Just posting this here for anyone who might not know about this WordPress plugin:
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bbpress-live/
After you installed it, do you have the option to activate it in the WordPress plugins screen? Or that is OK, but you can’t configure it?
The admin screen was not available until today. Try installing version 0.1.2 of bbPress Live.
I don’t have widgets enabled….so what do I do with this – bbpress_live_get_topics()
I mean what code do I actually put in the sidebar theme file?
“It’s in the readme.txt file too….”
What is in there is this:
* bbpress_live_get_forums() – Provides an array of forums
* bbpress_live_get_topics() – Provides an array of the latest topics
But I mean what do I actually put in the theme template file, like sidebar.php. I mean bbpress_live_get_forums() has to be wrapped in some kind of php doesn’t it?
Read the faq I pointed to, it contains the arguments you can use with the functions.
The functions return arrays, so you need to loop through those to get the data out. If you don’t know how to do that, then you need to learn some rudimentary PHP first : )
The sidebar widgets were created for people without PHP knowledge.
Ok, so it’s a secret… 
This is what I tried <?php bbpress_live_get_topics(); ?>
and also <?php bbpress_live_get_topics("1"); ?>
Don’t know if they are right, but anyway I just noticed it says it needs 2.6.2 and I just use 2.6.
Also, would this plugin make any special claims on cpu and load average, because I suspect it might, just by activating, not even using it on a page?
It’s not a secret, it’s just not bbPress specific, it’s PHP. You need to loop through the array that is returned by that function. If you’re not comfortable learning enough PHP to accomplish that with the function, maybe you’d be better off the the widget. That’s why WordPress created widgets in the first place. It’s for people who don’t want to mess with PHP code. It’s drag and drop. Maybe enabling widgets in your theme would be easier than learning the proper way to loop through this array.
Fair enough I don’t know php from my elbow, it’s just with other plugins, including some you can use as a widget, if you don’t use the widget they tell you what code to stick in the sidebar and it’s usually just like <?php call_to_some_function(); ?> but if this is more complex than that then ok.
Btw ignore what I said about cpu usage, I can’t re-create it so must have been something else.
Right, it is more complex than that. Since the function returns an array it’s up to you do figure out how to display it. Also, looking at the widget code is a pretty good start of how to go about getting the data out of that array. And the readme file is also good.
I am passably decent at arrays, but when I toss in <?php bbpress_live_get_topics(); ?> or anything, I get no data at all. Not even a splorg of unsorted data (which at least would give me an idea of what I need to do). Frustrated me enough that I just gave up. I tried every method I know of to print an array, and I don’t even get an error message.
An example of ‘Make a bullet list of the recent posts’ would be nice to help people get started.
Minor gotcha’? The bbPress blog must have XML-RPC enabled in it's settings I was going to install this to take a peek but I see someone suggested that their site hung. I’m on this ice with my host (WPMu 
)and can’t risk it just now…
I remember that there was much drama trying to authenticate with Flikr API via XML-RPC… It required a .htaccess file at the domain root with: `<Files xmlrpc.php>
SecFilterInheritance Off
<Files>`
Of course, the ‘Use XML’-thingy setting in the WP Admin/settings needs to be enabled too…
Fingers crossed…
I must say that I’m afraid of my shadow when it comes to turning off security filters to get something to work, especially since there was a recent thread on these forums about deleting that file altogether!
I have the use XML turned on in my admin settings. I have no security issues with any part of wordpress or bbpress as it stands, and SecFilter’s turned off on the server.
I ended up using Jeriko’s Import RSS feeds into your WordPress blog hack instead. A bit of PHP fiddling and it gets me where I’m going.
Thanks for the tip. I’ve been trying to get this work too.
Hi,
I recently installed BBpress live on my blog (http://www.rensenieuwenhuis.nl), and it worked like a breeze. I’m using WP 2.6.1 and bbPress version 1.0-alpha-2.
I downloaded the WP-plugin from wordpress.org/extend, installed it, then activated it in the plugins-screen, then to the settings-screen in the WP-plugin section, then activated both the widgets (it’s a check-box), and then added the widgets to my sidebar.
I did encounter minor problem though, which I described here: https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/bbpress-live-widgets-fail-when-changing-other-widgets
Yeah. I did all that, rensenieuwenhuis and got nothing. Zip.
I even activated both widgets, even though I only wanted one. It’s not that they vanished, it’s that they were blank. I’d get my custom header, but then nothing. No data. No commented out data in view source. It simply did nothing.
@ Ipstenu,
yes, now I remember. I did have the same problem, which I solved (eventually) by going to the admin of the BBpress forum, then settings, and then click the checkbox: Enable XML-RPC
That should do the trick (sorry, I forgot to mention it in my previous post).
Good luck
The standalone functions in bbPress Live don’t print anything to the screen, they return an array. You need to do something like this:
<?php
$bbl_topics = bbpress_live_get_topics();
foreach ($bbl_topics as $bbl_topic) {
echo '<a href="' . $bbl_topic['topic_uri'] . '">' . $bbl_topic['topic_title'] . '</a>';
}
?>
As I mentioned before, I have xml turned on.
And even using the widget supplied by the plugin, I see nothing. Zip. Nada.
sambauers, thank you for the example. I may try it again later.
Ipstenu – do you have access to error logs? If you look at the source of the page, is there anything there to indicate that the plugin sent anything at all, maybe even just an error message?
Viewing source was the first thing I tried. Old habits die hard But really, there was nothing.
I did not check the error logs, so I did that right now.
On Server:
Make sure error-log is set to verbose for now.
On bbPress:
Enable XML-RPC – YES
On WordPress:
Install plugin – Done
Activate Plugin – Done (no errors)
Configure Plugin –
URL (http://jorjafox.net/forums/)
ID/Password (Ipstenu / 555Nope!)
Caching Enabled - NO
Enable forums widget - YES
Enable Topics widget - YES
Copy new WordPress posts to bbPress (not implemented)
Then I went into widgets and picked ‘bbPress latest topics’, put it at the bottom of my sidebar. I gave it the title of ‘Latest Topics’ and saved my changes.
The header shows up on the bottom of the side bar, no content.
Error log is empty. Frustration resumed 
By the way, if the standalone function is called to be echoed like print_r($myarray);, shouldn’t that output something?
@sam: The function ‘display’ in the bbpress-live.php class ‘bbPress_Live_Widget_Forums’ appears to echo out the fora lists etc. Look who I’m preaching too I must have missed something!
Curious Ipstenu that the rest of your wp blog functions with this plugin enabled and in this state. Not my current experience. Server differences?
