[richcon]

I’m setting up a new web site, which is running WordPress 2.7. (Older versions aren’t an option because keeping them up-to-date with security releases is much harder.) The site’s going to need a forum, and I would like to use bbPress if I can.

Has anyone worked out the details in running WordPress 2.7 with the current stable release of bbPress 0.9.x? I know that seamless integration won’t be ready until 1.0 is ready, and if the developers say don’t use it yet, I won’t use it.

But if I do try to go with the current bbPress, what are the gotchas? Is there any integration possible at all, or do I have to wall them off as completely separate products with separate logins? If my client wants integration now, do I have no choice but go with something else like SMF?

There is one additional concern I have, though:

I had integrated bbPress 0.9 with a WordPress 2.5 site about a year ago, and loved how well they fit together — you guys really did an awesome job. Then 2.6 came out, and the incredible delay in bb’s WordPress integration seriously burned us. The web site got hacked twice due to 2.5.x security flaws that seem to be fixed in 2.7, and in the end we finally had to bite the bullet, delete the forum (it wasn’t getting that much use anyway), and upgrade WordPress. While the purist in me would love to work with bbPress again once 1.0 is available, I can’t shake this suspicion that when some future version of WordPress comes out, those of us who are using bbPress would get burned again because the developers are simply more interested in an ambitious future release that’s more than a year out. While 1.0 looks like an incredible release, a point upgrade to address compatibility would have been a really, really nice thing.

(Sorry if this sounds like a rant — I just would really like to trust this product again!)

Thanks,

Richard

[chrishajer]

> Has anyone worked out the details in running WordPress 2.7

> with the current stable release of bbPress 0.9.x?

Not that I’m aware of. There was a reply describing someone going through the WordPress code to see what needed to change. I can’t find that reply right now.

[johnhiler]

AFAIK, nobody’s worked out the WordPress 2.7/bbPress 0.9.x cookie/signin integration yet. If it comes, I’m betting it will take the form of a user-generated plugin… I don’t get the feeling that it’s on the official roadmap.

I agree that point upgrades to address compatibility would be nice! But I’m pretty sure that bbPress isn’t enough of a priority within Automattic yet to get the resources to make that happen. It sounds like that may happen within the next year tho.

As for the current state of things: I don’t think bbPress 1.0 is stable yet and more importantly, a good number the most popular 0.9 plugins aren’t yet fully compatible with 1.0. But that may change in a few months! In the meantime, I am hoping that bbPress 0.9 cookie/signin compatibility with the latest WordPress versions becomes possible with a plugin.

[_ck_]

I once tried to make wp 2.7 cookies work with 0.9 but gave up.

I’ll might revisit it later this year – it’s definitely technically possible.

I still don’t understand WHY people want to run more

than WP 2.5 considering how insanely bloated it’s become

and I find the new menu system annoying.

[Alvaro Degives-Mas]

_ck_ the “why” clause is addressed in Paragraphs One, Parenthetical Statement One, which spoke thusly:

Older versions aren’t an option because keeping them up-to-date with security releases is much harder.

A parenthetical statement that I have come to abide by as well.

Security is not a hobby, namely.

[chrishajer]

Here’s a good reason from the WordPress release archive:

“None of these are safe to use, except the latest in

the 2.7 series, which is actively maintained.”

If someone was using a version earlier than 2.7.1 and got hacked, the WordPress forums would be all over them to upgrade and telling them getting hacked is their own fault for not staying up to date.

I run 2.7 vs 2.5 because the admin interface is so much better, IMO. I know some people hate it, but any time I use the admin of a WordPress site prior to version 2.7 I look at it and wonder how I got anything done.

I don’t think criticizing people’s choice to run the latest version of WordPress is helpful in getting bbPress on board with supporting it. 2.5 was released back in March 2008 and presumably work on 2.6 started around that time. That’s almost a year now that bbPress has had a chance to get cookie compatible with 2.6 and later. The alpha versions are compatible, but alpha is bleeding edge and unstable for production use. So, saying alpha is cookie compatible doesn’t help either, since that’s not been recommended for production use by anyone. You can look at alpha and see that 1.0 WILL be compatible, but WHEN?

I mean, bbPress docs still mention that it should integrate with the latest version of WordPress in the 2.5 series, and tells you how to deal with running OLDER versions. That’s pretty sad for software that focuses on “ease of integration” with WordPress.

Now, all this aside: I still can’t figure out why people want integrated logins, why they have users that both post to a blog and post in a forum. But, I don’t ask why. You can push the software around however you want. I don’t understand that but I do understand the frustration with not being able to get that to work.

Frustrations two and three:

2. getting bbPress to look like WordPress (that’s integration to many people)

3. setting up permalinks does not work like WordPress (you make the change in WordPress admin and WordPress modifies the .htaccess file. bbPress does not.)

Fix those things and the number of support requests here would be cut in half, possibly more, and we could focus on pointing people to or creating cool plugins to do everything they want to do with bbPress.

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

Now, all this aside: I still can’t figure out why people want integrated logins, why they have users that both post to a blog and post in a forum. But, I don’t ask why.

On the blog, I (and my editors) post news stories of interest to the community. On the forum, everyone posts whatever. I use the same ID to moderate them all.

I suppose eventually I’ll end up with BuddyPress for some level of community, but right now people who want to chat with friends about like subjects hit the forums, people who want to comment on the news. It fits I agree this doesn’t fit every site, but y’know, that’s the beauty of the intartubes.

I can’t understand the benefit of cross posting the same blog post into the forum, personally I kind of see why people want to, but I’m not convinced it’ll work.

[richcon]

@_ck_: That’s one opinion on 2.7, but I actually like it. I really upgraded for security reasons (getting hacked will do that to you), but then I grew to really like the interface.

@nv1962: That’s the first time someone quoted me using the word “thusly”

@chrishajer: We want integration so people can use the same login to post comments to news stories and post in the forum. Maintaining two separate logins for the same site is asking too much of the casual visitor. I had the integration 100% seamless; nobody would have any clue that they’re looking at different pieces of software.

[Alvaro Degives-Mas]

richcon: mah plezure.

chrishajer stated:

I still can’t figure out why people want integrated logins, why they have users that both post to a blog and post in a forum.

I’ll give you a real-life example. When WordPress is not used as a blog, but as a CMS, and its support for registered members serves to allow restricted reading access (so, not even posting!) to certain pages / posts (or portions thereof), those members need to log in, so as to be able to read those parts that are off-limits to guests. Now, let’s imagine such a blog-turned-CMS has a forum as well. And that said members were put through the hassle of logging in again on exactly the same site – just to be able to access a forum, where they “really” participate and exchange posts. No explanation on technicalities like “cookie synchronization” could undo their irritation, and frankly, I’ve joined their chorus. If only because the customer is king.

So, allow me to invert the perspective here: why on Earth would anyone even want to justify a klutzy non-unified login system that doesn’t recognize users who logged in on one part to access another of the same site, that is driven by software that, ordinarily, ought to be considered siblings?

Don’t get me wrong – I very well understand and accept the premise of technical difficulty. I have no problem in assessing it as merely the way it is, and patiently awaiting (and appreciating) the effort underway to address this issue. But I see no merit whatsoever in attempts to belittle the annoyance and inconvenience to users – remember: they make the site worthwhile – by way of questioning the validity of expecting a unified login. Human logic and behavior isn’t necessarily always linear in its expression, but it is what one has to deal with, in order to lead a practical and profitable (as in: rewarding) life.

And this inconvenient thing called real life is what made me, in the end, opt for a non-bbPress forum solution for a professional association: because I’m totally, utterly, radically done with dealing with complaints from non-technically oriented member users about “not being able to access” the site that they in essence (through membership of the association) paid for.

Is this a majority scenario? No, of course not. But it is very real. Hopefully now you understand why there’s interest in a unified login system, shared among WordPress and bbPress.

(Added afterwards: if you’re looking for the forum, you won’t see it until you logged in – it appears in the navigation menu only after you logged in as a member. And for the really curious: I opted for the SPF route to solve the login issue, while still remaining in the WP family.)

[Sam Bauers]

The only gotchas with bbPress-1.0-alpha (up to alpha-6) are the less stable code and a few missing functionalities with regards to tag management. If you are doing “deep” integration then there are reported problems with language translation files not being loaded. There are some other sundry issues as well, most of which just need some quality time with a PHP person to fix.

[feastoffools]

Amen nv1962!

We’re just patiently waiting for bbpress to sync up with wordpress, or look elsewhere for a solution. I’m kind of getting tired of seeing people complaining about bbpress, and developers complaining about how people want to integrate bbpress into wordpress (login, profiles and entries).

What are the alternatives to waiting for bbpress to catch up to wordpress?

[superann]

Are the login functions any different in 2.7 from 2.6? I just wrote in the WP + bbPress integration forum about having successfully integrated WP 2.6 and bbPress 0.9 logins by just overriding all the WP pluggable cookie functions via a plugin with code copied right from WP 2.5’s pluggable.php file. I was thinking I could just do the same for 2.7…

[John James Jacoby]

I still don’t understand WHY people want to run more than WP 2.5 considering how insanely bloated it’s become and I find the new menu system annoying.

So what you’re saying is that the world shouldn’t do what you don’t think is right.

[superann]

Yep, same method above works with WP 2.7.1 and bbPress 0.9.0.4. Just tested and there’s full cookie integration.

[_ck_]

On a funny coincidence, I just finished a plugin to make 0.9 work with 2.7 cookies.

But are you saying you downgraded WP 2.7’s cookies into 2.5 cookies to make it work with bbPress by replacing the functions from the WP 2.5 pluggable?

Mine is the opposite approach, it let’s WP 2.7 keep it’s cookies and bbPress uses the logged_in cookie from WP.

I guess either technique is valid. You must have forced the salt to be the same on both sides though.

[superann]

Hey _ck_… that’s great news! It’s probably better to do it your way but I did it this way as I was lazy… I didn’t have to write a single line of code and it was literally just copy and paste from WP 2.5 pluggable functions. And yep, I did override the salt with the old function too.

[_ck_]

It’s strange that I didn’t think to downgrade WP 2.7 to match bbPress 0.9 but I guess I overthought the process and figured the new “auth” cookie method would be required in the admin area on WP so it would break. I assume you have tested your admin access in WordPress after your changes?

WordPress 2.7 added three new kinds of cookies, surprised it doesn’t break anything when you force it backwards. Did you delete all of your old cookies on your browser to make sure it wasn’t “cheating” ?

In any case, my new plugin is here and should be downloadable for testing shortly:

https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/freshly-baked-cookies/

One plus to the WP downgrade method is it might work with deep integration where mine will definitely not work and should not even be tried that way.

[superann]

Yep, cleared all my cookies and it appears that things work as they should. I haven’t pored over the source too considerably but from what I saw it looks like there are very few dependencies, which makes sense as I’m guessing WP wants you to be able to integrate sign on systems without jumping through hoops.

My sites aren’t “deeply” integrated, so it would be great to get some feedback from anyone who tries this on a deep integration.

Plugin here:

http://superann.com/2009/02/26/wordpress-26-27-bbpress-09-cookie-integration-plugin/

In retrospect I shouldn’t have put this at v1.0, but I expect its useful life might be short anyway once bbPress 1.0 is released…

[_ck_]

Your plugin will have a far longer useful life than you’d might think.

I’d estimate at least six months. I wish I thought of it six months ago.

But at least people have two ways to avoid 1.0 alpha 7 which will break my plugins.

[krischan68]

Same here. I’m stuck with WP 2.5.1 at the moment because of the single login I need for WP and BB.

I will definitely try superann’s plugin – thanks a lot for that.

As a rather nontechnical user, I would like to know if you expect the plugin to break with minor 2.7 updates. Maybe it’s a stupid question, but I can’t evaluate that myself.

[krischan68]

Same here. I’m stuck with WP 2.5.1 at the moment because of the single login I need for WP and BB.

I will definitely try superann’s plugin – thanks a lot for that.

As a rather nontechnical user, I would like to know if you expect the plugin to break with minor 2.7 updates. Maybe it’s a stupid question, but I can’t evaluate that myself.

[superann]

You’re welcome, krischan68! You should be able to upgrade all the way to the current WP 2.7.1 as far as integration is concerned; I’ve tested this method on another site and have gotten it working.

I highly doubt the plugin will break with minor point releases; it wouldn’t make much sense for the dev team to make such drastic changes unnecessarily.

[krischan68]

Thanks. I’ll give it a try on a test installation.

[richcon]

By the way, what does “deep” integration involve? When I think of integration, I think of sharing logins between WordPress and bbPress, and possibly using the same template system so both sides share the same header and menu system.

On another side I solved the template issue by having a single “master” template system and CSS file that handled the page header, main menu, footer, and sidebar, leaving the specific bbPress and WordPress templates to only handle the stuff inside the main content box.

As for handling logins, I made the login button go to the bbPress login page (in all its themeable glory) no matter where you click it.

[antonio_pt]

Thanks. I’ll give it a try on a test installation.

did it work?

[gadgets]

May be I will try to install for wordpress 2.7 and will share again.