[Ryan Hellyer]

Using a cookie seems to be the approach used by vBulletin, and it’s pretty horrid as it doesn’t carry over between browsers.

IMO storing the users data per post would be too resource intensive with too many users. Storing the post data per user would be too resource intensive for users who didn’t visit often.

SMF seems to handle it fine. Not sure how they do it though.

I think I’ll avoid suggesting unread posts as an option for them. There’s way too many pitfalls I can see in implementing this. Best if someone with more knowledge tackles it I think or we’ll just end up with a horridly inefficient approach to a complex problem.

[Ryan Hellyer]

That would indeed be a very useful plugin!

Do you have any idea how you would go about building that? Off the top of my head, the only ways I can think of would be horridly inefficient and slow.

The only forum software I’ve seen do this correctly is SMF. Even phpBB and vBulletin both have crappy implementations of this functionality which don’t work very well. The SMF system is flawless and works perfectly everytime. Something similar for bbPress would be awesome.

[sdiggles]

Yea I did and it looks like it is just custom post types/taxonomies/etc.

Maybe I am better off just switching to vBulletin…

[Anointed]

Which do you prefer as the default? Users can access all forums, or users can only access forums for which they have a role on that specific site?

I would prefer that users can only access a forum for which they have a role on a specific site.

Here is my argument for this:

1. It is easy enough to programmatically add a user to another site either upon registration or after the fact.

2. buddypress finally has ‘mu’ capability. Many of us have asked for years to have separated installs of bp with an ‘mu’ network. Having users added to all forums can confuse this operation. (besides if you are using buddypress, there is already a plugin to add all users to all groups/forums)

Should forum results appear in your existing blog search? Should they be separated?

I’d rather have all results show up in a users search in a single search box.

Here is my argument:

1. Forum posts are data just like a post is data. I simply use forums in order to present the data in a different layout than blogs as it can be more appropriate.

2. A user comes to a website to find information. Who am I to tell a user that the million+ posts in my forum are less relevant to what they are looking for than a blog post? It gives the impression to a user who uses search and does not see the forum results that there is less relevant information on the site than there actually is.

How I would solve the template problem.

1. Include all results in the search output and simply separate out the design within the template for each type of data output.

`if (get_query_var(‘post_type’) == “post”){

get_template_part( ‘loop’, ‘post’ );

} elseif (get_query_var(‘post_type’) == “topic”){

get_template_part( ‘loop’, ‘topic’ );

} else …..’

2. This can lead to one really annoying issue. The results are output in the order of ‘post-date’, so the results are jumbled together. Meaning you could end up with post – topic – topic – post – reply…

To solve this issue I would attack this with the ‘groupby’ function. I would show 10x ‘posts’ then 10x ‘topics’ then 10x ‘replies’ etc, with a ‘MORE’ button underneath each of the 10. That way a user could say I want to see ‘MORE’ search results for just ‘posts’, or just ‘topics’ etc..

To go even fancier, you could apply some ajax loading to the MORE button.

Another option would be to allow the user to filter their search results either pre or post search utilizing check boxes. A user could select what types they want to search for. Then have the search function itself only include the selected post-types in the initial query.

*All of this is currently possible and I am about 70% there already, although not for search specifically. I ran into this issue when a user goes to a tax term page where the tax term is shared by multiple post-types. When I finish, I’ll pass the code along, although I’m sure you can probably do better than I can anyway.

Should we break the one page up into a few, or leave it as 1 page with all options?

I had to laugh when I read that you thought the page was already out of control. Have you ever seen the admin page for vbulletin?

If it were me, I would use a multi-tabbed admin page much like many of the premium theme companies use.

I absolutely love the flexibility that the vbulletin admin panel gives me. I can control every aspect imaginable and can’t imagine running a large forum without it.

Frankly if an admin doesn’t want to take the time to learn and operate the admin panel they should just bugger off and install any one of the crappy basic forums already available. I’d rather see bbpress turn into a full blown commercial level forum setup for wp.

[Anointed]

It really depends on what you are trying to accomplish with your website. If you are already running wordpress and eventually want to have everything linked together between forums, blog posts, users etc, then bbPress is definitely the way to go.

If your primary focus of the website is forums only then I ‘may’ suggest vbulletin. I have no experience with phpbb, but have run very large vb forums for years now.

As to whether or not it is worth the money, well that’s different for everyone. I personally am going to transfer my larger forums over to bbPress as I much prefer the wordpress environment to vb.

At the moment vb can do a lot more out of the box than just about any other forum software, but I believe that bbPress is going to close this gap very quickly. Vbulletin is really bloated with a ton of features that really are not needed but some people just seem to like all the extra junk.

It really is a personal call. I can say though bbPress is progressing very nicely. It is a very solid foundation that can easily be built upon.

[rhender]

I am creating a forum for high end audio enthusiasts. There will be a bunch of different areas just like any other normal forum.

Are all of these options good options – vBulletin, bbpress, phpbb ??

Would one be better than another for some specific reason / reasons?

I just want to make sure I make the best choice as I’m just starting the forum.

Why do you have to pay for vBulletin? Is it really worth paying for?

Thank you,

[Spiralspeaks]

@JJJ I installed it on a test site.. with 2 forum categories.. General Talk and Talk Happiness

found a bug got

site com/forums

<br />

<title> Happy People's Forum | Sitename </title><br />

but it gives in title tag the archive mode and shows like this

site com/forums

<br />

<title> Forum: Talk Happiness | Sitename </title><br />

supposed to be this one:

site com/forums

<br />

<title> Happy People's Forum | Sitename </title><br />

and this “Forum: Talk Happiness | Sitename” should be only shown at

site com/forums/forum/talk-happiness/

<br />

<title> Forum: Talk Happiness | Sitename </title><br />

Archive Slugs

Forums Base forums

Topics Base topics

Single Slugs

Forum Prefix Yes Incude the Forum Base slug in single forum item links

Forum slug: forum

Topic slug: topic

Topic tag slug: topic_tag

Reply slug : topic_tag

Reply slug:reply

User base: user

View base : view

Permalink Settings

Custom Structure: /post/%postname%/

Another one…

Case 1 If Forum Prefix is set to yes (this is ok)

site//forums/forum/happy-talk/

site/forums/topic/topicpost/

site/forums/users/name/

Case 2 If Forum Prefix is set to no (this is not ok)

site/forum/happy-talk/

site/topic/topicpost/

site/users/name/

when people directly go to site/forum/ they will be lost… 404notfound

and I want to recommend this… its better to have this for forums links pages

Forums Home › Talk Happiness › Why choose happiness with bbPress?

(Structure: forum base, the forum board, the topic)

not this one loosing forums base page.

Website Home › Talk Happiness › Why choose happiness with bbPress?

(Structure: website base, the forum board, the topic)

bug in topic_tag

site/forums/topic_tag/talk

<br />

<div id="topic-tag" class="bbp-topic-tag"><br />

<h1 class="entry-title">Topic Tag: <span>talk</span></h1></p>

<p>					<div class="entry-content"></p>

<p>						<div class="bbp-breadcrumb"><p><a href="https://bbpress.org/">Home</a> › <a href="https://bbpress.org/forums/">Support Forums</a> › <span class="bbp-breadcrumb-current">Why choose happiness with bbPress?</span></p></div><br />

it gives the latest topic on it..

[edited:added this one bug in topic_tag]

my next question is…

is there a way to change all the head title tag to this formats to improve user experience… for wordpress and bbPress plugin:

For Main Forum Base

<br />

<title> Happy People's Forum | Sitename </title><br />

For forum categories

<br />

<title> Talk Happiness (Forum for single/Board for forum category)| Happy People's Forum </title><br />

For forum post

<br />

<title> Why choose happiness with bbPress? |page#| Happy People's Forum </title><br />

it is sometimes annoying to have the word “Forum:”, “Topic:” or “Topic Tag:” all the head title tag before every forum pages.

Removing this “Forum:”, “Topic:” or “Topic Tag:” could help to market wordpress and combination of bbPress plugin… to be fantastic combination of blog&forum software..

I found that vBulletin sites head title tag structure for forums gives more emphasis on why people will read it, why people should comment to it (# pages = means hot topic), and the brand for the website/forum site [when people search via google, yahoo or any search engine people sees good head title tag structure, more often people will click it and read it]

Negosyo para sa mga “busy at mahiyain” – Page 31 – PinoyExchange

why/why not go to Accenture? – PinoyExchange

benefits and perks in accenture? – PinoyExchange

sorry, asked questions… and i have to comment on how to improve bbpress plugin

[tooltrainer]

Well it’s not so much a matter of censoring, it’s a question of security. Until I had them whitelist a rule in ModSecurity, I couldn’t post a lot of stuff in WordPress either, whether from admin or not. ModSec is treating certain words as SQL language and assuming they are an injection attack attempt. I’ve seen this problem before many times in the past but never realized what it was until this issue and subsequent conversation.

They’ve now whitelisted /topic/, /forum/, and /edit/ and that seems to have fixed this issue. I’m guessing this isn’t really something that can/should be fixed from within bbP itself, but if I’m wrong feel free to do so.

And though I personally believe that bbP is the way to go for my community, my users are used to PHPbb and VBulletin sites and so this already seems “weird” to them. Adding technical issues and using beta software isn’t really helping instill confidence but hey that’s my choice to do. They’re spoiled by forum solutions with all the bells & whistles that I’ve had to add with plugins for things like Private Messaging, showing unread topics, protecting content for members only, signatures, etc. This is of course by design, and though I’m essentially putting back in a lot of the stuff that bbP has intended to leave out, I believe I wouldn’t be happy with the lack of integration of any other forum solution within WP so… bbP it is!

They’ll get used to it, I just hope I don’t lose any because they can’t make the leap. Time will tell, and bbP keeps getting better with time. I hope my posts never suggest a lack of appreciation for this plugin and all the work you’re putting into it!

Jonathan

[pachakuti73]

Hello !

After i finally understand what you are doing here…

I checked what i need to do. A little bit confusing for me, my english isn`t that good.

Ok, i setup a new WP (current version with twenty theme) and installed the bbpress 2 beta.

So far so good. Will there be categories in BBpress ? Cause i just need one Forum under one menupoint with different categories with the topics inside.

Currently i can only make different forums wich are seperatet, thant`s a little bit strange cause i have to a menupoint for every forum.

When i click on “forum” at the breadcrump i get this error:

The requested URL /mashup/forums/ was not found on this server.

404, folder not found.

Sure, there is none. Is this just a relict of the older BBPress version where normally i should have this folder ?

First look is nice, this can be great in the future, but its in a very early beta state i guess.

It`s the only forum wich is native in WP and runs directly in the page.

All others like Vbulletin, PHPbb and so can`t be included and iframes are not really nice.

so, BBPress is my hope and the only solution at the horizon.

Thanks for your work.

[Rick Lewis]

@anointed it does not work with bp group forums. I learned this from testing and breaking everything twice. Then JJJ confirmed earlier in this post when iasked about it.

I had setup groups with forums and integrated with bbpress. Work and looked nice. Converted by vbulletin sitr to phpbb the bbpress. Destroyed my integrated group forums and while all the data and users were there it looked terrible. No category structure at all. It also deleted all my WP users with the imported ones. Locked me out from admin as well. Not fun.

Since that I did it two other times with minor changes in how I did it and knowing what was goint to happen. I got the groups back working which for me is something I want for the groups. The forum will be a seperate componet once I get a handle on how to modify the phpbb to bbpress converter. I need it ti not import users. Or do so without killing my wp users.

Cleaning the forum data prio to import is also on the list. Once done I will use bbp to bbpress converter to make the final connection. That is where I am now with trying figure out the plugin and conversion process.

I actually tried converting bbpress to bbp with the integrated group forums. Got a page of notices and errors that could fill a novel. Surely I didn’t do it correctly as well as various other factors.

If we get a little guidance on the category and overall flow of things it will be helpful. I personally can wait to see this thing working on my site as some vbulletin reps were not very kind when I mentioned my move 6 months a go. They said you will never get your data moved and if you did it will never be as good.

My site is not even close to being up to par but is already better thab it was.

[Rick Lewis]

@Fartlek Our move comes based on BuddyPress and the issues within the company behind vbulletin. I ran a large (50,000 member) gaming community but was not part of the ownership there. After many years of frustration with their lack of doing anything for the gamers especially on their website I was going to just walk away. A friend asked about doing a new venture which was to be based on a social network for gamers. Not a new idea but there wasn’t and isn’t from what I see anything like the entire organization which we have. What I mean by that is, the ones out there are just housing for tons of gamers versus being a true social network and community with connections to those gamers direction on their platforms they play on. We also sponsor teams for PRO events as well as have classes for leadership to help train people to be good leaders of large groups of people.

I am in fact a member at WPMUDEV and it’s also because of them that I decided to make the move. they have been very helpful and without their support I probably am sitting on a very ugly forum based vbulletin site wishing I had something better.

It has been a learning experience for sure with making this move. It’s still not done and may never be perfect but as I learn the capabilities of WP, buddypress, BBPRess and everything else around them, it does get easier and close to that utopia we are trying to achieve.

The support on this site and the other WP sites is also a great thing!

[Rick Lewis]

@Fartlek Our move comes based on BuddyPress and the issues within the company behind vbulletin. I ran a large (50,000 member) gaming community but was not part of the ownership there. After many years of frustration with their lack of doing anything for the gamers especially on their website I was going to just walk away. A friend asked about doing a new venture which was to be based on a social network for gamers. Not a new idea but there wasn’t and isn’t from what I see anything like the entire organization which we have. What I mean by that is, the ones out there are just housing for tons of gamers versus being a true social network and community with connections to those gamers direction on their platforms they play on. We also sponsor teams for PRO events as well as have classes for leadership to help train people to be good leaders of large groups of people.

I am in fact a member at WPMUDEV and it’s also because of them that I decided to make the move. they have been very helpful and without their support I probably am sitting on a very ugly forum based vbulletin site wishing I had something better.

It has been a learning experience for sure with making this move. It’s still not done and may never be perfect but as I learn the capabilities of WP, buddypress, BBPRess and everything else around them, it does get easier and close to that utopia we are trying to achieve.

The support on this site and the other WP sites is also a great thing!

[Rick Lewis]

@JJJ yeah for sure something has gone a muck there. Going to back track a bit. I started by going through the posts here and I keep seeing mentioned of setting up a page using a specific template. I don’t have that option when I setup a page and was sure I saw also somewhere that it was no longer needed. I did setup a page – Forums but without a template for it I doubt it is going me any good.

Also as James is asking above, I wouldn’t mind a little 411 on how the categories are suppose to work as well.

Coming from Vbulletin world for many years I was thinking category would be above the forum such as — Community Forums – Gaming forums — General Forums and so on. Then you setup Forums under those which house the topics. Doesn’t seem like it flows that way though.

Going to put some time into getting this corrected today as my users are finally making their way over from the old site and after years of having a forum many of them are lost.

Thanks for all the help and support.

[Fartlek]

What made you decide to move away from vbulletin?

I hope that your transition to bbpress runs smoothly, tables and all. Sounds like you’ve got a good handle on things already. Are you a member of WPMUDEV? They would probably be able to help you too, if you do run into problems because combining WPMU with buddypress & bbpress is their specialty (I think).

[Fartlek]

What made you decide to move away from vbulletin?

I hope that your transition to bbpress runs smoothly, tables and all. Sounds like you’ve got a good handle on things already. Are you a member of WPMUDEV? They would probably be able to help you too, if you do run into problems because combining WPMU with buddypress & bbpress is their specialty (I think).

[Rick Lewis]

can you give me the dummy version of what I need to change in the two places you mentioned?

I thought I did it correctly and tried running the script. What I got was a page of errors and notices. Referencing a few plugins and some other WP files. Way to long to paste here and probably irrelevant to the converter itself.

Where is the file need to be saved and run from?

And then the other changes to it prior to running?

If I get this working I will write a novel on taking a vbulletin site to wordpress with bbpress. It will be long and partially a nightmare story with happy ending!

Thank you for your help.

[Rick Lewis]

can you give me the dummy version of what I need to change in the two places you mentioned?

I thought I did it correctly and tried running the script. What I got was a page of errors and notices. Referencing a few plugins and some other WP files. Way to long to paste here and probably irrelevant to the converter itself.

Where is the file need to be saved and run from?

And then the other changes to it prior to running?

If I get this working I will write a novel on taking a vbulletin site to wordpress with bbpress. It will be long and partially a nightmare story with happy ending!

Thank you for your help.

[Rick Lewis]

I am thinking I want to give this thing a whirl. I got the zip downloaded, change the name and uploaded the directory. Currently I have a standalone bbpress forum with the BP group forums integrated. I have activated the plugin and see my options in the admin panel. I added a forum which I only see the Title for at the /forum page. I know there was a converter from the stand alone but can’t recall where that thread is or what to do with it once I get it.

Is there a quick what to do next somewhere or is it to early on to be asking for some help getting it setup?

I will point out that I am come from the hell of vbulletin world and converted everything to phpbb then to bbpress on my tests sites and now looking to finish it all off with this plugin. Truly not something I want to ever have to do again!

Thanks for all the help and support here and elsewehre on these forums.

[Rick Lewis]

I am sure there will be new ones but there is one out there which does work.

That can be located in the

http://code.google.com/p/phpbb3-to-bbpress1-converter/downloads/detail?name=phpbb3-to-bbpress1-converter_v2.zip&can=2&q=

I found that when looking for a solution to move a vbulletin forum to bbpress beings I was in the midst of changing to wordpress for all of my sites functions.

That link is here – http://www.ericm.ca/2010/05/31/vbulletin-4-to-bbpress-and-wordpress-integration/

As long as you are doing it per the instructions, it works perfect. I have done it twice now on test sites. The only glitch I hit was on my new site the WP and BBP integration is already there so I don’t have a bb_users table which is the first thing the converter is looking for. I was going to ask for some help with that from the maker as I have by forums and users stuck now in a PHPBB forum and can not get them into WP or BBP as far as I can tell.

I have no idea how all that will play with the new plugin but I am hoping to get my site on track and then move to the plugin at some point.

Hope this helps.

[vpetersson2]

So I’ve just migrated an large, but insanely spam-infested vBulletin forum over to bbPress (via phpBB3). The migration wasn’t really smooth, but I was able to at least get the data across.

Now that I have everything up and running in bbPress, I want to bulk-scan all the existing posts for spam. Would that be possible to somehow run the akismet plugin in against all the existing posts to sort out all the spam posts? We’re talking a rather large forum here (200k+ posts).

[Rick Lewis]

I have successfully moved by vbulletin site into phpbb3 and now ready to finalize the moved to bbpress. I had done a test on this process twice in the past and confirmed the steps and all that jazz but the last part is where I always get hung up.

Generally in the integration of the bbpress and wp users and logins.

Seems that may be again the issue but even prior to converting the data into bbpress.

My current site is a WPMU and has buddypress with bbpress standalone already connected. So, there is no bb_users table. When I run the convertor it of course is looking for that table and returns an error which kills the process.

knowing how sensitive this dang thing is I thought I would ask for some advice and help first prior to just trying to create tables and/or modify this convertor files. Both things I truly have little clue on how to do properly.

Some added info – I do have a users table and that is what is connected to WP and the last step in the conversation process is actually to rename the bp_user table to users if you intend to use WP for your users versus BBP. This is something I don’t want to change as it currently works just fine.

Finally, incase someone has a completely other solution here is what I got..

PHPBB3 has all my posts and users and is installed on the same domain as WPMU and BBP. It is also sharing the same database.

I have confirmed the phpbb forum works just fine with the users and my WPMU with BBP also works just fine. I would like to dump the phpbb and use bbp. I then am hoping to check into the bbp plugin.

Thank for all help and advice.

[Rick Lewis]

been following this for sometime as I am in the midst of converting a vbulletin site over to wordpress/buddypress. The forums are a huge part of that and I was told to look into bbpress. Initially I wasn’t to happy but it seemed like the better option based on the relationship between all the top people involved in all the WP, BP, BB family. I did actually find a way to get the users and data over to bbpress on a test site. I am about to look into that again for the new site beings we are now ready to get that open to the public. Before I do that though, I am curious as to how the stand alone will integrate into the plug in. I am reading things in this thread and see mention that is might not be ready as of yet?

Also, how do I get the plugin itself to test out? I see mention of it being uploaded on wordpress repository??? Is that not the main area there?

Tried searching and only some other thing came up.

Please post a link if it is something everyone can test out as it would be helpful for the development of my site.

Thanks.

[bryzo]

Unfortunately there are not many community-contributed themes available. I am working on a Vbulletin-style theme which will be released next week.

Essentially you will need to take a theme you like and do major modifications to make it yours.

[bryzo]

Unfortunately there are not many community-contributed themes available. I am working on a Vbulletin-style theme which will be released next week.

Essentially you will need to take a theme you like and do major modifications to make it yours.

[Anonymous User 7670885]

@JJJ: really compliments for latest update

In past i’ve request user signature but i don’t remember if i’ve already asked for topic/post promotion (i think, like vbulletin/ipb, is a good idea to have a way to promote – or move – an article in blog/category/homepage).