[janoochen]

I just checked out that awesome plugin (or theme?) from Automattic: http://p2theme.com/

I was wondering if it is possible to incorporate it into bbpress 2.0?

[Anointed]

Yes, it would be possible to integrate bbPress into P2. Follow the directions of step #2 on the thread:

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/bbpress-20-theme-compatibility

There is going to be a bit of customization needed to get it to layout properly, but it is not hard, just a bit time consuming.

Keep in mind though, that the bbPress forums will not auto update like P2 does for posts. That would be a huge custom job to accomplish.

[John James Jacoby]

Originally we /really/ wanted a sexy p2 style theme for bbPress 2.0, but we scrapped it to focus on getting the foundation solid first. Long term we’d really like to have something ajax and fancy, so if any talented theme dev wants to step up and help build one, that would be swell.

[Erlend]

Keep in mind though, that the bbPress forums will not auto update like P2 does for posts. That would be a huge custom job to accomplish.

Are you sure? I mean, for posts, sure, but if bbPress incorporated StackExchange-style threaded comments, i.e. ‘comments on replies’, I don’t see why that would be very different.

[Anointed]

@Erlend

Your of course correct. Either way it’s a fairly large job. Probably easy for master guru’s but way beyond my current ability.

I was mostly referring to the fact that if someone simply used P2, and included the bbPress template files in P2, that auto-update does not magically happen. There would still be some work required.

*My only experience with this was when I used P2, added a custom post-type, and found it did not auto refresh like posts did. I could have been doing something wrong, but after a few days of trying I just gave up.

[John James Jacoby]

So… A few thoughts on this as of today. My opinion on this is probably easily swayed, but it’s what I think now so I’m gonna roll with it…

So topics and replies, are already hierarchical to each other; replies are children of their topic. Forums by their nature are meant to be focused topics of discussion. It’s possible that topics can grow very large in size, but the intent is to keep the conversation fairly linear. Any forking/branching/nesting of conversations most likely belongs in a separate topic.

But…

Since we’re using custom post types, we still have the whole comments API just laying around WordPress that we’re not using. If, you /really/ wanted to have threaded discussion, you could add comments to the post_type_supports for replies, and build a theme to make it work. This would allow all kinds of neat extra usages for comments that are semi-conventional to blog posts. Use comments as reply feedback, use them as “Like” comments, use them for hidden moderator notes, etc…

Lots of fun ideas come to mind. Comments were also the natural choice FOR replies, just like taxonomies were the natural choice for Forums/Categories, but since they all lack revisions, attachments, taxonomies, etc, I opted to use another post type for them and leave comments for plugin authors and developers to play around with.

[Erlend]

From where I’m standing, your opinion seems swayed in our favor already Anyhow, stay swayable!

I of course agree, there is an abundance of fun ideas when threaded comments are added to the mix.

I can run another cool use-case by you: I’ve always had big plans for DJPaul’s Achievements plugin. The one feature keeping me from implementing it in my community site is the lack of a visible in-forum reward, as we rely on BP’s forums much more so than the activity stream. With comments, the Achievements plugin could post awarded achievements as comments to the “instigating” post.

As for nested comments in the average forum, I actually see it as a positive evolution. Yes, the goal is linear conversation, but anyone who’s spent some time on a forum knows that linearity is a fragile thing. Over the years, moderators have been given some good tools to stand their ground in the name of good practice, such as splitting, merging, and deleting of individual posts. I believe (single-level) nested comments are a fine addition to these tools, especially if moderators were given the ability to convert posts into comments, and vice versa.

Lastly, though maybe you’ll think me odd for wanting to make this separation, I for one commonly make two-sided posts: “A personal gesture” + “Down to business”. In the case of this thread, I for one would not have minded entering my first paragraph as a mere comment to your post, and then make the rest of this post the actual on-topic reply. Actually, I think there’s a way of going about that without it seeming weird. I’ll try mock something up.

Edit:

Alright, here’s a mockup of my idea:

https://i.imgur.com/sBzHj.png

Call it like you see it

[Erlend]

Just another thought thrown in here, although it doesn’t really tie into P2.

What if nested replies were made possible by BuddyPress activity replies? That’s already made possible via the activity view, but it’d be super cool if those replies could be integrated into the post view.

[PinkishHue]

As it’s been a few years since this topic was started I just wondered if there was any updated thoughts on this?

It feels like the world of the web is at a point where immediate posting, P2 style, is becoming a must-have feature (or at least a prefer-to-have feature).

Perhaps it’s still as complicated as it was 4 years ago, but perhaps not? Would love to know people’s thoughts or suggestions.

Thanks 🙂