Forum plugin

[Helen-kh]

I would like to add a forum page like the one here on WordPress forum section. I have heard they use bbpress here. I used that plugin and it gave a big error on home page. My wordpress version is 3.0.1. Does anybody know what other options are for creating forums?

I also need to implement a user login for it. Does it come with the plugin or is it a separate function? Also these users should be able to post articles and edit their own articles. Can these both be implemented in the same way (for forums and article posting)?

Thanks for the advices!

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

Upgrade WordPress to 3.3.1 for starters.

What theme are you using? bbPress works fine out of the box with most.

[Helen-kh]

Thanks, I have upgraded to 3.3.1 and was able to use the plugin.

I made a page and called it Forums. I noticed there are two slugs in bbpress setting. One is Archive slug for forum base and one is single slug for forum slug. What are these two? And using none of these slugs show the forums on my Forums page. In fact when I change the slug of my Forums page to either “forums” or “forum” shows the forum page temporarily and when I click on the Forums in my top menu, it doesn’t show the forums anymore, just an empty page.

Also I used the user login widget and it works for loging in but doesn’t have anything for signing up. Is this something I have to install separately?

Thanks ??

[Helen-kh]

Oh, I forgot to say I am using Starker theme, it is a very simple theme.

[Rev. Voodoo]

So in bbPress, The ‘forums base’ takes you to the overall main forum page displaying your main forums like site.com/forums (or whatever you set it to)

the topics base takes you to a listing of all the topics

the forum slug is appended to your url before the topics name… for instance:
https://voodoopress.com/forums/section/general-wordpress-talk/

is a forum URL for me…

that is domain / forum base / forum slug / topic title

Anyway, if you are having problems with bbPress, switch to 2011 theme to test it out. 2011 is definitely compatible with bbPress

If it works on 2011, but not starkers, you will need to do some further work to get things working.

[Helen-kh]

Thanks for the explanations!
I activated the Twenty 11 theme and I still don’t get the right slug for Forums page, meaning the forums page is not showing the forums. I used either “forum” or “forums” slug, neither is working.
Am I missing something here that I should know?
I have basically used the plugin from the box and without changing anything. I am thinking maybe I should not make a page for forums, but what else is going to replace it? hmmmm
Any idea?

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

I made a page called ‘Agora’ and in it I have this:

[bbp-forum-index]

[bbp-topic-index]

That lists my forums and all my recent posts.

[Helen-kh]

Wow, Thanks so much, that did work! So I was missing that piece of code.

Now I have to figure out how to add sign up feature to it. I use bbpress login widget, it lets the members to login, but it doesn’t show how to sign up for new members. Again, I think I am missing something here too.

Any idea please?

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

Sure. bbPress is a plugin to WordPress so ….. yourdomain.com/wp-login.php?action=register

You can do some redirects with links if you want: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5191618/link-to-registration-page-in-wordpress

I don’t know if this old plugin stull works https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/registration-form-widget/

[Helen-kh]

I used the Registration Widget plugin, it shows up in the sidebar, but when I want to register a new user, it goes to regular wordpress login and says in red: “User registration is currently not allowed”. Does this mean my theme doesn’t allow it or I have to activate something else before that?
How does it work on this forum? there is a sigup button and a login button. Also there is view profile and all its feature. What do they use here?

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

This is a stand alone version of bbPress that is no longer supported.

Did you turn on registration in your site? Go to the dashboard, general settings, and make sure you allow registrations.

[Helen-kh]

Well, turning on registration helped ?? thanks
(I am using my local machine server and have a problem with sending & receiving emails through that site. Right now it doesn’t send me the password emails, anyhow I have to figure this out separately)

Someone told me to use PHPBB for forums and integrate it with WP. Do you think it is a good idea? Is it difficult to do?

[Rev. Voodoo]

emails don’t get sent from a localhost install without a fair bit of work. You need to set up an email server, and get that all configured and everything (I did it quite a bit ago using a lot of googling, and gmail, it was a pain to be honest).

The problem with PHPBB integration, and any standalone forum software really, is the bridge. WP is going to get updated, the forum is going to get upgraded, something will break in the link between the 2. You’re counting on someone to keep the link going. I used to integrate simple machines forum (SMF) with WP, but gave it up after running into way too many problems.

Using a WP based plugin forum has a better chance of keeping things working. The downside is that you may not find such a feature rich forum.