The “quick guide” to installation does not have a video on how to use Cpanel or phpmyadmin or whatever on how to set up the database.

It just says the following, but where’s the advice on how to run all the back-end server stuff? I’ve never done server tutorials in my life. Getting instructions that SOUND easy but then turn out to be a nightmare really stresses me.

With Joomla’s Agora, this is what you do. 1. Fantastico does quick 40 second install of Joomla. 2. Upload Agora forum into Joomla’s extensions… no database stuff at all. Done. Begin CSS and template modification.

1. Download bbPress from the download page

2. Upload the uncompressed files your server

3. Optionally upload language files to bb-includes/languages/ – You will have to create this directory

4. Visit the intended URL of the bbPress site

5. You will be greeted with the bbPress installer

6. Follow the instructions in the installer

7. Visit “Settings” in the admin area to customise your installation

8. If you have any questions, ask in the forums

[@malice Member 15 years, 11 months ago]

I’ve done Joomla. Glad I got rid of that.

If you don’t understand something in a guide, just look up another guide for the thing you don’t understand. Also, there’s a huge topic somewhere around this forum _ck_ wrote with a lot of details about the installation. Would be surprised if it wasn’t a sticky.

[@ipstenu Moderator 15 years, 11 months ago]

Installation requires you create a database. Or you use your existing WP database. And yeah, it requires SOME management, but if you’re going to be supporting a community, you’re going to have to learn.

So. What management are you finding that you need to do that you don’t understand?

[@eclipsenow Member 15 years, 11 months ago]

Yeah, point taken. And I have to say, I’m attracted to the design of WP and BBpress. But Malice, what didn’t you like about Joomla?

Honestly, I’m not here to troll but am keeping an eye on all developments across the Joomla / WordPress / Drupal divide. (But Drupal gives me the shudders because I don’t know php language).

Joomla has new extensions being developed all the time, and there’s a whole new 1 click blog installation coming out to. The “Agora” module is truly revolutionary with it’s 1 click installation into Joomla with complete integration. Also, the current “ugly” Agora forum templates are getting a total work over after version 3 is introduced. Agora is a complete package that does something like 70% or 80% of everything phpbb3 does, and so I don’t need to go hunting down 20 extensions.

So Malice, what’s not to like? I’m almost beginning to think that it’s what one encounters the best community support with first. “First impressions” matter, much like joining a new community, church, or whatever. Good experience first time and some small measure of progress made = lifetime member, and all other competing opportunities screened out as “too hard, I’ve made my choice”. It’s just the way it seems I function and many others… newbies that is. Maybe long term professional web designers and developers have made their choices on more rational grounds.

[@malice Member 15 years, 11 months ago]

Well, I used Joomla intensively for several months. It lacked serious category/site structure management (no tags, archives,… ), the seo urls were not implemented standard, decent comment functionality had to be paid for (jomcomment), limited feed management , no pingback…

WordPress has just so many plugins! Joomla you’ve seem them all pretty quickly, if I recall right. In wordpress I keep discovering new awesome stuff all the time. Just a few minutes ago I discovered you could make post templates, which is awesome for me because I report in the same style over and over again (events).

I know each CMS has its own function, but for me wordpress answered my needs a lot better.

[@ipstenu Moderator 15 years, 11 months ago]

The answer can only be found in what you want to do with your site.

If you want an all in one, integrated what not, you need a CMS. If you want a blog, I’d say you want WordPress (or similar). Functionality is the name of it all. Sometimes you find a tool you love so much you’re willing to forgo integration for features. Other times you decide you have to have it all be on. I’ve run Drupal, WordPress, bbPress, Gallery, PostNuke, PHPNuke, phpBB, SMF, InvisionBoard, MediaWiki, and more. They all fit the needs I had for the site I was designing at the time.

Figure out what you want to do, and what will be more important. If you have to have native integration, use a CMS. If you don’t, then your choices are infinite.

[@ipstenu Moderator 15 years, 11 months ago]

The answer can only be found in what you want to do with your site.

If you want an all in one, integrated what not, you need a CMS. If you want a blog, I’d say you want WordPress (or similar). Functionality is the name of it all. Sometimes you find a tool you love so much you’re willing to forgo integration for features. Other times you decide you have to have it all be on. I’ve run Drupal, WordPress, bbPress, Gallery, PostNuke, PHPNuke, phpBB, SMF, InvisionBoard, MediaWiki, and more. They all fit the needs I had for the site I was designing at the time.

Figure out what you want to do, and what will be more important. If you have to have native integration, use a CMS. If you don’t, then your choices are infinite.

[@eclipsenow Member 15 years, 11 months ago]

Hi all,

thanks for your comments, some of you have had a lot of experience at this!

My site is probably more about the forum, but with blog/website article functionality leading to discussion in the forums. It’s a political reform agenda, with Phd level people recommending that we abolish the States in Australia and have a unified National legislation parliament with far more efficiency and streamlined structures than the mess we now have, and a strong Constitutionally recognised Local government responsible for the local implementation and management of the currently state run (and failing) public services (health care, etc). Sound controversial? YOU BET, so that’s why the BLOG comments will be “off” but the forum has to be absolutely state of the art, to handle all the quite long and technical posting.

So… while WP might have state of the art blogging, I’m really looking for forum functionality.

Also, as this topic is on databases, has anyone used Brinkster? I suck at even normal Cpanel phpmyadmin stuff, let alone Brinkster… they seem to want people to hand code stuff in php.

I don’t have to know php if I’m going to use bbpress do I?

Lastly, why doesn’t this forum have email replies turned on?

[@eclipsenow Member 15 years, 11 months ago]

Oh, one other thing I forgot.

How do I back up bbpress?

[@malice Member 15 years, 11 months ago]

Sound interesting eclipsenow

You can backup bbpress using a wordpress backup tool. If integrated, bbpress and wordpress use the same databases anyway. The plugin I use sends a backup of the whole blog & forum to my mail every week, day, month or whatever you want).

I use this plugin: http://www.blogtrafficexchange.com/wordpress-backup/

Though this seems the most popular: https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/

If you customize your template you should manually take a backup of that template as well, though. It’s just one folder you should get from your webserver whenever you change the template. If you don’t change the template (which I think is probably the case for you), then backing up your template folder is not of your concern yet.

More info & alternatives:

https://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Backups

(I’m sure the experts in this forum can tell you a lot more about general backup through cpanel and such. I’m just a guy learning through tutorials & trial and error just like you:p )

[@eclipsenow Member 15 years, 11 months ago]

Thanks, that’s a really useful post.

Almost won over.

However, that installation + configuration video did freak me out a bit. I remember something about copying over cookies looked quite intimidating? How do I store the WP cookies the way the install video did, that didn’t seem clear?

Also, what’s your favourite theme been? I note that this thread alternates between grey and white, and that’s nice, but what happens when people just want it to be one colour and have quotes in some other colour? (So you can automatically tell, phpbb3 style, that someone is quoting someone else and replying to them specifically.)

[@chrishajer Participant 15 years, 11 months ago]

What’s not to like about Joomla?

• seo friendly URLs are not built in, and need to be handled by each component individually
• Section > Category > Article – those are my choices, no more, no less? That’s lame
• Community support: the WordPress community is far more helpful than the Joomla one, in me experience.
• Seems like 80% of the add-ons for Joomla are paid, where 80% of them for WordPress are free. I really think that has held Joolma back: the fact that everything you want to add to it costs money

Also, sometimes you just understand where certain software is coming from, more than others. I understand WordPress better than I understand Joomla. And I’ve never had a problem with a WordPress upgrade, where almost every Joomla upgrade I attempted resulted in pain.

Of course, YMMV. You use whatever tools you need to to get the job done.

[@johnjamesjacoby Keymaster 15 years, 11 months ago]

The title of this post made me chuckle, so I had to chime in.

If worse really comes to worse, I am willing to assist on a more personal level. I can’t ethically advertise myself or my services here, but if you can google your way into contacting me outside of bbPress.org, I’d do my best to help you.

…And Joomla, blech…

[@eclipsenow Member 15 years, 11 months ago]

Anyone know if Lynda.com is about to do the latest WordPress, (let alone bbpress?) They covered using WordPress.com 2.6, but not 2.7 yet, and have about 3 courses on Joomla.

I’m there to learn Adobe CS4, and have ambitions of learning Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Indesign, etc and delusions of grandeur that I might one day understand my mac almost as well as my wife. (Who’s a VERY professional graphic designer, but a web-illiterate like I currently am). So I paid up for a year at Lynda.com (and will claim that on tax), and sat through 10 hours of CSS training and 3 hours of XHTML and am now starting on Dreamweaver. All this slowed down by Christmas, kids home for 6 weeks in the Australian summer break, and my messing about with Joomla! (There are some things I like about Joomla, but some bad experiences with trying to modify their templates left me a bit blech…. as well!

Yet I hear there is a state of the art Dreamweaver integration pack for $60 that will let me style up WordPress themes in DW! Woah! That almost won me over and gave me delusions of grandeur about one day donating a few state-of-the-art templates to the WordPress world as advertising for my own WordPress theme’s business.

And then the kids came in demanding ice-cream, and reality slapped me across my fantasising, drooling, delusional face.

So… in this vulnerable state of mind, I need a hug. Cult like it is, this “choosing software before you know software” business and frame of mind!

As a bit of an activist with other causes (and having had a little exposure to marketing, not a lot but enough) can I just comment that I think it would be better “press” if bbpress had some more features turned on in this forum? I personally really rely on email notification that someone has replied to a forum, and only check my RSS about once a day. (It’s all inconvenient). Instead of just clicking “Send post” I have to then click RSS, and then click Google Reader when that comes up, and then remember to check my RSS. I think the vast majority of bulletin board users like email notification of a reply. Is there a reason bbpress decided not to showcase some of their best plug-ins on their leading forum?

Anyway, so tired I’m nearly hallucinating. Night night, and no offence meant by any of the above.