’t know why.

[yaysloths]

Hey all –

Just started playing with bbpress last night & I am both totally hooked and somewhat frustrated, which seems to be my standard reaction to new software. I’m fluent in HTML, conversational in CSS and have worked with WordPress code before so I’m not completely in the dark, but there’s enough of a learning curve here that I have a few things I’d love some help with, if someone had a moment. Here’s the first two:

1. I would like my forum to be completely private – i.e., people would have to register or login on some sort of splash page before they reached the forum. In searching around these boards I found this plugin, but I just get a big ol’ 404 Not Found when I try to download it (and it looks like it’s a ways behind bbpress v1.0.2 anyway). Is this what I should be using instead? And if so, where exactly would it go, and on what page(s)?

2. I’m trying to add a “topic started by” field to the list of threads; I can get it to show up in the header row but I can’t get the fields in the actual table to show up. See what I mean? That’s no good. It’s probably some stupid PHP thing missing a thing (man, PHP is unforgiving) but I just can’t find it. Here’s the code I’m using:

<?php if ( $topics || $stickies ) : ?>



<table id="latest">

<tr>

<th><?php _e('topic'); ?> — <?php new_topic(); ?></th>

<th><?php _e('started by'); ?></th>

<th><?php _e('posts'); ?></th>

<th><?php _e('last poster'); ?></th>

<th><?php _e('last post'); ?></th>

</tr>



<?php if ( $stickies ) : foreach ( $stickies as $topic ) : ?>

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

<td><?php bb_topic_labels(); ?><a href="<?php topic_link(); ?>"><?php topic_title(); ?></a></td>

<td class="num"><?php topic_author(); ?></td>

<td class="num"><?php topic_posts(); ?></td>

<td class="num"><?php topic_last_poster(); ?></td>

<td class="num"><a href="<?php topic_last_post_link(); ?>"><?php topic_time(); ?></a></td>

</tr>



<?php endforeach; endif; ?>

Lord knows I have more questions, but let’s start with those. Any help would be very much appreciated…thanks!!

[paamayim]

Same here, I did copy “kakumei” in my-templates, renamed the folder and started editing, but style.css is not found, neither are all pictures and the screenshot.png is not shown in admin->appearance. I can activate the template but all pics/style stuff is missing.

Any idea?

Forum funcionality and default theme are all working fine.

[deadlyhifi]

Hi Matt,

I’ve been running a large bbP community for 11 months now, so I’ve come to know what users expect and the kinds of limitations we’ve had to overcome (or not). My skills lie mostly in user experience and CSS coding, but I’m also getting quite proficient in PHP. I’d be more than willing to help in any of these areas. With PHP some of the lighter side of things would be desirable.

I’d also love to help out with the codex, answer questions here, and moderate.

A great person to have on board would be CK ( https://bbpress.org/forums/profile/_ck_ ). She seems to have disappeared off the radar of late, but she wrote many plugin (for 0.9), offered much advice, and stated she’d be updating plugins for 1.0 from December onwards.

[Ryan Hellyer]

Hi Matt,

I launched the SitePoint community theme project for bbPress (work is still underway):

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/08/05/we-want-you-join-the-sitepoint-communitys-bbpress-theme-project/

My own background is in HTML/CSS coding mixed with a little WordPress.

Assuming the SitePoint project goes to plan I’ll likely be implementing it into a new version of my bbPress template generator which is currently in the works (albeit development is taking longer than I’d like) … http://pixopoint.com/products/bbpress-forum-theme-generator/

I see the key to bring bbPress to the masses is to add a lot of the standard functionality which most forums have by default directly into the theme. This keeps the core nice and light whilst offering maximum functionality to those who require it. I’d also like to make it easy as possible to have your WordPress and bbPress themes seamless integrate their designs by offering identically behaving WordPress and bbPress template generators.

[stanhoop]

I am having major issues getting the forum to look cohesive with my WPbased site. (long story)–after a lot of trouble with the themes I have decided to embed the forum into my WPbased site w/ iframe. I need to modify the main forum table width. I have tried to modify the css to define the width of the ‘forumlist’ section….no deal. I have tried to add ‘style=”width: 590px;”‘ to the <table> tag in the front-page.php file….no deal. I am a newbie to php (very little knowledge—just enough to get me into trouble) If anyone has any ideas I would LOVE to hear them~

[buddha-trance]

The problem is with the menu tabs. If you cut the html part out, the heading aligns fine.

I tried some css changes, but to no avail. Really odd… in any event, the problem seems to fix itself if you add a div with some height (40px), like this:

<div id="blog-menu" class="clearfix">

<ul>

<li class="about"><a href="/about-2">About</a></li>

<li class="join"><a href="/join">Join</a></li>

<li class="blog"><a href="/blog">Blog</a></li>

<li class="contact"><a href="/contact">Contact</a></li>

<li class="wiki"><a href="/wiki">Member - Wiki</a></li>

<li class="forum"><a href="/forum">Member - Forum</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

<div style="height:40px;"></div>

There must be some other solution, but at least there is a quick fix for now, and you know where to look for the source of the issue.

Hope this helps.

[mdolf]

Sure, its http://sustainable-sport.org/forum/

[chrishajer]

Can you post a link to your forum please? I’m having a hard time finding it.

[t_shea]

Thanks, but I know almost nothing about editing PHP. I’m used to working in Dreamweaver but I normally use the ‘Split’ mode so that I can see visually how the code corresponds to what I see. But with PHP, it’s all code and no visual references.

I need even more specifics of how to do this. I see my ‘hottags’ div, but I need to know exactly where to put it so that it will appear at the top of my page like it does here on the front page of the forums.

Then when modifying the CSS, I realize the ‘top: 0’ and ‘left: 0’, absolute are pinning it to the top left corner of the screen, I think I understand the ‘width’, but I don’t know what the ‘overflow: hidden’ does. From seeing the #front-page #discussions right below it showing a width of 590px, I assume that is the width I’d want to change the #hottags to. Is that correct?

Thanks again

[DKB]

Hi,

Im looking for a experienced php programmer and designer. Ik have build the WordPress site on my own but i would like that somewone looks at it and can make improvements. I am also considering to port my theme to another and fully integrate my bbPress forum.

Reward is dependent on the how much time it is needed.

Requirements:

* Very good knowledge of WordPress

* Very good knowledge of PHP, CSS en HTML

*Good knowledge of SEO en usability

*Someone can give advice rather than just implements

Thanks in advance

erwinjansen1[at]live.nl

[PickledPC]

Yeah don’t want to use an iFrame. I can get it to call the header but nothing else. It’s not calling my stylesheet. I’m only using header, footer, front-page, style.css. WordPress theme wasn’t that bad as i have good knowledge of html and css but no php knowledge until now. BBpress is giving me a fit and I want it to work because I like it, don’t want to revert to a forum plugin….All the info I read is changing the default theme or using these simple files from the wordpress theme to start. Any suggestions?

Thanks

[PickledPC]

Alright I have my site at pickledpc.com and the forums at pickledpc.com/forums/

I’m trying to apply my wordpress theme to the forums to make it all look the same. I haven’t the slightest idea of where to start. I have tinkered with the style.css but can’t get anywhere. Any pointers? A good place to start?

Thanks

[chrishajer]

What version of bbPress are you running? The 1.0 version has some classes that you seem to be missing there. I don’t have a 0.9 version installed with categories to check this out.

This would get you close, at the bottom of your style.css, but it’s not quite right – it spaces all the table data cells over. You just want the first ‘column’ over, the forum category.

.bb-root td {

padding-left: 2.5em;;

}

I didn’t think the older version had forums as categories – are you using a plugin for that, or are you using 1.0 and just missing some classes for your theme? Maybe that theme was for 0.9 and is missing the markup for 1.0.