[Sam Bauers]

@johnnydoe

bbPress has a stable version which is currently 0.9.0.3

bbPress has an unstable “alpha” version which is currently 1.0-alpha-3

In a sense the “alpha” version is like beta software in that it is for testing and shouldn’t really be run on a live server.

[John James Jacoby]

I will fully test this tomorrow. Thanks for pounding this out so quick.

[Sam Bauers]

A first attempt at getting WordPress 2.7 and bbPress 1.0 to play nice again is now in trunk [1862].

I’m specifically talking about “deep” integration, i.e. when you include WordPress inside bbPress to gain access to WordPress’ functions.

This will need a lot of testing, so please post any issues you have on the relevant Trac ticket, #972 (which will stay open until some more testing has occurred).

I recommend using the following code at the top of your bbPress bb-config.php file to include WordPress inside bbPress:

if ( !defined( 'ABSPATH' ) ) {

include_once( '/Full/Path/To/wp-load.php' );

}

Note that this includes “wp-load.php” not “wp-config.php” or “wp-blog-header.php”. This avoids running WordPress’ template loader which presumably isn’t needed inside bbPress. Some implementations may want it though, so if you find you need it then give it a go and let us know how that goes.

Also note that all filters and actions set in WordPress whether default or added by plugins or themes are cleared out completely. That means that plugins and themes installed in WordPress cannot add filters or actions to bbPress at all. This may have some implications I’m not aware of yet.

Go nuts!

[_ck_]

Speaking of OpenID I need more testers on the OpenID prototype to give me feedback. It works with both 0.9 and 1.0

https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/openid/

[Sam Bauers]

Kevin, the cookie and login integration that works with BB0.9 – WP2.5 also works with BB1.0 – WP2.6 or 2.7. The only issues remaining arise when you login via WordPress instead of bbPress, the simple fix for this is to redirect WordPress logins to bbPress, but I will be building a plugin to make this (and some other things) easier.

The “deep” integration issues where people load WordPress inside bbPress are still outstanding, and as I said may never be resolved and might eventually be unsupported. The XML-RPC functionality being developed is intended as a launching pad for people who need bbPress data inside their WordPress installs, I also expect that there will be some functionality written to get data going in the other direction as well. We are using this already “internally” with the BuddyPress forums component which communicates with bbPress 1.0 to provide group forums and eventually other functionality to that software. There is also already a plugin to pull some basic data from bbPress to WordPress widgets.

I don’t think you should blame Matt for XML-RPC being added either, I think it was mdawaffe who wanted pingbacks and I think I was the person who liked the idea of a complete XML-RPC server enough to actually write it.

Features tend to forge ahead when they have a champion for them and as the only major contributor to the code at the moment that kind of leaves it up to me as to what gets done. There has only been a small amount of thorough and reported testing of deep integration done by users so far who are actually trying to make it happen (see #972). That doesn’t exactly excite me to work on a feature that neither I nor the company I work for particularly need, especially when I already have a low opinion of the technique in the first place. In the same breath though, I understand that others may want it and I’m not actively trying to stop it from happening either. If someone fixed, patched it and put it in Trac, I would commit it with a smiley emoticon and a “props” in capital letters.

So in short, it needs someone to take the lead on it, if you want it done sooner rather than later.

Talking about community discontent by referring to the contents of these forums seems a bit disingenuous. These are support forums which by their nature invite people to announce their problems, all we can tell by it is that some people have problems with the software, sometimes. I’m pretty sure we aren’t getting every user coming through here. It’s not a gauge, and perhaps the dreaded Facebook page will help us find the people who don’t post here a bit more easily, perhaps it is something that can be used to gauge what the community mood is like. If anything it might give me a little comfort to know that a few people out there like what we’re doing here. My development time isn’t a zero sum game, I didn’t steal 30 minutes from my “writing code” time to setup that page. I need to enjoy myself while I work, maybe doing that helped me get through that particular day. At the other end of the tubes is me, a person. Hi. Nice to meet you.

On that personal note it isn’t nice to be blasted for something as cursory as not initiating topics in the forums for two months. I’ve been contributing to bbPress for almost two years now. There have been times when I’ve taken close to the full burden of support here, even before I worked for Automattic. Recently we got two community moderators who are very competent. _ck_ and chrishajer have been outdoing themselves around here. I have taken it a little easier for the past month while I focused on some other tasks.

I’m really only catching up on some of the more recent goings on around here, including your very interesting threads about the overall direction of bbPress. I completely want those conversations to happen, you make good points there too and I like the general direction of what you are saying, even though you make incorrect assumptions about some details. I wish I had been there in real-time to discuss it, but I will try to respond where I can.

Finally, bbPress is important to Automattic at the moment primarily as a tool for it’s own uses. Thus there is little or no promotion of it at this stage. If we gain some traction in the real world one day it might be treated like WordPress, but for now it will basically be whatever the people who contribute to it want it to be, and as usual when resources are limited, those who can write good bug reports or contribute real code will get their needs met first.

[_ck_]

testing:

bbPress is the #1 forum software for do-it-yourselfers

+ should maybe be {3,8} instead

backticks:

bbPress is the #1 forum software for do-it-yourselfers

nope, still broken in backticks.

testing some more:

Joe User

100 Main Street Suite #17

Anywhere, USA

nope In fact it removed the space between Suite and #17

[trac=123]see this ticket[/trac] or [trac]123[/trac] would be better.

Or just copy the entire url out of trac once you’ve looked up the number anyway.

[_ck_]

This is also straightforward to do, but I sure would like to know why someone would do such a thing.

You can’t mimic the post_position trick because no positioning is tracked by bbPress for topics. bbPress shouldn’t even use post_position anyway but it does it to accelerate the alternative looking up the position by date.

You’d have to do a mysql query that simulates the get_latest_topics but returns only topic_id’s and then find the position of the desired topic_id in the resulting array. Then you divide by number of topics per page and there’s your page number.

[kgosser]

Hey all,

So I’ve been checking out various forums to use for my business’ site, and I’ve got it paired down to bbPress and Vanilla. I’m leaning towards bbPress, but I have a few questions that I’m seeking answers to first. If anyone can help me out, it would be greatly appreciated!

(1) Is it available either by default or a plug-in to allow users to post <embed> or <object> snippets to show Flash files?

(2) Is there a plug-in available to allow image uploading to our server, or are all the ways to get an image to display within a thread by bb [img]code or the “Allow Images” plug-in?

(3) Would you consider bbPress’ theme customization to be about as equal (or easier) than WordPress’?

(4) Are there plug-ins to allow for either digg-style voting or normal 5-star voting? Being able to host community-driven contests is important for this project.

Thanks a lot in advance. One of the reasons I always use WordPress for my projects is because the community is one of the best on the Web, so I hope it rubs off a little bit for bbPress! Thanks again!

[kevinjohngallagher]

Hi Ipstenu,

I’m going to disagree with you a little mate, and try not to take it off topic too much.

Yes, each adjective is subjective to ones perspective. “easy” and “alot” etc. can mean different things to different people. That said, lets look at them a sec.

“extensive plugins?”

There are just under 120 plugins for BBPress.

Over 1/3rd haven’t been updated in a year. I’d wager a good few of them don’t work anymore.

And the ones with latest comments 6-12 months ago, usually don’t work either.

Also from what i’ve seen about 1/4 of them are redundant or useless in 0.9 / 1.0alpha.

So we’re looking at maybe 40-50 plugins.

Does anyone think that’s “extensive”?

I know it’s subjective, but, um, well you can make up your own mind.

“You CAN redesign the hell out of a bbPress site”

To a certain extent i’ll agree and disagree with it. To redesign a bbpress forum so that it doesn’t look like this theme actually takes a bucket load of work. I’ve done it for 3 websites, and every time it’s involved me writing full on plugins just to output the right code, or W3C acceptable code, or overwrite the damned code thats stored outwith the templates (why is that btw?).

Can i stop and ask that? WHY does a theme designer NEED to write alot of non basic php code as a separate to their theme plugin, just to over write HARDCODED design output? Since when was hardcoding design output into the core of a theme-able piece of software a good idea?

What you can’t do with bbpress, is hand a Designer/ HTML coder your template files and expect to get anything back that’s not a flat output of a table. It’s a point I raised a while ago (and i’ll not bang on about it) but BBpress works at doing one thing. Outputting a flat list from a database.

In terms of your all forums kinda look the same , i have to agree in this instance. Most forums, ipb/vBulletin/phpBB etc do all look the same. but guess what. bbpress doesn’t look much like them. I’ve stated before BBpress’s horrific handling of parent/children with categories etc. is bloody woeful; but if you’re talking about usability, then bbpress starts to fall down a little.

What it outputs is simple, yes, to the user, but it’s not very perceptive. Finding a specific post or vital information (say that 0.9 = WP2.5 – you know , something you’d expect to be on the documentation or download page but is actually on page 3 of a topic started 1 year ago) , is a disaster. It’s reliant on the user

who posted the content using TAGS appropriotely and ofc it requires a better search function.

Lets not forget that ‘tags’ are fairly new, and really only web savvy people use/know about them. A huge chunk of this software’s cross-pollination and iteration is taken out of the developers hands and placed smack bang in teh hand of the end user (whom we know nothing about nor can reply on).

Just because something is simple/plain, does not make it inherently usable.

Think Boo.com.

================================================

Anyway, there are a number of things we’d all like to see fixed in bbpress. Some more vital than others. we’ll all agree and disagree on many, but my over riding feeling is this:

Our Clients, customers, friends, colleagues, schools, own sites, will at some stage like to, nah need to, be updated to the latest version of WordPress. it will vary from person to person, but at some stage you know that a wordpress upgrade is probably in the pipes.

But if you’re using BBpress, then you’ve been forced to hold off upgrading for over half a year. We will be/are a whole version behind, and surely someone can see that it’s got to be an issue.

I suppose what i dont understand is, and maybe i’m the only one, so please 100% feel free to explain it to me like an idiot.

if The most requested topic on this website is “wordpress integration”, and the singular fail point of the software is “wordpress integration”, and teh company that owns this software also own wordpress, and it happens to be your singular initial selling point of the software, um, well, WHY THE HELL HAS IT NOT BEEN THE ONLY PRIORITY AND FIXED IN THE 3 MONTHS SINCE 1.0ALPHA CAME OUT?

We’ve had other fixes, new code, new features, a facebook page (see i hadn’t forgotten), but yet without even a hint of when this base level feature might appear, we’re told it’s a moving target.

Please, explain it to me like a 5 year old, that hasn’t read the blog posts linking to the $29 million dollars investment, that also lead to Sam being taken on as a full time developer on bbpress (i.e. dont say no time/resources).

[Joss Winn]

Well, I wouldn’t be so harsh… It’s not even 1.0 software yet and I’m looking to integrate two applications from SVN trunk, ideally using a third-party LDAP plugin I didn’t really expect it to work but hopefully reporting my findings might help us along the way…

I’ve spent enough time on it for now, but will watch for progress and help test with interest.

[hhberthelsen]

Sounds awesome, will test it one of the next days. We have nearly 200.000 posts – will be interesting to test, and surely on my own dedicated server 😮

Any concerns regarding subforums or “hidden” forums, that i should be warned about?

[Klark0]

I’ve been tryin them out on my test site, but I get the same cookie problems. Just wait it out until they’re final. mu2.7 is kinda buggy right now.

[John James Jacoby]

I’m actually testing this as we speak. The plug-in itself is written rather poorly and is ultimately just a WordPress widget. I will report back once I have more experience with it.

[chaslie]

This topic has been marked [resolved] when it isn;t for me (with the greatest of respect for the forum administrator) so has continued the discussion on another thred about the same topic. Thanks.

[_ck_]

I just disagree with promoting a product before it’s even usable.

bbPress is very usable, just not finished. But it’s certainly *not* being promoted. All we have is this support forum. If it was being promoted, it would be listed on WordPress.org/WordPress.com and there would be hundreds of thousands of users. bbPress currently has less than 10,000 active installs. That should change by this time next year.

bbPress was originally written by Matt to simply give a support forum for WordPress (WordPress.org). Everything from there was just Matt releasing the source. There never was a general plan after that until Matt started talking about TalkPress which is still very far away by my best guess.

bbPress’s greatest strength is it can be integrated in many websites easily and made to look like them easily. But it’s still a growing child and very young. If you are looking for a polished product, you need something with over half a decade of development like phpBB, vBulletin or SMF. The downside to them is they are very rigid and hard to develop for. bbPress is incredibly easy to develop for, I only learned PHP a few years ago and look what I’ve managed to do. Just imagine what a person who knew what they were doing could do

[_ck_]

If you have your own server make sure you setup your mysql cache properly and even more importantly make sure you install some kind of PHP opcode cache (eaccelerator, xcache or APC). Even the fastest server will greatly benefit from an opcode cache.

[_ck_]

The full template can be confusing to non-coders.

This concept has been covered several times around here, it’s quite simple.

Just replace

<?php topic_last_poster(); ?>

with

<a href="<?php topic_last_post_link(); ?>"><?php topic_last_poster(); ?></a>

in the front-page.php, forum.php, view.php and tag.php templates

[Bharat Karavadra]

Sometimes forum topics are so interesting that they get many replies and bbPress v0.9.0.2 does not have any links to the latest reply when you go to a topic.

So I created one as you will see when you go to any of the topics in the Set Forever forum.

Here’s a link to the code update to the Kakumei theme for the topic.php file:

http://www.setforever.org/blog/2008/bbpress-v0902-how-to-add-a-link-to-the-latest-posted-reply-message-in-a-topic/

[_ck_]

Have you tested it in Firefox on Windows?

The column float is not working correctly and pushes the middle down below the left.

[wiseacre]

I know what is SVN, man And use it every day, for bbpress tests too. But alphas are good for bug reports, help others and wordpress integration testing. We sould discuss one named pie of code. I love digits (rev numbers are digits too), it’s my job, but the people is normal guys collection.

[thetimediva]

Hi John,

That sound like a nice feature… two ways to use a sticky.

Unfortunately, that was not the problem. It wasn’t stuck to the front originally.

I did unstick at your suggestion and click “stick topic” and it shows up in the latest discussions and not in it’s forum.

I unstuck it again… click “to front” and it displays differently in the latest discussion section – The word stick appears next to it and the font is bigger and no it doesn’t display in the forum.

It appears the “to front” is functioning fine… but not the basic “stick topic”

We still have a problem.

Thanks

Ann

[wiseacre]

Ok, guis, WP 2.7 is here. Give us bbpess alpha 3 to test it.

Because of … there are only 59 active tickets

[thetimediva]

I’m new to using bbpress and installed version Version 1.0-alpha-2

In one of the forums, I did a post and made it sticky… I other forums the sticky is always the first post(s) with all the other post underneath.

The main forums is showing 1 topic and 1 post. When I click on the forum, it isn’t there…. The only place the post sticky shows is in the latest discussions and not in forum area.

Is there some way to make the sticky topic show up in its forum?

Thanks

Ann

[John James Jacoby]

I would like to only display 10 topics on my front page, but 40 when viewing each forums individually.

Is there an easy way (within the theme maybe?) to limit the front-page.php latest discussions to a smaller number than the items per page assignment in the admin panel?

[John James Jacoby]

It isn’t about it being a regular basis, it’s about it being possible.

In my testing and installing of bbPress, I usually bounce back and forth between a KeyMaster, an Admin, and a Member test account, and sometimes I am logged in and make a post under the wrong one.

It’s more for convenience and possibility sake than it is for daily use or practicality.

Forums with many users would just have a million entries in the drop down. Heck I dunno man I just thought of this idea!