[DennisH]

I’m sorry but sometimes less is just less. I looked forward to having a lite integrated forum, but it doesn’t look like bbPress is ready for that.

Saying bbPress can be integrated with WordPress is like saying your seat can be used as a flotation device.

The fact this site isn’t integrated should have been a tip off.

If you are looking for anything beyond just cookie integration good night and good luck.

Sure, theme integration can be done via some costly hacks, but its the simple stuff that has my head spinning. Something simple like a bbPress login box in WordPress is more complicated and less likely than Mideast peace.

I just don’t get it….

It seems like all the “social cms” resources and ideas are being put into Buddypress. Can’t we have some of those basic features in the single WP install?

WP-United for phpbb has these features. Why is it so hard for bbPress?

Don’t get me wrong, the people supporting BB here in this forum are great. Problem is there just are not enough of them to fill in the big gaps created at inception.

Sorry for the rant. I still would love to use bbPress, I hope one day soon they will fulfill its promise. Until then:

http://www.wp-united.com/features/

[DennisH]

DennisH and mark-k – I think your discussion is worthy of another topic, so it doesn’t get lost here.

What topic would that be? I’ve addressed these issues in other topics and have always been given the BB standard “No replies since.” At this point those non-solution iframe replies would be a relief.

PS

Sorry for the frustration.

[eclipsenow]

The WordPress podcast themeplayground has even raised this issue, and expressed the wish to see BBpress merge into the WordPress core… or at least become a plugin.

http://themeplayground.com/2009/podcasted/wordcamp-chicago-wrapup/comment-page-1/#comment-2417

I’m so frustrated by the lack of true integration that I’m considering switching back to Joomla, and yet there’s a bunch of reasons I love wordpress so that would be a really sad day!

Joomla is a powerful CMS, has a blog, also has many thousands of plugins, and now has a powerful forum plugin called Agora!

As a plug-in it is truly integrated, has a growing fanbase in the Joomla world, tries to integrate all the important Joomla social plug-ins while also remaining a complete forum solution itself. AND the developer is truly MANIC in both his development AND in his support of newbies on the forum… I personally think the idea of one developer called “Hazzaa” is a myth and there must be a dozen of these guys all answering to the same name! “Hazzaa” will even log in to your site as admin and check the back-end stuff for you to see what’s gone wrong, and fix it for you! Madness, the guy is going to burn out.

http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/communication/forum/1891

[Sam Bauers]

@mark-k

There are no plans to do that specifically. It has been floated that launching the bbPress installer from inside the “bbPress Integration” WordPress plugin might be a good way to go.

[Sam Bauers]

@DennisH

If you have cookies and users integrated it is a pretty trivial amount of code required to force logins to occur on either the bbPress login page or the WordPress login page. It’s also possible to redirect the profile editing pages either way. If you want to list author posts from WordPress on the bbPress Profile page I can’t think of any solution for that except customising your theme with direct queries or using WordPress API if you are deep integrating.

The only way to get bbPress activity listed in WordPress is via “bbPress Live”. It’s currently broken in WP 2.8 due to widget changes there, but I am planning to fix it one of these days. Again, you could also write custom queries to the bbPress tables in your theme.

[chandersbs]

I really love bbPress, but still wished some features existed by default. I know it’s doable via plugins, but default features are more cool, you can always turn it off. I really dislike the fact that some of the solutions I have seen on this forum, are related to “integrate your forum with WordPress, and use this plugin and it will work”, no, I don’t like that. bbPress should be able to do stuff on its own, without WordPress.

I don’t want to install WordPress for the sake of making some things work. I have been a WordPress user for so many years already, but still I refuse to do that. I have managed to convert my forum, which was originally SMF into bbPress (SMF > phpBB > bbPress), that was a lot of work, but I’m really happy I did that.

bbPress is by default very EMPTY, very very very empty. I was not used to a forum, with so less features and options. My users didn’t like it. I managed to add a lot of features via plugins. Now my users are a bit happy, I’m also very happy.

The best part I love so far is, that making changes not always is so difficult compared to SMF or phpBB. phpBB is the last forum software on this planet I’d want to use, OMG so difficult to make changes. SMF is one of the best out there, but has some limits due to their copyright system.

Some things I’d really love to see happening anytime very soon:

1. A codex page, with detailed instruction about the codes, just like its big brother WordPress has, at least a start, so we, the webmasters, can do more cool stuff

2. More features by default, such as:

a. Private message

b. Avatar upload

c. Memberlist

d. Quote option in topics

e. Smilies

These are some very basic options.

I’m sure bbPress will be one of the most professional forum software out there one day, it’s not so far yet, but I see it happen.

That’s why I’m a proud user of this software.

[DennisH]

@sambauers Could you post that “trivial” code that allows for a BB login box in WP that will redirect back to the page after login?

BTW: I have deep integration.

[Gautam]

a. Private message

b. Avatar upload

c. Memberlist

d. Quote option in topics

e. Smilies

I prefer them to be as plugins, not integrated within bbPress. If we need to update some part of code of those features, we could just update the plugin not the full forum board. The plugins can also be managed by individuals, not by the creators of bbPress.

You rarely have to do any template edits to use the plugins, all possible of add_action and add_filter

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

@sambauers Could you post that “trivial” code that allows for a BB login box in WP that will redirect back to the page after login?

This is where I think Shallow Integration has the upper hand. I have the bb login on the bb side, and the WP in-line login on the WP side, and no matter where my peeps log in from, there they are. All I do is redirect registration to the WP side, which kicks them back to the main WP page. And that’s okay, since 92% (I love stats) of visitors start there anyway.

As for includes on bbpress … Actually smilies, which are built into WP, would be nice, but they’d have to be easy to customize and expand. Some people like a million, some people like 10. Avatar upload isn’t going to happen unless Automattic dumps Gravatar. Quote ‘options’ would be a nice plugin.

[Sam Bauers]

@DennisH

I didn’t say “trivial” to be snarky. It is actually a trivial amount of code. Probably no more than a few lines.

I’m working on a plugin that will do it comprehensively. Just waiting for the plugin repository to catch up with requests.

[Mark-k]

In the meantime I have found someone who is going unwillingly to serve as a guinea pig for the idea…

[tmcandle234567]

I would welcome any form of integration, since I am very new to this and have a buddypress site that groups can now post discussions (forum entries) but my main menus are not integrated and there is no widget to show recent activity on the bbPress site from within buddypress.

[eclipsenow]

SMF + Tinyportal just works for many, many bloggers wanting a forum and website portal all rolled into one.

Sadly, it seems that although wordpress aims high, its forum capabilities and integration are lagging far, far behind.