I’m about ready to start integrating bbPress into my site. I plan to make extensive modifications, so much so that it would probably not resemble bbPress at all when I’m done.

This is my idea. I’m going to have 51 forums (1 for each state + DC) and then tag each forum post with latitude and longitude of the city from which the user posted. So if a user posts a message from my New York City page, it will be tagged with the longitude and latitude of New York City.

Then I would like to sort of auto generate forums for each city by using proximity searches. So say the user loads a page in Rochester, NY. I can search the NY State forum for all the posts within X miles of Rochester, NY.

I have all the MySQL latitude/longitude stuff figured out using MySQL spacial indexes.

My question is whether or not you think this is possible with bbPress, and second if I go ahead and make extensive modifications to bbPress and can not easily upgrade, is the current version stable enough to “live with” for quite awhile?

[@chrishajer Participant 16 years, 1 month ago]

Sure, it’s possible with bbPress.

If you are set on modifying the bbPress core, then what I would do is download two exact copies of bbPress. Use one, then save one. You can always compare your current version to the pristine one you never touched, in the event you need to upgrade and you need to recreate your changes in the updated files.

I would say the 0.9.0.2 is pretty stable, for sure. The Alpha releases are less stable, but I haven’t had any problems with them either. I installed an old, old alpha version about 18 months ago and am still using it, but YMMV.

Maybe someone else can recommend a specific version or revision as a starting point for your project. Good luck.

[@epiphone Member 16 years, 1 month ago]

I have tried both 1.0-2 Alpha and 0.9.2

And for the modifications you are doing I would recommend 0.9.2 as it’s a stable release, and I have intergrated both database and theme into my forum without problems

[@_ck_ Participant 16 years, 1 month ago]

Core hacks would not be needed for this, just special views and filters. The same way my hidden-forums plugin works, you could make topics available or hidden based on location.

Do you really want to track at the POST level or rather the TOPIC level which would create far less data to churn through?

There is already someone using bbPress for a travel agency of sorts with dozens of destinations all linked together. Each city is like a forum in itself. I remember it well because it was very difficult to filter out the dozens of pseudo-forums from the top1000 list.

[@chrishajer Participant 16 years, 1 month ago]

_ck_ was it this one?

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/how-do-i-do-this