[Ljorg]

If you want to see all activity in the forum, you need to enable both widgets and that takes up a lot of screen estate. Would it be possible to combine the two into one widget that works exactly like “new replies” but also includes posts that starts a new topic and is not a reply in a topic? “New posts” would be ideal.

[Ljorg]

Replying to my own post in order to help others with the same problem: The plugin GD bbPress Toolbox Pro has a widget which does exactly this. It costs a little money but also contains a wealth of other enhancements to bbPress making it worth it.