[aeneas1]

i’m having a bit of a tough time understanding the wordpress flow and my exact needs in order to setup a standalone wordpress-based forum…..

– do i need both bbpress and buddypress?
– assuming i don’t “need” both, is it advantageous to have both?
– do i need a wordpress page? i thought this was the case, so i registered and signed up for an annual wordpress account.. now that i’ve installed bbpress, it appears that i don’t actually need a wordpress page or an annual account, is this correct?
– how do i import a phpbb 3.1 forum into wordpress? i read the tutorial but a phpbb import tool isn’t included among the other import tools…

my goal is to set up a phpbb-type forum/discussion, i’m not interested a wordpress blog or the like, just a discussion board. is this something i can achieve with bbpress, bbbuddy, the combo of both? or for a standalone forum is phpbb actually recommended over a wordpress-based option? thank you for your time.

[Robkk]

do i need both bbpress and buddypress?

Depends on what you might need for your site, but technically no.

assuming i don’t “need” both, is it advantageous to have both?

Having BuddyPress allows you to use Group Forums, wordpress toolbar notifications for new topics and replies, better profile and custom profile fields, Members page, and a bunch of other stuff that might be useful if you want a more featureful forum.

do i need a wordpress page? i thought this was the case, so i registered and signed up for an annual wordpress account.. now that i’ve installed bbpress, it appears that i don’t actually need a wordpress page or an annual account, is this correct?

You don’t need a page, its not on the recommeded requirements for set up in my opinion. It might be required for a workaround for a theme/bbPress related bug. What do you mean by annual account? Just so you know bbPress won’t work on wordpress.com sites, and only self hosted ones.

how do i import a phpbb 3.1 forum into wordpress? i read the tutorial but a phpbb import tool isn’t included among the other import tools…

for 3.1 phpbb forums look into using bbPress 2.6 alpha, because the current version of the phpbb import in the stable version of bbPress does not work for version 3.1 phpbb forums.

my goal is to set up a phpbb-type forum/discussion, i’m not interested a wordpress blog or the like, just a discussion board. is this something i can achieve with bbpress, bbbuddy, the combo of both?

Its possible to create a forum with some features sort of like phpbb with the help of BuddyPress and bbPress, and quite possibly some other plugins that might be useful.

[aeneas1]

where’s my post? didn’t show up so i tried to post it again, got a “slow down” error message and a “duplicate post” error message, 20 minutes later it’s still not showing up?

edit: yet this post appears just fine… hmmm…

[aeneas1]

thanks for the replies… i’ve purchased and installed the “socialize” theme that seems to be designed to work well with bbpress and buddypress, so far i’m having fun playing with the endless options, albeit there certainly is a learning curve to the whole wp/bbpress/buddypress/theme thing…

i have a quick question tho about the url paths, the slugs i think they’re called…

1. when i navigate to the forum section using the home page forum link i see this in the address bar:

http://www.website.com/forums/

2. when i click a forum listed in one of the categories i see this in the address bar:

http://www.website.com/forums/forum/category name/forum name/

and when i click on a topic in the forum list is see:

3. http://test.website.com/forums/topic/topic name/

why does “forum” show after “forums” in the second example? why not:

http://www.website.com/forums/category name/forum name/