Hi everybody.

I have just come across bbpress and very excited about the prospect of having the forum on my site. I just downloaded the bbpress folder to my laptop and then onto my server at hostgator. I added it to my plugins folder but it is not showing up on my wp plugins dashboard.

I am really not very sure how to install this to my site and was wondering if somebody could talk me through the process.

Thanks for your time and would really be grateful for your help.

Thanks

Ross

http://www.roamingross.com

[@gerikg Member 14 years, 6 months ago]

bbPress is not a WP plugin. It’s a standalone program like WP.

Most people put the bbPress folder in the WordPress folder and copy the theme.

so it will be

wordpress

|-bbpress (they rename this folder to forum/forums)

|-wp-admin

|-wp-content

|-wp-includes

example: This site all the tabs except for Forums is WordPress and the forum is bbPress. The themes are similar so the user does not see a difference.

then you can read this post that was just recently brought up: https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/wordpress-header-on-bbpress

[@gerikg Member 14 years, 6 months ago]

https://bbpress.org/documentation/installation/

Installation direction.

[@kevinjohngallagher Member 14 years, 6 months ago]

Hi Roaming,

First off, bbpress is not a WordPress plugin.

It’s a standalone forum.

(you’re not the first to think this, as God forbid we’d actually be able to say that anywhere on the actual website)

bbPress has 3 advantages going for it

1) you can share users with WordPress

2) you can share logins with WordPress

3) you can use your theming knowledge from WordPress to make them look alike.

It should be noted that although (now) sharing a very similar looking/acting Admin section, bbPress has it’s own admin section totally outwith WordPress.

As for an installation guide, the good folks at bbPress have cunningly hidden it in their Documentation > INSTALLATION page. I know, who’d have guessed

https://bbpress.org/documentation/installation/

The next bit may sound cheeky, but I just want to be very clear. As bbPress is NOT a wordPress plugin or a wordPress Page or anything like that, it will not in any way shape or form, look like your WordPress blog unless you manually edit the bbPress theme to do so.

I state this really bluntly because:

1) It’s our 3 most complained about assumption – not sure why people complain that their assumptions are wrong but y’know, they do.

2) You’re using Thesis, which 90% of the time means you like menus/WYSIWYG over actual coding. You may ofcourse be in the 10% and be more than happy, which is awesome.

Given how your blog looks, it wouldn’t be hard at all to theme your bbPress forums to look like your WordPress blog

Take care, and good luck!

Kev

[@zaerl Participant 14 years, 6 months ago]

Maybe we should change “bbPress is forum software with a twist from the creators of WordPress.” with “bbPress is standalone forum software with a twist from the creators of WordPress.”

And no, I’m not joking.

[@kevinjohngallagher Member 14 years, 6 months ago]

Totally agree Z.

I always feel really bad when turning people away.

Folks like roaming who make the effort to try out BbPress and are polite when asking or help, it would be good if there was a way to give them the info before hand.