[reminisce32]

And my vbulletin is only a 3.8 as well. Is there not support for 3.8 or would I have to upgrade it to vBulletin v4.x first?

[reminisce32]

And just a follow up.. there certainly wouldn’t be a step backwards in terms of seo if I covert my vbulletin to bbpress, correct? especially given that my vB thread urls contain no words?

[reminisce32]

I currently have a vbulletin, and used to have vBSEO for thread title to show up in the url. I’ve since lost this.. if I convert to BBpress, can I somehow get the thread titles in the url for seo purposes?

Also, if I install bbpress, will it look like the one on this site by default, with the different forum topics on the left? Thanks.

[peterdadams]

Hi

This is an interesting thread.

I have a large vBulletin 5.1.7 forum and after reading this topic I am thinking about migrating to bbPress.

I have powerful dedicated server solely for the forum, the forum has topics: 129,286 Posts: 3,055,650 Members: 51,108

Is there a script to import my forum into bbPress?

Can the WordPress plugin W3 Total Cache be used with bbPress to boost perform dance?

Many thanks for your help.

[fmckinnon]

@Robkk thanks for the reply. I have the “mark as read” plugin installed but it still doesn’t quite accomplish what I’m looking for (and what I’ve seen so many other people search for), which is a quick view of ALL unread forums or replies. Any new content — regardless of whether or not you are subscribed to that thread.

We migrated from vBulletin 4.2.2 and this is what we’re missing the most. Logging in and immediately being able to “view all unread”.

There’s just gotta be a way!

[fmckinnon]

OK, after a long, painful day of multiple attempts, we finally successfully migrated our forums to bbPress. We’ve been on vBulletin for many many years.

We integrated with BuddyPress – the site can be seen here:
http://www.theworshipcommunity.com

First Impressions:
Clean, slick, overall, a better design once we tweak the .css to make the forums (specifically) look better.

Performance: not sure if it’s a plugin or what, but overall performance is sluggish on both the Buddypress and the bbPress side.

Biggest Disappointment:
By far, the biggest disappointment and biggest feature request, in less than 24 hours of use, is the inability to find ANY plugin or way to easily let a forum user in bbPress show UNREAD threads/replies in one location. I’ve installed the pencil plugin, the “go to first unread post” plugin (which doesn’t seem to be showing up) and another plugin that puts a “new” icon next to a forum .. but that still requires one to click on each forum and dig through to try and find the actual new post or reply.

Someone PLEASE tell me that my 24+ hours of searching and scouring these forums and google results that a decent way to do this is out there? (w/o modifying core files)

[fmckinnon]

Not sure how or why – but after repairing the database in vbulletin via the vbulletin adminCP, this finally worked!

[fmckinnon]

Hey,
Trying to do the vBulletin 4.x converter to bbPress. Now, in the import forums of bbPress, there is “vbulletin 3x” and “vBulletin”. I read here that the “vBulletin” option is the one to choose for v4.x

When I attempt to do the conversion, I get the following error that prevents it from running – can someone help on this?

WordPress database error: [Table ‘twcadmin_twc_vbulletin.wp_forumsuser’ doesn’t exist]
SELECT convert(user.userid USING “utf8”) AS userid,convert(user.password USING “utf8”) AS password,convert(user.salt USING “utf8”) AS salt,convert(user.username USING “utf8”) AS username,convert(user.email USING “utf8”) AS email,convert(user.homepage USING “utf8”) AS homepage,convert(user.joindate USING “utf8”) AS joindate,convert(user.aim USING “utf8”) AS aim,convert(user.yahoo USING “utf8”) AS yahoo,convert(user.icq USING “utf8”) AS icq,convert(user.msn USING “utf8”) AS msn,convert(user.skype USING “utf8”) AS skype FROM wp_forumsuser AS user LIMIT 0, 50

No users to convert

No data to clean

Starting Conversion

[Jake Hall]

Hi guys,

I recently released a plugin for bbPress+WordPress, which adds a brand new shortcode that displays various statistics for your forum, and also includes the bbPress Statistics as an on/off toggle.

For those trying to replicate a similar look and feel to say, phpBB or vBulletin, this will help!

In future versions, I plan on implementing an actual widget – however, due to the way I have written the plugin I get the feeling it would require a full rewrite to achieve that – so it may be a while off yet.

Anyway, if you’re interested, check it out here: https://wordpress.org/plugins/bbpress-improved-statistics-users-online/

[Jake Hall]

I’m pretty happy with what I’ve managed to do with the bbpress installation on my site, rockstarwire.net/community

I have even released a plugin of my own, bbPress Advanced Statistics, which essentially adds a shortcode that displays a phpbb / vBulletin-esque “who’s online & statistics” section, you can see an example on the bottom of my site or you can check out the screenshots.

I’m optimistic about the future of bbPress, I just wish my community actually used the forum after all the work I’ve put into it!

[fmckinnon]

Hey Rob,
Yes – thank you. Dan has been very helpful. At this point, I think it’s becoming more of a preference question … as I am struggling with what path to take.

We definitely already have sitewide forums w/ vBulletin, so we could easily just keep WordPress as our blog and use site-wide forums w/ bbPress. The thing I feel like I’m missing there is the added sense of community that can be built via the “add friend” type thing you get w/ BuddyPress.

Beyond that, my biggest question is the use of Groups in BuddyPress. My concern I expressed in the other thread was that you can get the discussion happening inside a group (via the comment/status system) that is NOT part of the forum, and vice-versa. So, discussion is not happening in the same place. The big idea we had was to bring it all together.

I suppose the simplest idea would be to not enable groups, and use site-wide forums … but if not using Groups, I’m not sure what other big plus there is to BuddyPress.

Again – I realize at this point, it’s all subjective and preference. I’m enlisting some beta-testers to hit our staging site from our existing forums to see what they like/dislike.

[fmckinnon]

Hope this is the correct forum to post this request. We are considering a major platform change for our website, TheWorshipCommunity.Com (http://www.theworshipcommunity.com) – I’ll refer to it as TWC in this post.

TWC is built on two platforms:
The blog/articles are based on WordPress.
The forum is based on vBulletin, which is out of date, and needs major overhaul.

I’m strongly considering BuddyPress and bbPress. bbPress is a no-brainer because we HAVE to keep the forums. That’s where the bulk of our community exists.

So, my question is should we also use BuddyPress? I get a little confused on the difference between “Groups” in Buddypress and the forums … and “Group” forums.

I know that the vBulletin importer works because we’ve already tried it. I guess my big question is when you use BuddyPress and bbPress together … are the user accounts shared? Meaning … once we import all of our thousands of users from vBulletin, is there user accounts now created for both bbPress and Buddypress .. or is it still treated like two separate accounts?

I would be beyond grateful if someone who is experienced in both could look at our site and give some honest evaluation on if this combination would be right for our community.

Thanks!
Fred

[DrLightman]

Hello, I was importing a vbulletin3 forum and it got stuck at replies phase. After an hard and time consuming phase of testing to find out which reply gave problem I found it.

This reply had the text enclosed by [ ], and made my http local Apache 2.4 server crash! eg it was [hello foo bar hello world ….]

Removed the [ ], import went fine.

[ebunny3k]

Noticed that lots of users are interested about main categories options, like phpbb, vbulletin, and other popular forums are using. And years later there is still nothing???

There is still no options or plugins to make my bbpress look like this one: http://tamrielfoundry.com/forums/ with different main categories like: “General Discussions”, “mechanics discussion”, “player factions”, etc.

When bbpress team will ad that option?

[CompactaBT]

Hi there,

I have a large vBulletin forum (15,000 members / 20,000 topics / 3.5m posts) and I’m hoping to move it to bbPress.

As you might expect, the conversion is proving to be a lengthy process, and I’m hoping to keep disruption and downtime for users to a minimum.

Would the following work?

Close vBulletin forum
Export database
Re-open vBulletin but close registration
Convert to bbPress local installation (which’ll take a few days)
Once conversion’s taken place, quickly export only the new vBulletin topics and posts from the last few days, then import them to bbPress

I suppose my question is whether this is something the bbPress importer will be able to make sense of: if I try to import a database that only consists of new topics and replies, plus replies to topics it’s already imported, will everything work as hoped, and will those posts be mapped to the correct users?

Thanks in advance!

[peter-hamilton]

hi Jacob, first of all, P2Breathe is a boring theme, and all those functions are common to install to any bbpress forum.

I would love to see a link to your slowed down website, just to have a look.

I disagree with your initial statements about bbpress not being mature forum software, Vbulletin and IPBoard are both main competitors, but bloated and full of extra functions most forums do not use/need, slowing them down just as much as some plugins can do to bbpress.

BBPress does exactly what they do, and perhaps even more thanks to the wordpress platform and the 1000’s of people on forums developing more every day, ofcourse most plugins are crap (sorry dev’s) just like anything that comes mass produced, but following tips and hints from other users should guide you through the swamp to find the real gems there are available.

For me BBPress is becoming more and more the forum choice by default.

And you mentioned Disquss, so no need to have bbpress concentrate on comments for wordpress since there is already a very good alternative.

Peace
Peter Hamilton
Onlijn.com

[redexecute]

Please, anyone, i need help. I imported my vbulletin3 with arabic language to bbpress, import goes well but the reder of text failed. please see attached file for the output of the render. Thanks.

http://saudielection.com/ar/convertedarabicvb.JPG

[laddi]

Greetings to bbPress Scientists and Engineers,

I want to restrict users to add an external link before a define number of topics and/or posts created.

In other words:
Allow a user to put external link in topics or posts only after he/she created some number of (say 20) topics or posts.

This will be a revolution in bbPress if we could do this. It will help to stop spamming to a great level. And vBulletin and others must be worried about it.

[Novadrake1111]

I am using a wordpress skin that integrates BBPress very nicely. One thing I am looking to do, however is make the bbpress forums have a hierarchy like any other software out there currently. I am not that amazing at coding and would appreciate if someone could explain in an easy to understand way. If it’s something that I would have to code completely over, i’d be willing to pay someone to help me code that.

Thank You

[gavintyte]

What’s the best way to do this over without losing the imported content and without taking risks of missing content not being imported initially on the hang up?

Make sure you back up both your WordPress and vBulletin databases – and try the import on a local server using something like MAMP.

It took a pretty long time just to do the topics. It didn’t start the users yet either. You’d think it would import users first?

It takes a long time. My vBulletin import took 17 hours last time I tried it! Biggish database tho.

The order should be (I think):

1. Users
2. Forums
3. Topics
4. Tags
5. Replies

So check you had the ‘Attempt to import user accounts from previous forums’ checkbox ticked.

I was importing from my Vbulletin 4 and it went through converting topics, then it started converting tags and hung about 12,900. Is this a known bug?

Unlikely a bug. It seems there might be several reasons why it might ‘hang’. For example, if you are getting a line of ‘dashes’ this meaning you’re logged out of WordPress. It could be that one of your tags has some nasty data that is tripping the import, etc.

[Skisma]

I’d like to change the color of staff members usernames on my fourms as well as bold their names. This is probably some simple css I need to modify, could someone point me in the right direction as to how to do this? Most vbulletin forums have something like this, I’m trying to replicate.

[Chad]

I was importing from my Vbulletin 4 and it went through converting topics, then it started converting tags and hung about 12,900. Is this a known bug? What’s the best way to do this over without losing the imported content and without taking risks of missing content not being imported initially on the hang up? Any ideas why it would hang up like that? It took a pretty long time just to do the topics. It didn’t start the users yet either. You’d think it would import users first?

Side note, I don’t see any area to set up bbcodes? Is bbcode not a default feature?

[Stephen Edgar]

1. Custom vBulletin BBCodes are not supported eg. [youtube] – You will have to manually change these yourself either before importing in vBulletin or after importing into bbPress using phpMyAdmin.

Indeed this is now fixed to work with vBulletin’s default YouTube BBCodes:
Specifically the two following BBCodes are the only ones supported (many vB forums used to use custom BBCodes and this was primarily the main issue here)

// Replace '[video=youtube;$1]$2[/video]' with '$2"
// Replace '[video=youtube_share;$1]$2[/video]' with '$2"

For example [video=youtube;eOUq4Z6R7xI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfW2UJMIQvQ[/video] will be replaced with just the YouTube link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfW2UJMIQvQ, bbPress (and WordPress) will automatically embed the video using the direct URL.

2. All ‘Ordered Lists’ will be displayed as numerical lists.

This is also fixed

3. You may find extra page breaks <br> and paragraph <p> elements in topics and replies and is less than ideal and is from the way the BBCodes are converted during the forum import conversion. You will find these primarily around ‘blockquotes’ and ‘lists’

This is fixed also 🙂

#1 If I create the exact bbcodes in BBPress prior to the import, I assume this would rectify this area correct?

Yes, modify your custom BBCodes to either a) Match the supported vBulletin BBCode above or b) completely strip the vBulletin BBCode so just the YouTube link remains 🙂

I have updated the codex article and removed quite a few things that were listed there that are now fixed including full support to convert user passwords and the items in red in this image are fixed and/or supported 🙂

With that said “some” of these features are not in the currently shipped bbPress 2.5.4 such as Forum and Topic subscriptions and guest/anonymous topic and reply support, I’m going to post an announcement here on the site in the coming day or two on the improvements and where and how to get this test release.

[johnmontfx]

I’m migrating from a vbulletin forum (3.x) and I’ve figured out how to do a bit of customization, bringing over custom fields in the user table. But one thing I’m having a tough time figuring out is how to bring in the first_name and last_name to the usermeta table.

For some reason, the following does not work:

		// fx: last name Stored in usermeta)
		$this->field_map[] = array(
			'from_tablename' => 'user',
			'from_fieldname' => 'lastname',
			'to_type'        => 'user',
			'to_fieldname'   => 'last_name'
		);

But the following does:

		// fx: last name Stored in usermeta)
		$this->field_map[] = array(
			'from_tablename' => 'user',
			'from_fieldname' => 'lastname',
			'to_type'        => 'user',
			'to_fieldname'   => 'fx_last_name'
		);

Simply by changing “last_name” to “fx_last_name” it works. I’d prefer to have it bring it in as the WordPress defaults. I understand I can force a move into the correct field once I import, but as I’ll have about 24 hours on the migration day, i’d love to get it accomplished in the import script.

Thanks for any insights.

[digiblogger]

Hello Everybody.

I hope you understand my “german Englisch”.

I tried many many membership and capability plugins to empower bbpress. But with no success.
This is because bbpress has capabilities, but don´t used them the right way.

I am not a developer, so I don´t know, if everything I suggest is possible or not. But I know, for some of these features, that it worked for former versions of bbpress with plugins that are outdated for years.

What bbpress really needs are capabilities in this way (marking new capabilites with (*)):
When talking about forums, I mean forums and categories.

Forums/Categories

can_see_forum
can_see_thread

Threads

can_create_topic_in_forum (*)
can_edit_owntopic_in_forum (*)
can_edit_anytopic_in_forum (*)
can_delete_owntopic_in_forum (*)
can_delete_anytopic_in_forum (*)

Replies

can_create_reply_in_forum (*)
can_edit_ownreply_in_forum (*)
can_edit_anyreply_in_forum (*)
can_delete_ownreply_in_forum (*)
can_delete_anyreply_in_forum (*)

Moderators/Admins

Capabilites to create, edit, delete, move or split forums, threads and replies.

With these capabilites, bbpres itself or every capability addon could add members or groups to forums and categories.

This would make bbpress more like full featured forum software (vbulletin, burning board, phpbb and other) than it ever was.

I asked a developer a long time ago, how long it would take to build an extension or add this to the bbpress core features.

He said something like: BBPress is well coded. I think, adding these capabilities and rules to forums, adding some metaboxes for assigning groups, members or capabilites to forums post types.. I think a good developer could do this in no time.

Well… he is specialized in another section of wordpress plugins and not interested in creating for bbpress. But I think, every wordpress user and forum lover would love these features.

And I think, this is also a great way to prevent spam in forums. on non-english websites, most spam plugins block users that are definetly no spammers, because they search for things, that are not present in non english languages.

Hoping for feedback and… hope this can be realized.

Plugins I tried:
– press permit
– advanced access manager
– advanced capabilites manager
– s3members
– members
– and many many more (used keyword in wp repo: bbpress, member, access, restrict, capability, capablites, read, write, permission and more)

Hope for positive feedback

Digi