[John James Jacoby]

You know, that WordPress is really an elaborate Forum clone, right?

Years ago, forums were threaded email responses back and forth that were documented hierarchically. Then, the idea of threads was cast away because it was thought to be too complicated to understand. Why would someone branch off to speak to a reply instead of replying to the original post/poster?

To me, it’s the nature of group discussion, and it is the difference between the intent of WordPress and bbPress, at least it was before WordPress 2.7 brought back threaded comments.

A forum is intended for multiple, typically registered commited users, and invokes group discussion that is often times allowed to skate off-topic as people reply to other people. Sometimes reply counts can escalate into the hundreds or thousands depending on the size of the forum.

A blog is intended to allow a few authors to create articles and attempts to cater to non-committed users that drop by, can leave a comment, and never look back if they don’t want to.

Since the emphasis of a blog is the initial post, comment replies typically tend to stay on topic.

Since the emphasis of a forum is to spark conversation, replies typically tend to drift off topic.

The funny thing is that both of these display methods use almost the exact same data storage and retrieval methods. Data is categorized and tagged as necessary, with a time-stamp, an excerpt, and other pertinent information.

The one major way that blogs differ from forums, is that forums restrict posts to one forum or category while blogs allow for one post to be in several. This ability inherently changes the emphasis away from categorization and towards the content of the post itself and how it relates to other possible posts.

I moved away from phpBB and towards WordPress for this specific attribute alone. Since posts can often times benefit from being in multiple categories, a blog style system makes a great deal of sense.

I think that the similarities between WordPress and bbPress exist only because they share a similar intent with data storage and categorization, and if you’ve ever read two books by the same author you’ll understand how both of them will read very similarly.

Overall I am happy that the authors of WordPress have made bbPress, as it shows a recognition of the distinct differences between the two of them.

I think as time passes, you will start to see more of how these two tools come from the same family but are different members all together. Think of them as fraternal twins.

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

I keep thinking back on this, and I think you’re looking at it the wrong way. I’m not speaking to the HTML/Code side of it, but the concept side. The code side, yeah, some function I would consider default is missing (Unread, maybe Allow Images)

But what’s the difference between a Forum and a Blog?

A blog is a journal. Few people make new topics, many people reply. A forum is … a forum. Many people make new topics, many people reply.

If you feel the code of a Blog is better suited to how you want to run your forum, cool. You want to use the highly structured IPB or phpBB? Have at I picked bbPress not because of the WP integration (I could care less, really) but because it gave me more options than just Category -> Forum -> Topic -> Posts, and because it’s small and lacks a lot of those fancy options.

Example? I don’t use categories at all. Don’t need ’em. I have three ‘fora’ for high level organization. I went off the same general idea I use on my Blog. Three categories, a ton of tags.

1) About the site topic (screwdriver.com is about screwdrivers, talk about them)

2) About the Website (the code behind the site, suggestions, ideas, etc)

3) Everything else (screwdrivers are nice, but I have this hammer…)

Three big, broad categories/fora whatever. The tags I sort of let explode. And even then, I’m torn between structure and free form. I want a little structure (so you don’t get tags like ‘hammer’ and ‘hammers’ which really are the same thing), but I also want freedom.

So function. If you can get all that in a blog, have at Many people do and we call ’em LiveJournal Communities

[fontadoni]

Hello there.

I recently converted my phpbb 2.x forum to bbpress. I did this successfully with the provided script by iteisa.com (phpBB2bbpress). I was lucky that I had not upgraded to phpbb 3, so I followed the instructions carefully as I read lots of people having issues with the conversion while using higher versions of phpbb. I first installed bbpress 0.7, I ran the script, and when the database conversion was done sucesfully, I upgraded to bbpress: 0.9.0.2. This was a couple of days ago and I’m very happy with the results.

Now, for my actual question. I had a pretty small board with about 100 members and as I mentioned, the conversion was pretty successful, the only weird thing I’m noticing is that ID numbers for new members are way off. Let me give you an example. One of the last members to register before the conversion has an ID number of 107 (or profile.php?id=107). New members are now getting very high ID numbers, the last member that registered has an ID number of 1000000003 (profile.php?id=1000000003).

Is this something I should worry about? Can you guys give me a few pointers on how I could change this in the database? I would like to fix it.

Sorry for the long post and I thank you in advance for your time!

[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

[eslavin83]

can anyone help?

after the script runs, isn’t there an sql file that’s supposed to be generated from the old board & saved into a /tmp/ folder?

[eslavin83]

i’m also getting this warning message:

Warning: mysql_fetch_object(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/public_html/bbs08/phpbb2bbpress.php on line 922

[eslavin83]

can anyone answer the question regarding the “39816” error? i get up to step 8 and then that string of numbers shows up. i checked the new database and nothing has been pushed into it.

[dpi]

Hi,

I was wondering whether there’s a plug in which creates a new forum topic in bbPress and links to it everytime I post a new WordPress post?

This has three plus points:

-Forums are a more organized/structured system than a blog comments system

-In addition to being a comments system, users can also start their own threads

-Topics per post encourages users to join the forums/register at your site

Here’s an example of how it’s done (WP + PHPBB topics per post plugin)

http://www.alfredodehoces.com/wp2bb/

I hope there’s a WP + BBP version of that plugin.

[bryan868]

Just realized I can’t do it, the phpBB3 -> phpBB2 converter doesn’t bring over the users. And I don’t want to lose my userbase.

So it looks like I’ll just be waiting until a phpBB3 -> bbPress converter is finished! Whenever that’ll be!

[quidoloremipsum]

i wonder if there’s bbpress plugin that can display graphical ranks (something like phpbb’s default stars under user’s nickname…)? if no – did anyone though about writing such plugin?

[yazerty]

It seems not to work for my phpbb3 board . Perhaps the 13000 messages are for something in this… ?

If you succed, tell us bryan868 !

And will passwords be “ok” ?

[allinjac]

Did you ever make this public or avaiable for purchase or anything, lol.

Thanks,

[chrishajer]

I don’t know of a better way right now.

[bryan868]

I guess I’ll try the phpBB3 -> phpBB2 -> bbPress method. Yikes!

[WebDev WaxLotus LLC]

Caught wearing my underwear on the outside. It doesn’t make me immune to cosmic cookie rays?

This was a cherry install so I didn’t have any experience with bbPress and its issues etc. The ‘add forum’ button issue existed before I added the quick fix…I found it on my first pass through the support forums trying to see how other WP2.6 success stories started out…

Did I mention that I have the bbPress files located in a subdomain called ‘forum’ i.e. mydomain.org/forum/ ?

I’ve just gone through the phpbbb vs SMF review again, just so I can get something going while these small things get cooked off, but I think I’ll stry bbPress as a stand-alone in its own db and integrate later…Do you see any drama with that path?

I just noticed that I didn’t add the SECRET_KEY value from wp-config.php (sic) to wp-settings.php as per a comment in that file…but it turns out that’s an artifact. Strike that.

These are some of the cookies that FireBug reports:

wordpress_logged_in_f004625b18565e7c579076261d01b3a5

myDomain.org 105 B /forum/ Session



wordpress_f004625b18565e7c579076261d01b3a5

myDomain.org  95 B /wp-content/plugins Session



wordpress_f004625b18565e7c579076261d01b3a5

myDomain.org  95 B /wp-admin Session



wordpress_f004625b18565e7c579076261d01b3a5

myDomain.org  95 B /forum/my-plugins Session



wordpress_f004625b18565e7c579076261d01b3a5

myDomain.org  95 B /forum/bb-plugins Session



wordpress_f004625b18565e7c579076261d01b3a5

myDomain.org  95 B /forum/bb-admin Session



wordpress_test_cookie

myDomain.org 36 B / Session

I’m checking…

[chrishajer]

phpBB3 > phpBB2

http://www.arvystate.net/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.30

phpBB2 > bbPress

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/a-phpbb-to-bbpress-database-converter

I don’t think there’s any how to written for the complete process. You could be the first.

[yazerty]

Oh, it seems this will take a very long time to have a convertor for phpbb 3 :'(.

Is there another way to convert a phpbb 3 to bbpress (tutorial ?) ?

[chrishajer]

I’ve seen a bunch of replies today regarding things you’re unhappy with being missing from bbPress, things that are handled by plugins that should not be. I think your idea of forum software is different from the creators ideas for bbPress. I don’t think all the functionality you are missing in bbPress is ever going to be in the bbPress core. I have no official word on the subject, but from watching the replies over the past two years regarding topic like this, I don’t think these things will ever be part of the core, but will be available as plugins.

Also, bbPress is alpha or beta software, depending on the version you installed, around two years old, where phpBB is something like eight years old.

bbPress isn’t for everyone. That’s why there are lots of forum packages out there. Something for everyone.

[chrishajer]

I don’t want those things in the bbPress core – I would never use them. That said, normally things like this can be added via plugins, which are optional and I wouldn’t have to install them. Best of both worlds.

I am curious why you selected bbPress over phpBB if these core features are already present in phpBB but not in bbPress? Not a flame, an honest question.

[chrishajer]

Your users probably want to mark a topic as a favorite if they want an email when there is a reply. A topic created by a member does not automatically subscribe them to it as a favorite (I think in some versions of phpBB that’s how it works.)

For buttons, you probably want one of these two plugins:

https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/bbcode-buttons/

https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/quicktags-4-bbpress/

You’ll find with bbPress that most of the things you want to do can be accomplished with plugins.

[eclipsenow]

Personally, what I want from an email notification service is:-

1. To notify me of when someone replies, but not EVERYONE that replies.

I love the fact that in phpbb.com the email notifies you, you click on the url and go to the next reply to your last post, and then you note that there are 20 other replies that you can read through neatly on the BB, but NOT 20 other emails to delete! The whole point of BB’s is that they save email stress. I’d hate to lose this function just because we decided to go with bbpress not phpbb.

2. Being able to subscribe to not just threads, but FORUMS is also important for some users. In some large forums, some specialists need to know everything going on in that forum and might be so busy that they’d appreciate an email every time someone started a thread.

This sort of functionality should be standard in bbpress. I’m an activist spread very thinly over the internet, and RSS just doesn’t cut it. I might see a thread, register, comment, and then forget about that whole forum until someone eventually replies. The email keeps me going back. With so many bulletin boards and forums to reply to and keep track of — that ALL pretty much notify of reply by email — why would I bother messing around with RSS as well? My email box is king, only it grabs my attention. This function should not be a plugin.

3. There should be a function in my profile where I can just click an automatic email generator, so that ANY time I reply in ANY thread, I am automatically emailed if someone replies.

This is standard, basic bulletin board protocol and absolutely has to be in the standard installation.

[eclipsenow]

Hi all,

I’m used to phpbb.com software. Does BBpress have an email notification function that lets members know of replies to threads (instead of RSS)? I’m introducing a bunch of email list users to Bulletin Boards for the first time, and am really hoping this software works well.

Also, they are not very technical. Does BBpress have easy to use buttons for customising posts?

[grenoli-dk]

I am having problems with the phpbb2bbpress converter (http://www.iteisa.com/phpbb2bbpress/).

When I run the file I just get this message. There isnt a sql-file to download or a file created on my server.

1: I downloaded the file from: http://www.iteisa.com/phpbb2bbpress/

2: I edited the lines I have written in bold.

Code:

define(‘DB_PHPBB_USERNAME’, ‘[strong]databasename[/strong]’);
define(‘DB_PHPBB_PASSWORD’, ‘[b]databasepassword[/b]’);
define(‘DB_PHPBB_DATABASE’, ‘[b]databasename[/b]’);
define(‘DB_PHPBB_TABLEPREFIX’, ‘phpbb_’);

define(‘DB_BBPRESS_HOSTNAME’, ‘localhost’);
define(‘DB_BBPRESS_USERNAME’, ‘[b]databasename[/b]’);
define(‘DB_BBPRESS_PASSWORD’, ‘[b]databasepassword[/b]’);
define(‘DB_BBPRESS_DATABASE’, ‘[b]databasename[/b]’);
define(‘DB_BBPRESS_TABLEPREFIX’, ‘bb_’);

I only have one database on my server, so the databasename and password is the same on the phpbb and bbpress part

Code:

define(‘EXPORT_TO_FILE’, true); // Should the converted DB be exported to a file ?
define(‘FILENAME’, ‘/tmp/phpbb_imported.sql’); // Which one ? (Ensure this path is writeable by the server)
define(‘AUTO_IMPORT_EXPORTED_DATA’, false); // Should the script automagically import the converted DB ?

3: I created the folder tmp at the root and used chmod on it.

4: I uploaded the file to the root and tried to open it but I couldnt. So I removed the s in .phps and it worked. But i only got this message – but nothing really happened. I cant download a file, and there is nothing on my server. What am I doing wrong?

Q! wrote:

phpBB to bbPress database converter

This script can convert a PhpBB 2.0.X (www.phpbb.com) forum database to bbPress “Bix” 0.73 (www.bbpress.org) format.

Developed by Jaime GÓMEZ OBREGÓN from ITEISA, based on the previous work of Bruno Torres and The phpBB Group.

The latest version of this file can be found on http://www.iteisa.com/phpbb2bbpress/.

Starting conversion

1.

Connected to the phpBB database host

2.

Selected the phpBB database

3.

Exporting forums…

4.

Exporting users…

5.

Exporting user metadata…

6.

Exporting topics…

7.

Exporting posts…

8.

Sending all your database e-mails to all major world-wide spam sending mafias…

‘strong’dsfgds’strong’

[_ck_]

bbxf if the work in progress – it’s in it’s infancy however and you’ll have to look at previous work by others on the phpbb2 convertor. There is no 1 minute way, it’s going to take some time and effort.

http://bbxf.org/

http://code.google.com/p/web-forums-standard/

You are much better off following this tag:

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

[wonen]

Not very likely Bryan. It’s a good thing to things like this are spoken about though.