[Jaja..]

Hello guys,

I found this forum running on a single WP install and it’s very cheap.

http://dolcepixel.com/discussion-board-wordpress-theme/

It probably isn’t the best coded product in the world but what it does (i think) is it transforms your single WordPress installation into a forum (board) software.

Categories become forums, posts become topics and comments become replies.

Nothing wrong with that i think and if you’re smart enough to work with Custom Post Types you can still create your own Blog Posts on the side but for most people a Blog isn’t needed on a Board system.

Whats your idea of this?

I’m just a Rookie.

Problem i face with bbPress is that it’s too much on JJJ shoulders and only on his shoulders.

This guy is working his *** off all day and bbPress doesn’t seem to get picked up by the average WordPress user.

bbPress doesn’t get enough FEED and traffic from the WordPress.org website and everyday it’s getting spammed from every corner of the world..

I really love the way and idea behind bbPress as a plugin but it needs more professionals to take it of JJJ shoulders and bring it to the next level..

[Anointed]

I purchased that plugin a very long time ago just to take a peek under the code hood. Frankly while an interesting concept, it has nowhere near the power and code quality that bbPress has.

It is not like there is a huge company behind that plugin. Last I checked it was just another single coder and I got really tired of every one of my questions being answered back ‘out plugin can’t do that’.

I’d rather have a plugin built and run by JJ, than just about anyone else.

Don’t get the impression that bbPress is having issues solely by what you see in the forums here. Just take a look at the number of times bbPress has been downloaded and you will quickly see that there are a lot of users who never even come to these forums for help.

Also, as someone who runs incredibly large forum based websites, I can say that the spam here, while bad, is not that much worse than even the best commercial systems.

If you check the trac you will see that bbPress is already well along the way to the next level as JJ has been writing tons of code updates.

Give it time, bbPress is gonna grow and will only gain news and traction with the other sites out there.

[Jaja..]

True i also looked at it and it’s not great from what i can tell as a rookie.

bbPress code looks much better and also the handling of the template files is done better.

Only one little thing i like better of this Board system:

It still uses the real Posts and Permalinks structure of WP instead of Forums and Topics.

As WordPress and (Otto’s Blog) stated for larger sites it’s important to start your Blog Posts on a Permalinks structure by a number and not by Category of post_name. Just like this: example.com/2011/11/%post_name%

For WordPress performance reasons it would be better to start of by a number first because numbers are found first inside the Database. something like that i think it was.

[Anointed]

@BJ

WordPress 3.3 completely solves that problem with performance. It’s a huge under the hood addition that most people will never even notice, but none the less very important.

You can now use %post_name% and have the exact same performance as any other structure. Not to mention his article is dealing with pages and not posts so it is in no way relevant to bbPress. (Yeah I was confused by that as well but JJ set me straight on that months ago)

Also keep in mind, topics and replies are exactly the same thing as posts. There is absolutely nothing to gain by using a system like the other software does.

*Is there something you are seeing in that plugin that you wish bbPress was doing? just curious….

[Jaja..]

Thanks for the help..

Nope totally not, just found that board system by accident..

I think bbPress is a great product and it works fine.

The few problems i face are based on WPMU install and testing it locally most of them are my own fault..

I’m trying to make a homepage (WP-website1) with only my blog onto it and a second page (WP-website2) called members with a few forums and some posts on helping very new WordPress users with just some easy steps, as i’m not a professional myself.

Nothing to difficult but the theme i’m using is this one and it’s a little bit old.

http://store.informationarchitects.net/product/ia³-template

It’s a great theme, and i only bought it because of it’s Responsive design. The double drop-down select menu’s when viewing on mobile device is just great.

After installing i started to delete almost every feature because i don’t need them, i Love to keep everything as simple and clean as possible. Less is more..

Because i’m not a Pro, and don’t know anything about PHP i just have to do everything by searching online, looking inside the WordPress Codex and copy-/pasting everything i see and what i think i can read-/understand.. (i do have HTML-/CSS knowledge)

So till now and still working on it i came up with this:

A custom made Widget that i have dropped on the homepage between the blog lay-out to let people know there is a support forum.

http://i56.tinypic.com/25gcb36.png

A tabbed forums view with different options.

http://i54.tinypic.com/2vjel3q.png

Latest topics view.

http://i52.tinypic.com/2rcydra.png

And i customized the Post Toolbar plugin from Master5o1

http://i52.tinypic.com/2zxxqbm.png

As you can see there is still lot to work on, the single pages , replies, edit pages and others.

Lucky it’s just a hobby and i have time.

** O there is one thing i would really love to see inside bbPRess and thats comments-/reply counts.

Just an option to view how many replies a user has given and maybe a user level attached to it.

Like less than 50 posts = New

50 to 100 = Average

250+ = Pro user.

That would be cool to have.

[Anointed]

Do you have a way I can contact you outside these forums?

also:

If you check the bbPress trac you will see that JJ modified my topic/reply counter scripts for bbPress. While not yet in the default templates, the needed logic is now available to show how many topics and replies each user has. With that logic in place, it is not to hard to come up with a corresponding point system like you are talking about.

JJ is going to finish up the ‘recount’ portion of the script in order to give the initial counts for existing users. Once that part is finished, I will probably build something incredibly similar to what you are talking about.

[John James Jacoby]

There are bound to be other forum themes and plugins for WordPress, and they are welcomed; variety is the spice of life and all that.

It’d be great if their time was instead spent on improving bbPress, but I understand that contributing to another project outside of their control isn’t what a lot of people want to do. bbPress is the best opportunity of all the .org projects; the audience is small so the ability to shine is huge. Big fish, small pond.

I’ll add that if it’s bbPress or anything else, you’re still placing your trust in someone to do something that you aren’t. I work closely with the WordPress core team on almost a daily basis to ensure that both BuddyPress and bbPress are as secure and functional as possible, push updates out quickly when needed, and manage the support forums and sites as well.

Anointed is correct that WordPress 3.3 addresses any performance issues with permalinks in WordPress. I’d go as far as to say that you DON’T want your forum area to use a date-based structure because the date would be based on the topic creation date and not the most recent replies. You risk your topics being intermingled with your blog, which will be confusing to most users.

[Themes Community]

I start believe in bbPress when the 2.0 release and I do understand that it need time to be mature but now it already satisfy my need.

As core forum plugin, it does great platform and now I just wait for another plugins that able to make bbPress stand from the others.