Aaaack! I have been pulling out my hair trying to get some sort of forum up and running on Sevilla Tapas. First I thought I’d try P2 for WordPress, which seemed easy enough. And was easy enough to install. But it also seems awkward for people to register and when Nog registered the other day he ended up being able to access the dashboard (!). I’ve also tried bbpress, which is supposed to be “simple, fast and elegant”, but I cannot get it to install properly. I keep getting stuck on numbers 4 & 5 on their instruction page that says “visit the intended URL of the bbPress site,  you will be greeted with the bbPress installer” – but sadly this never happens. Then someone told me to install a plugin that does the WP integration for bbpress … no joy there either. Then I had Simple Scripts (on my BlueHost) automatically install bbpress, and that seemed to be working okay, but I couldn’t get into the CSS to change things. And okay,  I know I’m not the geekiest of people, but I like to think I know my way around CSS a bit and am usually able to install these things quite easily.

There is also Buddy Press, but I’m not sure that’s really what I’m looking for.

Anyhow, my Twitter friend Andy says he will help me with this a bit later on today … wish me luck. I’ve been getting some interesting feedback and queries by email from visitors to Sevilla Tapas and I think that there would be more interaction if there were a forum option available. I’m actually quite looking forward to that.

Pre-requisite:

1.bbpress

2.bbIntegration plugin for WordPress.

3.WAMP or XAMPP Server to be installed.

Note:WordPress should be already installed and running.

Here is the steps to integrate bbpress with the existing wordpress.

Step 1:
Download the bbpress Package.

Step 2:
Unzip the downloaded package to the WordPress root directory.

If the Server,your using is XAMPP then,

C:\Xampp\htdocs\wordpress

Copy the unzip bbpress package in to the wordpress directory

Step 3:
Start the Xampp Server.

To check the xampp Server is Running.

Open the browser and hit the Url.

http:\\localhost

You should see the Xampp Server Configuration Page.

Note:But the remember the database name of your WordPress what ever you have created before.

Step 4:
Now,open the browser hit the url like

http:\\localhost\(name of the wordpress package)/(name of the bbpress directory that has been copied to the wordpress folder in xampp)

You should see the bbpress Configuration Page.

Step 5:
It will ask you some Information for creating bbpress config file.

Database name:Its the name of the database you have created in phpmyadmin in XAMPP for wordpress before.

Database Username:The default username for XAMPP is “root”

Database password:The default password for XAMPP is “”.

Database Host:The host is nothing but “localhost”.

Step 6:
After all this , click on ‘Worpdress Integration’.

In the wordpress integration page, click on the below check boxes and fill required field’s

WordPress address (URL):Your Blog URL

Blog address (URL):Your Blog URL

WordPress “auth” cookie key:This value must match the value of the constant named “AUTH_KEY” in your WordPress wp-config.php file.

WordPress “auth” cookie salt:This must match the value of the WordPress setting named “auth_salt” in your WordPress site. Look for the option labeled “auth_salt” in this WordPress admin page.

WordPress “secure auth” cookie key:This value must match the value of the constant named “SECURE_AUTH_KEY” in your WordPress wp-config.php file.

WordPress “secure auth” cookie salt:This must match the value of the WordPress setting named “secure_auth_salt” in your WordPress site. Look for the option labeled “secure_auth_salt” in this WordPress admin page.

WordPress “logged in” cookie key:This value must match the value of the constant named “LOGGED_IN_KEY” in your WordPress wp-config.php file.

WordPress “logged in” cookie salt:This must match the value of the WordPress setting named “logged_in_salt” in your WordPress site. Look for the option labeled “logged_in_salt” in this WordPress admin page.

Check the third Check box and below it will ask some database information.

User database table prefix:wp_

WordPress MU primary blog ID:If you are integrating with a WordPress MU site you need to specify the primary blog ID for that site. It is usually 1. You should probably leave this blank if you are integrating with a standard WordPress site

Make sure the Show advanced database settings check box is checked.

User database name:Database name of the WordPress is installed.

User database user:root(Default username)

User database password:”"(blank by default)

User database host:localhost

User database character set:UTF8

User database character collation:utf8_general_ci

Leave the custom user table blank.

Click the Save WordPress Settings.

Then ,it will ask you for Site Settings

Site name:Enter any name you wish.

Site address (URL):It will have your forum url.

“Key Master” Username:The Username will be in drop down box.You can select your Key Master username.

First forum name:The First Topic name.

Then Click on Save Site Settings.

Step 7:
After all this,you are set with the bbpress.

You will see a Username is admin and the password will be the existing one you are using for your WordPress.

Once you see your Dashboard.

Click on WordPress Integration in the Setting on the left hand side.

WordPress Administrator:bbpress-keymaster

WordPress Editor:bbpress-Moderator

WordPress Author:bbpress-member

WordPress Contributor:bbpress-member

WordPress Subcriber:bbpress-member

Click on Save Changes.

Step 8:
Go to the Dashboard Of wordpress.

Before that make sure the bbpress integration plugin is copied in to the plugins folder of the wp-content in wordpress.

And make sure the plugin is activated in the Plugins ‘Installed’ Menu in the wordpress Dashboard.

Now, in the Settings you will find the bbpress Integration will be listed over there.

Click on it.

And make sure that

bbPress URL:Url of your bbpress(like http://localhost/wordpress/bbpress)

Your plugins URL:Leave it blank.

WordPress type:Select the WordPress Type you have.

Click on Save Settings.

Thats it.

To check that its working fine or not.

Start signing in your blog alone.

And then go to your forum url and see.

It will find the role of you and signed in automatically.

Enjoy.

Pre-requisite:

1.bbpress

2.WAMP or XAMPP Server to be installed.

Here is the steps to install bbpress in localhost.

Step 1:
Download the bbpress Package.

Step 2:
Unzip the downloaded package to the Server root directory.

If the Server,your using is XAMPP then,

C:\Xampp\htdocs\

Copy the unzip bbpress package in to the htdocs directory

Step 3:
Start the Xampp Server.

To check the xampp Server is Running.

Open the browser and hit the Url.

http:\\localhost

You should see the Xampp Server Configuration Page.

Step 4:
In that click on phpmyadmin on the left hand side of that page.

In the phpmyadmin page,create a database for your bbpress.(The Name can be anything has you wish)

To need to create any Tables inside that.

Note:But the remember the database name what ever you have created.

Step 5:
Now,open the browser hit the url like

http:\\localhost\(name of the bbpress directory that has been copied to the htdocs folder in xampp)

You should see the bbpress Configuration Page.

Step 6:
The bbpress Configuration looks like this

It will ask you some Information for creating bbpress config file.

Database name:Its the name of the database you have created in phpmyadmin in XAMPP.

Database Username:The default username for XAMPP is “root”

Database password:The default password for XAMPP is “”.

Database Host:The host is nothing but “localhost”.

Step 7:
After all this , click on ‘Worpdress Integration’.

For the time leave the wordpress integration by skipping it.

Then ,it will ask you for

Forum Site Name:The name you wish to have for your Site.

E-Mail:Your E-Mail Address (in case of lost password).

Make sure the Check box has to be checked.(To make your blog appear in the search engine)

Step 8:
After all this,you are set with the bbpress.

You will see a Username is admin and the password will be an autogenerated one.

Copy the Password and click on Login.

Login with your current Username and Password.

Once you see your Dashboard.

Go to Authors in the left hand side of your Dashboard.

In that click on Users.

You will see the Authors Name ‘admin’ over there.

Click on Edit and down below that you will have fields for change your password.(The password can be has you wish)

Thats all done.

Share your queries and comments.

Recently i have done a site using bbpress.
The site name is forum.zced.com

For this some important link are given below

http://theeasybutton.com/blog/2009/04/30/integrating-buddypress-10-wpmu-and-bbpress/

http://bbpress.org/forums/topic/ill-pay-someone-to-help-integrate-wordpressmu-buddypress-and-bbpress#post-56788

http://bbpress.org/forums/topic/configure-shared-database-kills-admin-account-bbpress

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/245239?replies=4

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/215011?replies=6

http://bbpress.org/documentation/integration-with-wordpress/

This social networking software sits on a wordpress platform then it inherits all its blogging functionality. For me personally I don’t want people to have their own blogs as it makes it too difficult to monitor content and to ensure the audience is looking at the advertising spots. With the blogging functions enabled then users can use their own templetes and widgets which could be used to block content that we want people to see.

I wanted a platform that has one central blog that is controlled by admin (me) that can be used to public content with the extra benefits a social networking activities around it, thus; groups, internal messages, friend lists, activity streams and detailed user profiles. I don’t particularly want users to have their own blogs. Additionally, after further testing I found BBPress integration doesn’t actually work that well; it doesn’t actually display posts which is a bit of a fundamental issue!

Unfortunately to make this happen then some low level code edits to remove “forum” and “blogs” items from pages as well as menus. Firstly, to get rid of the two tabs for forum and blogs then we need to edit the theme file; wp-content/themes/bp-sn-parent/header.php and remove the following block of code:

And also the following block needs to be removed:

(If you don’t want to delete the bits of code, comment them out instead)

The next few steps involves actually editing some files. within the wordpress admin screen under the Buddypress menu select the component set-up option. From here turn off the Forum component and save the settings. You can also now delete the BBPress folder from your ‘wp/’ directory as well as the ‘BBPress Integration’ Plugin as its pointless.

Next we need to remove the ‘Random blogs’ element from the menu at the top of the page. We need to open the file called ‘/wp/wp-content/plugins/buddypress/bp-core/bp-core-adminbar.php’ and remove the following bits of code:

Within the same file we want to change the name of the “My Blogs” menu item to “News” too. So to do this look for this piece of code:

Just change ‘My Blogs’ to ‘News’ and that should do it. You might notice the code below it refers to creating and editing an existing blog. We can leave this code since we are going to switch off new blog registrations within wordpress itself. Thus this code will never be executed any way.

Next remove the Blog items off the profile page users see on logging in and the My account menu at the top of the screen, which can be done with a single edit. Open the file ‘/wp/wp-content/plugins/buddypress/bp-blogs.php’

Remove the following bit of code:

What the code above does is to add an item to an array which is later used for Buddypress in several places. So, obviously removing the code means that the Blog items won’t be used any where.

Finally, log into WordPress MU as admin and from the menu on the left select “Site Admin > Options” and set “Allow new Registrations” to “Only user account can be created” – This should stop new blogs being created when new users register on the site. When users do sign up though, they will automatically become subscribers of the main sites (ie admin) blog and be subscribed to that content.

In the following posts I will be discussing future tweaks plus also looking at changing colours, font and other styling issues.

To complete the installation process we need to unset some permissions from 777 back to 755 on 3 folders for security reasons.

1. Login to your Cpanel and start the File Manager.
2. Locate the folder “wp” and tick the box to the left.
3. Click the “Change Permissions” icon at the top of the page.
4. Change the files permissions to 755 and click the “Change Permissions” button.
5. Double click on the “wp” folder and select both the “bbpress” and “wp-content” folders by ticking their related boxes.
6. Click the “Change Permissions” icon at the top of the page.
7. Change the files permissions to 755 and click the “Change Permissions” button.
8. That’s it!

These simple changes just puts the server permission back to how they were before we went through this installation process.

This is a test site used purely for demonstrating the process of getting WordPress MU, BuddyPress and BBPress to work together. Obviously, the theme does need to be completely re-done as its horrible, but I would need a graphic designer to do that and so I’m not obviously bothering to do that for a demo!

You are welcome to try the installation at: http://www.sinsearch.co.uk/wp/

Integrating BBPress is quite easy thanks largely to the “BBPress Plug-in” we uploaded several days ago. Even so, to complete the installation we also have to add a bit of code that it generates to a configuration file. Its a simple case of yet more copy and pasting, so not that hard!

Lets get started..

1. Login as Admin into your wordpress; thus http://www.sinsearch.co.uk/wp/wp-login.php
2. Click on the Plugins menu option (on the left hand side).
3. Click on the Activate link next to the “BBPress Integration” plugin.
4. Under the “Settings” menu on the left, click the “bbpress Integration” option.

This give’s you some more options to fill in. For my installation these are the values I have used:

Another words, I’ve given the URL of the forum and just told the software that I am running WordPress MU rather than the single user edition. This produces the following page with some PHP code that needs to be added into a WordPress configuration file; “wp-config.php”. Copy this code into your notepad file for the next bit.

Adding the Code to wp-config.php

1. Login your cpanel and start the File Manager.
2. Navigate to the folder that you installed WordPress into; the “wp” folder.
3. Inside the “wp” folder, highlight the “wp-config.php” file (tick the box)
4. From the top of the page click the “Editor” icon.
5. Location the section just above “/**#@+ * Authentication Unique Keys.”
6. Just above this line copy the PHP code from your notepad into the line above.
7. Click “Save Changes” and your done.

The final step in the integration is to tell Buddypress to use the BBPress forum software. To do this:

1. Login as “admin” on to your wordpress installation.
2. From the menu on the left click the BuddyPress section.
3. From the Buddypress drop down menu select “Forum Setup”.
4. Click the “Use Existing Installation” button.

On this page Buddypress is asking for the path to the “bb-config.php” which if you remember sits inside the “bbpress” folder that in itself is inside the “wp” folder. In my case all I’ve have got to do is append the string “/wp/bbpress/” to the end of the line (do not include the double quotes) and press the “Complete Installation” button.

That’s the installation process complete only leaving a little bit of tidying up to do which I will address in my next post. You can view the installation so far by going to http://www.sinsearch.co.uk/wp/

Unlike Buddypress, BBPress is not a plug in. Its a separate application that can be integrated into WordPress by using the “BBPress Integration” plug-in that you probably noticed we left de-activated when we installed BuddyPress. So to run the BBPress install, you’d go to your equivalent of http://www.sinsearch.co.uk/wp/bbpress/

As you can see the script is intelligent enough to work out that we are trying to install it for the first time, which is nice. Click on the “Go To Step 1” button:

At this point, open the notepad file containing your DB Name, DB User and DB Pass details and copy them into the fields above. Click the “Save Database Configuration” to save those settings. At this point you’ll get a page saying:

“Your settings have been saved to the file bb-config.php
You can now continue to the next step.”

Click on the “Go To Step 2” Button.

Step 2, is optional and we actually want to skip it since the BBPress Integration plug-in does a much better job of integrated the message board then this installation wizard. So, at this point click the “Skip WordPress Integration” button and you’ll get a page saying:

“You have chosen to skip the WordPress integration step. You can always integrate WordPress later from within the admin area of bbPress.”

There’s also two options; “Go Back” or “Go To Step 3”. Click on the “Go To Step 3” button.

Step 3 is concerned with setting up the Message Board Name and the Key Masters details. The Key Master is really just another name for the Boss or Administrator for the board. As you can see from the screen shot above I’ve just used the username of “admin” and the same email address as before. I’ve also given the board a name and it will create the first message board called “Wicked Talk”

Click the “Save Site Settings” button. This is all the data the site installation wizard needs:

To finish the installation of BBPress click on “Complete the Installation” button. This should return your admin user name and a generated password. Copy and Paste this information into your notepad file with all your other details. Now BBPress has been installed.

In the next instalment we’ll discuss how to actually integrate BBPress into WordPress as we haven’t actually done that yet!

Since we have prepared all the scripts into one single zip file is pretty easy to do. I’m going to use the file manager inside Cpanel to upload the file. Simply:

1. Login to Cpanel and scroll down to the File Manager.
2. Click on the File Manager icon to start the program.
3. Navigate to the “public_html” or “www” folder
4. Click the upload button and select the “wp.zip” file from your PC

The upload should start automatically upon selecting the file from your computer.

Upon completion, click the link to return to the file browser view. Next, tick the box next to the file “wp.zip” and click the “extract” button at the top of the page. This will create a folder called “wp” in the current directory with the associated URL of http://www.sinsearch.co.uk/wp/

Before we can install the software we need to set some file permissions so the installer can set up some files. This will be in tomorrows exciting instalment. (I was being sarcastic!)

In this part I’ll be discussing where to download the various pieces of software you need for your social networking platform and how to prepare them off-line. The idea is to put all the software into one easy package that can be uploaded to the server in one go rather than having to do them one at a time.

The first thing to do is set-up a folder on your computer to download the zipped scripts to. I’ve called it “Social-Network” on my PC. Next you need to download the following scripts, placing them into the “Social-Network” folder:

1. WordPress MU (Multi-User)
2. BuddyPress (Social Networking)
3. BB Press (Message Board)
4. BB Press Integration (Joins BBPress to WordPress)

Your download directory should look like this:

Next we need to extract or unzip all these archives into the current folder; “Social-Network”. I use 7-Zip for my decompression program but there are plenty of other ones that do a similar job. When extracting make sure you select to unzip or “Extract to Here” rather than the named folder since its going to be hard to follow the rest of this article otherwise. After I’ve extracted each zip I tend to delete the file or move it outside of the current folder – My memory is terrible! Assuming you did this too then your “Social-Network” folder should now look like this:

Okay, we’ve now got the 4 main scripts in the folder fully extracted. What we have to do now is move 3 of the folders inside the WordPress-MU one and then move 2 folders from inside the Buddypress directory into the themes folder for wordpress before we re-zip the lot once again.

a) Pick-up the “bbpress” folder and drop it into the “wordpress-mu” one.

b) Move both “buddypress” & “bbpress-integration” to “wordpress-mu\wp-content\plugins”

c) Next move to the “\wordpress-mu\wp-content\plugins\buddypress\bp-themes” folder. This folder should had been just created when you moved the BuddyPress into the plugins folder in the previous step.

d) Copy all the folders inside the bp-themes folder to: “wordpress-mu\wp-content\themes” directory.

Now the wordpress-mu themes folder should look like:

Next you need to move up to the “social-network” folder and rename the “wordpress-mu” folder to “wp” and then zip everything in this folder. This should give you the following:

Now we are ready to upload this via your FTP software or through Cpanel. I am going to use Cpanel as it also includes a handy decompress feature. All this will be in my next instalment.

I’ve updated the header image, with a section of Illusion by Sessarego. Be sure to follow those links for a full image of the painting and other beautiful paintings by the artist. Post frequency has dropped dramatically here, but I’ve made an TON of progress on TagShadow. I decided to use bbPress for my forum and I’m pleased with the results. It would please me greatly for you to sign up (I’ve enabled openId, so that should be painless) and in general spread the word.

วันนี้ผมมีโอกาสได้ลองใช้งาน เว็บบอร์ดตัวหนึ่ง ชื่อว่าBBPress หลังจากไ้ด้ลองใช้แล้วรู้สึกว่าเว็บบอร์ดตัวนี้มีความน่าสนใจเป็นอย่างมากทั้งในเรื่องของ Future Coding แล้วในเรื่อง SEO (อันนั้นบรรดาเว็บมาสเตอร์จะชอบกันมาก)

ถามว่าทำไมผมถึงได้เอาเว็บบอร์ด BBPress ตัวนี้ มาพูดเนื่องจากอนาคตเว็บบอร์ดตัวนี้จะดำเนินรอยตาม Blog สำเร็จรูปอย่าง WordPress ได้ดีไม่แพ้ WordPress เลยเชี่ยวละ  ทั้งการใช้ theme การใช้ tag could ใน เป็นตัวเพิ่ม triffig ให้บอร์ด และมี plugin สำเร็จรูปให้เราใช้งานกัน ถึงแม้ว่าเจ้าตัว BBPress ในตอนนี้ดูเหมือนจะไม่มีอะไรมากนัก แต่เชื่อผมเถอะครับ อีกไม่เกิน 2 ปี เว็บบอร์ดตัวนี้จะเป็นบอร์ดที่คนนิยมใช้งานมาพอสมควรเลยละ ….

Thanks Dave for letting us know that OnStar, the vehicle safety and security service, has selected WordPress MU and the discussion forum platform bbPress for their new OnStar Connections site:

There is some lively discussions going on in the forums, which also have Gravatar support turned on.

[ Visit OnStar Connections ]

Nachdem die englischsprachige Community Insectgeeks.com sicherlich schon dem ein oder anderen Terraristen bekannt sein dürfte, gibt es nun ein etwas allgemeineres Terraristik-Netzwerk in deutscher Sprache: http://terrafans.com/
TerraFans! basiert auf WordPress µ mit dem Plugin BuddyPress. Laut Admin Jens soll demnächst auch noch ein BBPress installiert werden, damit man nicht nur auf das Pinbrett einer Gruppe schreiben kann. Zur weiteren Integration in das moderne Web 2.0 gibt es natürlich auch ein Twitter-Plugin für den eigenen Blog bei TerraFans!.
Zugegeben, wenn man Bulletin-Boards und andere soziale Netze gewohnt ist, mag das System um WordPress µ und BuddyPress etwas gewöhnungsbedürftig sein, aber es erfüllt seinen Zweck doch sehr adäquat! Mal sehen, wie die Integration von BBPress funktioniert, bei mir daheim in einer Test-Installation hat dies nicht so recht geklappt… /:

While integrating bbPress with one of my wordpress install, i found this great sevice on web for key generator i needed cookie keys for integration and trying to write by oneself might be fun for some but to write a 70 charcter long key and a random one is difficult or say i didn’t want to do it, so searched for some online key generator and fortunately i stumbled upon this great service at:

http://www.dave-reed.com/Nifty/randSeq.html

though ther are services like for generating those keys:

http://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/

but random sequencer is the best…:)

Още преди време реших, че щом ще създавам сайт и общество към него, то ще ми трябва форум. Става въпрос за портала за туризъм Razhodka.com – един от проектите ми.

Дилемата беше как да вкарам форум в самия дизайн на блога, които ползва wordpress платформата, като така ще мога да ползвам и същата база данни с потребителски имена. Тествах няколко различни Плъгина за форуми измежду които и Small press forum и WP-Forum, но все нещо куцаше. Не ми харсваше как се интегрира в дизайна, лиспваха фунцкионалности, липсваше превод на Български и възможност да бъде направен лесно такъв.

Дълго време нищо не направих по въпроса и форума така и си стоеше, докато сайта се развива с много добри темпове (вече около 600-700 уникални посетителя дневно, които активно коментират, пращат пътеписи и т.н.). В крайна сметка се хванах отново да търся и стигнах до bbPress – форум от създателите на WordPress. Звучеше много добре, само се блъсках по главата защо не съм го намерил по-рано но както и да е, захванах се да попрочета и да тествам за какво иде реч.

BBpress се оказа доста кадърно форумче, много леко и някак освободено от хилядите нужни и ненужни функционалности на нормалните форуми и това някак си ме грабна. Заех се да разцъкам, прочетох как се интегрира с WordPress базата данни, както и cookies и така достигнах до нещо що годе прилично – и така представям ви новия Форум за туризъм и разходки.

Платформата bbpress разбира се има и недостатъци, като например това, че всяка една функционалност се добавя с външен плъгин и понякога бутане на php код в някой от файловете на темата. Да, това не е голям проблем, но за човек с малко разбирания от php понякога се оказва малко по-сложно. За момента съм го побългарил, добавил съм някои основни функционалности за да добие малко по-форумски вид и да е по-лесен за използване от потребителите, но има още какво да се желае.

Продължавам да дерзая по него и се надявам да го донаправя, защото нямам желание отново да сменям платформата Че после ме чака и популяризацията му, а там хич си нямам и представа как точно да постъпя, но ще го мисля, когато всичко е готово.

This bug fix release has been made available for download to address a number of issues that have been raised after the release of bbPress 1.0 including a security issue where multiple users could be registered with the same email address.

This is a recommended update for all users of bbPress 1.0. These issues do not affect users of bbPress 0.9.

What does bbPress offer:
From the first post at bbPress blog:
http://bbpress.org/blog/

Fast and Light: nothing you don’t need.
Built in spam protection by Akismet.
Really simple interface: we want people using our software to forget that they’re using it.
Complete integration with WordPress.
Both the look and the functionality are highly customizable.
RSS feeds for everything.