[RandomGuySays]

Don’t get me wrong, I want to. bbPress looks wonderful, I love the simplicity and ease of use, as well as it’s integration features which are a huge plus to me. And while I acknowledge that bbPress is going through some tough times (being semi-new and through my understanding, the project lead leaving), I cannot choose bbPress for my site. The worst part about my specific situation is that I’ll most likely end up using it in the future once it’s matured, and knowing that is even more of a kick in the pants.

A lot of times with software, the more simple it is to use, the less features it has to be used. However, bbPress lacks basic bulletin board features – like poll creation, simple appearance settings such as customizing visible forum structures, and even a pre-made registration EULA. Other bulletin boards include prepared terms and conditions to protect your site, bbPress simply asks for your e-mail which with the lack of spam prevention filters like Captchas, even with the right plugin becomes an open door towards floods of spam. Other bulletin boards also give you the ability to, for instance, change the number of how many subforums are visible: Say you have a video game forum, organized as follows: Games (Category), Console/PC (Forums), Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo (Subforums), Xbox/Xbox 360 (Sub-subforums), Hardware/Accessories (etc.). On most forum software, the appearance settings default to showing one set of subforums per-page – e.g. when you click, ‘Console Games’, the next page displays only, ‘Microsoft/Sony/ Nintendo’, and you go from there. bbPress however, defaults to listing them all at once, resulting in enormously long forum pages that can only be changed by editing code. This may not be a problem for a lot of people as it should only require changing one or two lines to fix, but as a basic feature found in most other bulletin boards, to expect people to know how bbPress’ code works would just be wrong, and as such becomes a huge turn off.

In my opinion, one of the biggest bottlenecks and double-edged swords of open source software such as WordPress, bbPress, and even other open source forums, are the plugins. I remember reading a blog discussing the state of bbPress where the poster used the phrase, ‘there’s a plugin for that’. Plugins can be great, but they should also be considered an added bonus and not relied on for basic features. Most plugins are created by a third party, or even people like us. Just for talk sake, lets use wp-united for example. Wp-united is a plugin that links accounts between WordPress and phpbb so people can use their account from one, with the other. Say I used WordPress with phpbb, and then used wp-united to link the two. One day the wp-united team ceases support, and their latest version is incompatible with the new phpbb/WordPress. Now what happens to the huge install base I’ve developed? Do new users now have to register twice? Is my database going to be completely screwed up? bbPress eliminates this problem by having seemless integration with WordPress, but it just shows an example of how plugins can be both a good and bad thing, and how some features (like poll creation) need to be made a part of the main software despite, ‘less code being more’.

And lastly, arguably the number one issue preventing me from using bbPress, is the state of bbPress itself; the development of this software is up in the air with there being two completely different places to discuss it’s progress (this being one of them), and the other claiming talks of turning bbPress into a BuddyPress plugin. So the people new to bbPress, such as myself, don’t know what to do. Should we install the software now? Or wait until it’s a plugin? If we install now and they change it to a plugin, what happens to the standalone installations? Do they get screwed? Are they forced to install BuddyPress and switch everything over? Now I’m only human. I have no problem admitting when I’m wrong, I make mistakes. But even if not all my facts are straight, the fact that doing the research lead to this whole scenario makes for quite the first impression.

I didn’t post this to bash bbPress, I just hoped it would clear some of the confusion and thought it might in some way shape or form help bbPress and it’s users by getting these issues out in the open.

[bbuser12345]

^ You are right to be hesitant.

I have had updates break a long relied upon plug-in. I am told not to worry because the functionality has been incorporated into the core software…well,.. it has been incorporated into the NEXT version… which may be called 1.03 or 1.1… which may or may not be released…and if it is it may or may not be a wordpress plug-in.

Ugh.

But once you adopt it you are stuck. There is no way for me to migrate out. So I am stuck without a key component of my board until….?????

[bbuser12345]

^ You are right to be hesitant.

I have had updates break a long relied upon plug-in. I am told not to worry because the functionality has been incorporated into the core software…well,.. it has been incorporated into the NEXT version… which may be called 1.03 or 1.1… which may or may not be released…and if it is it may or may not be a wordpress plug-in.

Ugh.

But once you adopt it you are stuck. There is no way for me to migrate out. So I am stuck without a key component of my board until….?????

[zaerl]

From the bbpress main page:

Have you ever been frustrated with forum or bulletin board software that was slow, bloated and always got your server hacked? bbPress is focused on web standards, ease of use, ease of integration, and speed.

We’re keeping things as small and light as possible while still allowing for great add on features through our extensive plugin system. What does all that mean? bbPress is lean, mean and ready to take on any job you throw at it. So let’s get started.

Plugins

1) bbPress has a lot of plugins that cover nearly every single feature that other bulletin board bloatware (phpbb, vbulletin) have

2) all those plugin are free as in “freedom” and “free beer”

so stop ranting cause you haven’t paid a penny.

[zaerl]

From the bbpress main page:

Have you ever been frustrated with forum or bulletin board software that was slow, bloated and always got your server hacked? bbPress is focused on web standards, ease of use, ease of integration, and speed.

We’re keeping things as small and light as possible while still allowing for great add on features through our extensive plugin system. What does all that mean? bbPress is lean, mean and ready to take on any job you throw at it. So let’s get started.

Plugins

1) bbPress has a lot of plugins that cover nearly every single feature that other bulletin board bloatware (phpbb, vbulletin) have

2) all those plugin are free as in “freedom” and “free beer”

so stop ranting cause you haven’t paid a penny.

[bbuser12345]

^ And here is the attitude of so many in the “open source” community.

The question is are you making your software for the end user or as a plaything for other developers. So many open source projects look like a giant circle jerk.

If it takes editing .php files and knowing SVN and other developer centric things just to get basic functionality then your software will never get out of the ghetto you have created for yourself. At least have a help page that walks people through installing the latest trunk (what is that anyway?).

I can’t even read the blog updates and get any real sense where the project is because of all the jargon and “project in-group speak”. And here is the kicker I write code all day. I am not even close to the kind of user I would think you would want to be able to run your software.

It just gets really frustrating and the dismissive tone with which our concerns are often met exacerbates the problem.

[bbuser12345]

^ And here is the attitude of so many in the “open source” community.

The question is are you making your software for the end user or as a plaything for other developers. So many open source projects look like a giant circle jerk.

If it takes editing .php files and knowing SVN and other developer centric things just to get basic functionality then your software will never get out of the ghetto you have created for yourself. At least have a help page that walks people through installing the latest trunk (what is that anyway?).

I can’t even read the blog updates and get any real sense where the project is because of all the jargon and “project in-group speak”. And here is the kicker I write code all day. I am not even close to the kind of user I would think you would want to be able to run your software.

It just gets really frustrating and the dismissive tone with which our concerns are often met exacerbates the problem.

[RandomGuySays]

Exactly. And zaerl is the perfect example of what happens when you skim through something instead of actually reading it. There’s a reason it’s lengthy, so next time read the whole thing before complaining about it.

[RandomGuySays]

Exactly. And zaerl is the perfect example of what happens when you skim through something instead of actually reading it. There’s a reason it’s lengthy, so next time read the whole thing before complaining about it.

[Adam Harley (Kawauso)]

I’m pretty sure bbPress is becoming a WordPress plugin rather than a BuddyPress one, with a converter being made once it’s stable. I also gather there’s a movement to branch the 0.9 code into a standalone forum which would also have a converter available for 1.0 installs.

That said, I really do have to agree with the rest of the points you made. I work a lot with WordPress and the level of documentation available is just without parallel in BuddyPress, but you really do need to know bbP just to do the simplest things at times.

Ideally there ought to be a set of core plugins, as was proposed for WordPress, so that essential functionality could be bundled but not necessarily included per se. I don’t support incorporating such functionality into the core itself though, since that would essentially be at odds with the WordPress/bbPress design philosophy.

[Adam Harley (Kawauso)]

I’m pretty sure bbPress is becoming a WordPress plugin rather than a BuddyPress one, with a converter being made once it’s stable. I also gather there’s a movement to branch the 0.9 code into a standalone forum which would also have a converter available for 1.0 installs.

That said, I really do have to agree with the rest of the points you made. I work a lot with WordPress and the level of documentation available is just without parallel in BuddyPress, but you really do need to know bbP just to do the simplest things at times.

Ideally there ought to be a set of core plugins, as was proposed for WordPress, so that essential functionality could be bundled but not necessarily included per se. I don’t support incorporating such functionality into the core itself though, since that would essentially be at odds with the WordPress/bbPress design philosophy.

[Ben Sutcliffe]

Heys,

I have to disagree. bbPress is the exact alternative to other forum software, and that’s why it’s great. It’s lightweight and really easy to fiddle about with. You do need to know PHP and an understanding of how other Automattic products work comes in handy, but the end result is that bbPress is a great base for dynamic forums.

I’ve used it to create forums that don’t really look like they ever were bbPress, and I think that’s the beauty of the software. There’s very little point in Automattic creating another phpBB – the market is already flooded, and services like vBulletin already “do that”.

bbPress doesn’t do a lot of things by default: it’s behind WordPress on things like threaded replies and the like, but it’s damn easy to create that kind of thing, without excessive code. If you want it all done for you, use something else; bbPress gives you the platform to take code and build on top. Add threaded replies if you so wish, require users to sign up using Twitter or FB Connect if you want to keep the robots out, and create templates and designs that are truly yours. You don’t have to use whatever pre-defined nonsense is held within phpBB.

If you want to get rid of links, you can comment them out or delete the link altogether in the template. The simplicity and lightweight nature of bbPress make it truly flexible. With plugins bbPress can do anything. I’ve never had to deal with a single element of spam on any forum I host, and I have a lot of posts on one of them. Akismet keeps spam down, like it does on WordPress, and ReCAPTCHA is a beautiful and highly functional tool for keeping robots out. It’s a little like WordPress: if you want a ready made blog you use Blogger or Tumblr, if you want to take more control, WordPress allows you to (simply) control anything.

Finally, why do you need a EULA? KISS – a terms of use page linked to from your footer works just as well. I’m not sure I ever actually read the EULA on any forum I joined.

Ben

[Ben Sutcliffe]

Heys,

I have to disagree. bbPress is the exact alternative to other forum software, and that’s why it’s great. It’s lightweight and really easy to fiddle about with. You do need to know PHP and an understanding of how other Automattic products work comes in handy, but the end result is that bbPress is a great base for dynamic forums.

I’ve used it to create forums that don’t really look like they ever were bbPress, and I think that’s the beauty of the software. There’s very little point in Automattic creating another phpBB – the market is already flooded, and services like vBulletin already “do that”.

bbPress doesn’t do a lot of things by default: it’s behind WordPress on things like threaded replies and the like, but it’s damn easy to create that kind of thing, without excessive code. If you want it all done for you, use something else; bbPress gives you the platform to take code and build on top. Add threaded replies if you so wish, require users to sign up using Twitter or FB Connect if you want to keep the robots out, and create templates and designs that are truly yours. You don’t have to use whatever pre-defined nonsense is held within phpBB.

If you want to get rid of links, you can comment them out or delete the link altogether in the template. The simplicity and lightweight nature of bbPress make it truly flexible. With plugins bbPress can do anything. I’ve never had to deal with a single element of spam on any forum I host, and I have a lot of posts on one of them. Akismet keeps spam down, like it does on WordPress, and ReCAPTCHA is a beautiful and highly functional tool for keeping robots out. It’s a little like WordPress: if you want a ready made blog you use Blogger or Tumblr, if you want to take more control, WordPress allows you to (simply) control anything.

Finally, why do you need a EULA? KISS – a terms of use page linked to from your footer works just as well. I’m not sure I ever actually read the EULA on any forum I joined.

Ben

[zaerl]

Exactly. And zaerl is the perfect example of what happens when you skim through something instead of actually reading it. There’s a reason it’s lengthy, so next time read the whole thing before complaining about it.

Dear “random guy says” when you choose a software, like when you choose a car or a banana you look at the thing you will buy and then you choose.

There are a lot of bulletin software out in the wild and you have a lot of alternatives. As you can see from the main page of bbPress that particular piece of software has been built in order to be the most light as possible and to let the users expand it the way they want.

Now you are in the “bbPress Support Forums” and you are saying that you can’t choose bbPress. It’s ok, I accept your position but your post isn’t exactly a “feedback” but just a rant from a user that doesn’t understand the philosophy that drive bbPress as well as WordPress as well as every modern CMS-like system used nowadays.

I have read your entire post and you are just saying that you can’t choose bbPress cause it isn’t shipped with everything you want and that you are afraid by the fact that plugins are third-party software and that the mantainer can stop supporting it. Then you know what? Install phpBB. It is a gargantuan software full of every feature your mind can even imagine. But it’s slow, bloated, full of double-flip hack in the code and you need a ninja server when your userbase grow up a little. Or buy vBullettin. It’s slightly better that phpBB and you have also phone assistance. That’s what you’re searching for.

But answer me: why do ranting on the bbPress forum regarding the bbPress/WordPress philosophy? You think that you will change something? Or that you will add something valuable?

I dare to make an analogy: you are like a customer that enter a Tesla Motors reseller saying that he will not buy the new Roadster 2.5 cause you like the smell of gasoline in the morning.

[zaerl]

Exactly. And zaerl is the perfect example of what happens when you skim through something instead of actually reading it. There’s a reason it’s lengthy, so next time read the whole thing before complaining about it.

Dear “random guy says” when you choose a software, like when you choose a car or a banana you look at the thing you will buy and then you choose.

There are a lot of bulletin software out in the wild and you have a lot of alternatives. As you can see from the main page of bbPress that particular piece of software has been built in order to be the most light as possible and to let the users expand it the way they want.

Now you are in the “bbPress Support Forums” and you are saying that you can’t choose bbPress. It’s ok, I accept your position but your post isn’t exactly a “feedback” but just a rant from a user that doesn’t understand the philosophy that drive bbPress as well as WordPress as well as every modern CMS-like system used nowadays.

I have read your entire post and you are just saying that you can’t choose bbPress cause it isn’t shipped with everything you want and that you are afraid by the fact that plugins are third-party software and that the mantainer can stop supporting it. Then you know what? Install phpBB. It is a gargantuan software full of every feature your mind can even imagine. But it’s slow, bloated, full of double-flip hack in the code and you need a ninja server when your userbase grow up a little. Or buy vBullettin. It’s slightly better that phpBB and you have also phone assistance. That’s what you’re searching for.

But answer me: why do ranting on the bbPress forum regarding the bbPress/WordPress philosophy? You think that you will change something? Or that you will add something valuable?

I dare to make an analogy: you are like a customer that enter a Tesla Motors reseller saying that he will not buy the new Roadster 2.5 cause you like the smell of gasoline in the morning.

[RandomGuySays]

Dear zaerl,

The purpose of this thread was to explain why I wasn’t choosing bbPress. Your defense of bbPress being what it is was completely moot as you act as if I was unaware of other forum software after specifically mentioning numerous times the differences between them. Your reply to the original post wasn’t exactly, “productive” so much as it was pointing out the obvious after clearly missing the point. That is, if you have infact read the entire post as you now claim to have done.

Allow me to make an analogy of my own: You’re like a child that feels the need to defend something purely based on emotional attachment rather than utilizing the information put before you. Instead of providing something beneficial to the community – i.e. a thread such as this one, you’d rather spend your time repeating the idiom, “you get what you pay for” as if it held weight in your arguement.

[RandomGuySays]

Dear zaerl,

The purpose of this thread was to explain why I wasn’t choosing bbPress. Your defense of bbPress being what it is was completely moot as you act as if I was unaware of other forum software after specifically mentioning numerous times the differences between them. Your reply to the original post wasn’t exactly, “productive” so much as it was pointing out the obvious after clearly missing the point. That is, if you have infact read the entire post as you now claim to have done.

Allow me to make an analogy of my own: You’re like a child that feels the need to defend something purely based on emotional attachment rather than utilizing the information put before you. Instead of providing something beneficial to the community – i.e. a thread such as this one, you’d rather spend your time repeating the idiom, “you get what you pay for” as if it held weight in your arguement.

[rjeevan]

RandomGuySays, by reading your post; I can see that you are not a developer; As a developer it makes perfect scene to me why bbpress is stripped down to very basic of bulletin board (Maybe event more less of a bulletin board) and this is why I like bbPress.

as zaerl suggested, you are more worrying about third-party software than bbPress it’s self. Say you install vBulletin board and one day they stop development/supporting, what would you do? There is always a risk when it comes to using someone else product….

The way I see it, when third party plugin developer stop supporting their plugin; some one else will continue the IDEA of that plugin in some way (I’m sure you can find more than one plugin of a kind) and you can easily get help on how to convert your old pugin data into new (there are so many forum / boards to help with php and open sources).

Anyways, I’m not to say bbPress is better than others (I’m doing freelancing and I’ve used different forum in different occasion). You have to choose what do you want for your requirements (remember; requirements change over time)…

[rjeevan]

RandomGuySays, by reading your post; I can see that you are not a developer; As a developer it makes perfect scene to me why bbpress is stripped down to very basic of bulletin board (Maybe event more less of a bulletin board) and this is why I like bbPress.

as zaerl suggested, you are more worrying about third-party software than bbPress it’s self. Say you install vBulletin board and one day they stop development/supporting, what would you do? There is always a risk when it comes to using someone else product….

The way I see it, when third party plugin developer stop supporting their plugin; some one else will continue the IDEA of that plugin in some way (I’m sure you can find more than one plugin of a kind) and you can easily get help on how to convert your old pugin data into new (there are so many forum / boards to help with php and open sources).

Anyways, I’m not to say bbPress is better than others (I’m doing freelancing and I’ve used different forum in different occasion). You have to choose what do you want for your requirements (remember; requirements change over time)…

[RandomGuySays]

I understand what you’re saying. But like I said, these are basic forum elements that are missing – for instance, if you have more than 10 topics, by default your forum is now 2 pages long as opposed to giving the option to choose what’s visible so you can prevent this problem from happening the way other bulletin boards do – without having to edit code. Polls and the like are also standard forum material that are absent with bbPress. As I’ve said before, I understand the premise of the bbPress software – less code is more. And to a degree, I agree with that, where the ability to customize the software’s appearance to suit almost anything is a huge reason why I considered it. But as Kawauso said, even if the bbPress team made their own optional plugins supporting these basic features (again e.g. polls), at least we wouldn’t have to worry about them losing support.

And rjeevan, you’re right, there’s always a risk. Say I install bbPress and one day they stop development. I already have the risk of whether or not a plugin providing a basic accustomed feature will just get discontinued one day, now I have to worry about losing the entire forums too. You’re argueing that there’s always risk, but missing the fact that with software like bbPress (and to a lesser extent, phpbb) there’s more risk. Things like this are in my opinion what’s holding open source software back, when Kawauso provided a simple solution that could in turn please everyone (provided the plugins are developed and maintained by their respectable counterparts).

Ben – For the record, you not reading the EULA on any forum you joined is exactly why an EULA is needed.

[RandomGuySays]

I understand what you’re saying. But like I said, these are basic forum elements that are missing – for instance, if you have more than 10 topics, by default your forum is now 2 pages long as opposed to giving the option to choose what’s visible so you can prevent this problem from happening the way other bulletin boards do – without having to edit code. Polls and the like are also standard forum material that are absent with bbPress. As I’ve said before, I understand the premise of the bbPress software – less code is more. And to a degree, I agree with that, where the ability to customize the software’s appearance to suit almost anything is a huge reason why I considered it. But as Kawauso said, even if the bbPress team made their own optional plugins supporting these basic features (again e.g. polls), at least we wouldn’t have to worry about them losing support.

And rjeevan, you’re right, there’s always a risk. Say I install bbPress and one day they stop development. I already have the risk of whether or not a plugin providing a basic accustomed feature will just get discontinued one day, now I have to worry about losing the entire forums too. You’re argueing that there’s always risk, but missing the fact that with software like bbPress (and to a lesser extent, phpbb) there’s more risk. Things like this are in my opinion what’s holding open source software back, when Kawauso provided a simple solution that could in turn please everyone (provided the plugins are developed and maintained by their respectable counterparts).

Ben – For the record, you not reading the EULA on any forum you joined is exactly why an EULA is needed.

[zaerl]

Dear “Random Guy Says” let me write in in more simple words. bbPress is a free software, free as in freedom and free as in “free beer”. Maybe you don’t know what this means. Now we will see what the GPL states. I will only report the short form cause the entire license is too long.

<one line to give the program’s name and a brief idea of what it does.>

Copyright (C) <year> <name of author>

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify

it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by

the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or

(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,

but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of

MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the

GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License

along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/&gt;.

This is the base of the entire open-source movement of the last 21 years. You get the software _as it is_. You don’t like the software? The developer stop supporting it? Then modify it, you are free to do it. (addendum: Automattic doesn’t provide any kind of official support for bbPress and when someone has a problem he comes here and ask with the hope that someone will solve the problem and as you clearly can see I’m trying to do my best and I’m not one of the official developers).

If you have a web domain I assume that you have an FTP client as well as phpmyadmin as well as a text editor. You don’t know how to change the default number of forums? Write a couple of lines here and someone will answer you back.

But like I said, these are basic forum elements that are missing – for instance, if you have more than 10 topics, by default your forum is now 2 pages long … And to a degree, I agree with that, where the ability to customize the software’s appearance to suit almost anything is a huge reason why I considered it

You know what? There is a feature, a big one, called “templates”. In a template you can change everything you want and there are gazillion of functions that you can call. Why should a forum software must have an option for changing the number of forum displayed? It’s one of that “set it and forget it” option. Change a line (an operation that can be accomplished in nearly 20 seconds) on the template and enjoy your board.

But as Kawauso said, even if the bbPress team made their own optional plugins supporting these basic features (again e.g. polls), at least we wouldn’t have to worry about them losing support.

Akismet and PollDaddy are two service that have premium account.

The plugin idea is what drives the modern days cause it’s far more simple to add a plugin to a repository than sending a core patch to the official dev teams. Plugins are the key features of all successfull modern software. Some example:

1) WordPress

2) Movable Type

3) The entire Mozilla software line (Firefox, Thunderbird, etc)

4) Joomla!

5) Drupal

5) and many, many other

Modular design is the present and the future and thanks God a lot of bloatware are disappearing.

I don’t say that bbPress is an easy to use software. It’s not an “upload and run” software. It suffers the fact that it’s a pretty young software and you must know a bit of php in order to set up it for being the base of a medium-sized community. That’s true. But I think that an administrator must be bit skilled in php/mySQL/mambo-jumbo. I choosed bbPress cause I was frustrated by phpBB and then I was frustrated by bbPress as well but this is the damnation of the system administrator. I have written 7 plugins in order to accomodate my needs and the needs of the community (zaerl Editor, zaerl Visibility, zaerl Post Permalink and zaerl WordPress 3 fix over all) and then I am happy with my system.

Conclusion: it’s ok if you don’t want to use bbPress. I understand your difficulties with plugin/themes and in general the personalizations at code-level. But I can assure you that once you do that couple of changes you will enjoy a great system.

Have a nice day.

[zaerl]

Dear “Random Guy Says” let me write in in more simple words. bbPress is a free software, free as in freedom and free as in “free beer”. Maybe you don’t know what this means. Now we will see what the GPL states. I will only report the short form cause the entire license is too long.

<one line to give the program’s name and a brief idea of what it does.>

Copyright (C) <year> <name of author>

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify

it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by

the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or

(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,

but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of

MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the

GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License

along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/&gt;.

This is the base of the entire open-source movement of the last 21 years. You get the software _as it is_. You don’t like the software? The developer stop supporting it? Then modify it, you are free to do it. (addendum: Automattic doesn’t provide any kind of official support for bbPress and when someone has a problem he comes here and ask with the hope that someone will solve the problem and as you clearly can see I’m trying to do my best and I’m not one of the official developers).

If you have a web domain I assume that you have an FTP client as well as phpmyadmin as well as a text editor. You don’t know how to change the default number of forums? Write a couple of lines here and someone will answer you back.

But like I said, these are basic forum elements that are missing – for instance, if you have more than 10 topics, by default your forum is now 2 pages long … And to a degree, I agree with that, where the ability to customize the software’s appearance to suit almost anything is a huge reason why I considered it

You know what? There is a feature, a big one, called “templates”. In a template you can change everything you want and there are gazillion of functions that you can call. Why should a forum software must have an option for changing the number of forum displayed? It’s one of that “set it and forget it” option. Change a line (an operation that can be accomplished in nearly 20 seconds) on the template and enjoy your board.

But as Kawauso said, even if the bbPress team made their own optional plugins supporting these basic features (again e.g. polls), at least we wouldn’t have to worry about them losing support.

Akismet and PollDaddy are two service that have premium account.

The plugin idea is what drives the modern days cause it’s far more simple to add a plugin to a repository than sending a core patch to the official dev teams. Plugins are the key features of all successfull modern software. Some example:

1) WordPress

2) Movable Type

3) The entire Mozilla software line (Firefox, Thunderbird, etc)

4) Joomla!

5) Drupal

5) and many, many other

Modular design is the present and the future and thanks God a lot of bloatware are disappearing.

I don’t say that bbPress is an easy to use software. It’s not an “upload and run” software. It suffers the fact that it’s a pretty young software and you must know a bit of php in order to set up it for being the base of a medium-sized community. That’s true. But I think that an administrator must be bit skilled in php/mySQL/mambo-jumbo. I choosed bbPress cause I was frustrated by phpBB and then I was frustrated by bbPress as well but this is the damnation of the system administrator. I have written 7 plugins in order to accomodate my needs and the needs of the community (zaerl Editor, zaerl Visibility, zaerl Post Permalink and zaerl WordPress 3 fix over all) and then I am happy with my system.

Conclusion: it’s ok if you don’t want to use bbPress. I understand your difficulties with plugin/themes and in general the personalizations at code-level. But I can assure you that once you do that couple of changes you will enjoy a great system.

Have a nice day.

[Briian]

Have you tried Simple:Press WordPress forum plugin. It is just like bbPress, but it seamlessly integrates with WordPress, has almost all the features of phpBB or vBulletin, and excellent support.

—

Content Managment Reviews

[Briian]

Have you tried Simple:Press WordPress forum plugin. It is just like bbPress, but it seamlessly integrates with WordPress, has almost all the features of phpBB or vBulletin, and excellent support.

—

Content Managment Reviews

[RandomGuySays]

Dear zaerl I appreciate you taking the time to read me the GPL but you seem to be consistently missing the point. I’ve already chosen my software so the only purpose of this thread is to help bbPress and as such I think it’s best to just drop this argument and let the rest of us discuss the situation. Thank you for your time.

Briian I haven’t tried Simple:Press and up until now I hadn’t even heard of it, but it’s good to know that it’s out there.