Features

So what all are the things which have been already coded into the new plugin? Here’s an overview!

#0 Overview

As every forum, there are three basic things – forum, topic and reply. A forum is a collection of topics and a topic is a collection of replies. bbPress uses WordPress custom post types features for all the three things. Additionally, there are tags. As you might be knowing, tags are used for tagging topics to a particular word and all those tagged topics can be accessed by going to the link for the word. bbPress uses custom taxonomies for this.

Developer Note: At some places (in the code), the word ‘post’ is used. It is used for referring to topic and reply both.

#1 TwentyTen Child Theme

TwentyTen Child Theme

bbPress bundles a neat and clean child theme of the TwentyTen theme. It implements all the current available features in bbPress. You may find some chunks of more details here.

#2 Administration

The Settings Page

Much like the bbPress standalone, you get to manage forums, topics, replies, topic tags, settings and do things like recounts to get your forum counts back in sync.

#3 Forum Type, Status*, Visibility*

Forum Type, Status and Visibility

Forum type means.. um.. forum type – ok, whether the forum is a normal forum or a category. Topics can be made in forums, but not in categories. Status means whether the forum is closed or open and visibility defines whether the forum is visible to all or is it private.

#4 Topic Actions

Edit, Trash, Close, Stick Topics, Merge and Spam Topics

In bbPress, you can edit the topic, close the topic, stick it, mark it as spam, merge it with another or trash or restore or permanently delete it.

#5 Reply Actions

Edit, Trash, Spam Replies & Split Topics

Like the standalone, you can edit replies, mark them as spam, trash or restore or permanently delete them and split the topics.

- # Splitting and Merging*

Split Topics

Merge Topics

As shown in the above two captures, you can split and merge topics too! These are an essential part of the forums as generally people start up unrelated discussion on a topic, making it necessary to actually delete the replies. Instead, you can just split the topic. If you find two similar topics, just merge them.

- # Trashing, Restoring and Deleting*

The plugin makes use of the internal WordPress functions to help you trash topics and replies instead of permanently deleting theme. Once you’ve trashed them, the plugin would show you the options for restoring or deleting them.

- # Stickies

Sticky Topic

Stickies are announcements. You can stick topics to their respective forums or the front page of the forums.

#6 Revision Log*

Enter Modification Reason Form on Topic Edit Page

The Revision Log below the Topic

The bbPress plugin brings a very innovative feature with it. That is a revision aka modification aka change aka edit log. This makes use of the WordPress revisions feature and stores a revision when a topic or a reply is edited. We may probably add revert to a revision feature in the future too (though you can already do that from the admin section!).

#6 Loginless Posting

Loginless Posting Form

You might not have seen the loginless feature on bbPress standalone, it is one of the features which would be introduced in bbPress 1.1. The bbPress plugin, too allows you to make topics and replies without logging in. This can be disabled by a single click from the settings page.

#7 Favorites et Subscriptions

Favorites and Subscriptions

The bbPress plugin allows you to mark topics as favorites or subscribe to them. Both the features work in a very similar way, except for the fact that your favorites generate a feed for you and are shown to all the users while only you and administrators can see your subscriptions and you get mailed when a new reply is made to the topic you subscribed to.

#9 Views

View - No Replies

You may define views as “predefined search queries”. When you create a view (or a plugin creates it for you), a link is generated to that so that the user can go to that and view the associated topics. Examples of views are no replies (see the capture and notice the number of replies on the topic), un-tagged etc.

#10 Statistics

Statistics & Popular Topics

Everyone likes showing off statistics (well, if they’re a good number). bbPress creates a statistics page for you and displays information such as the number of forums, topics, replies, registered users, topic tags etc. Additional information is shown to moderators and administrators (like hidden i.e. private, spammed and trashed topics).

#11 Dashboard Widget

Dashboard Widget

The dashboard widget gives you a quick look of all the statistics (#11), and the plugin version you’re using. We’d be probably adding some more like recent topics, replies etc.

#12 Profile + Edit

Profile Page

Excerpt of the Profile Edit Page

The profile page shows the topics you’ve subscribed to, the topics which you’ve marked as favorite and the topics you’ve started. You can also edit your profile from the front-end.

#13 Widgets

Forum Widgets

The bbPress plugin makes use of the WordPress Widgets API and adds various widgets like forums, topics and replies with various available options.

#14 Tag Management

Tag Management

On the tag page, you would find a tag management form with which you can rename it, merge it or destroy/delete it.

@todo

There are some things which still need to be done. You can view a list of all the open tickets here.

Call for Testers

As the plugin has already got so many features, it might have also got a lot of bugs, and would need a great amount of testing. Thus, I request you all to checkout a copy of the plugin branch and test it on your (local) (test) WordPress install! The plugin is still in bleeding edge state, which means if you upload this plugin up on your site, it might be broken or it might break your site or the upgrades might not be as smooth as expected (that’s why it’s bleeding). A beta or alpha might be available in the next month or so, though.

* Means that these were not there in the bbPress standalone, and are new features introduced in the plugin.

Ps. I wanted to write this post on the new year, but couldn’t as I was busy with Google Code-in. Anyhow, instead of posting it on 1.11.11, I’m posting it on 11.1.11.

Pps. I have a habit of forgetting things, so if you think I’ve left out any feature, do remind me of it in the comments!

Ppps. Phew! That was long! Thanks for reading.

Changelog

• Fixed a bug in which the API key sent to the server should be different for each user – Check here
• The proxy script now makes use of WP_Http which is much more reliable
• Added an option for Accepting All Suggestions

Developers can see the changes made to the plugin files here.

Download: http://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/after-the-deadline/

Image Credits: Me, I know it is a bad fork

What is Scr.im?

Scrim is a service made by Ozh. To scrim is to protect your email address before sharing it so that only real people will use it. You can read more about scrim on its about page.

Screenshots

Scrim Email Saver Plugin in Action!

A Preview of the scr.im Page

Download: http://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/scrim-email-saver/

Changelog

• The following options have been added for the user (can also be mass-disabled from the admin page):
  • AutoProofread if the user has forgotten to run the spellcheck
  • Ignore always option
  • Ignore types
• Updated AtD/jQuery – Changelog
• Added an AJAX loader image
• Added screenshot of the profile edit page and updated admin page screenshot
• Updated hindi translation

Screenshots

The Settings Page (with the new settings)

The settings on the user's profile edit page

Update (26-03-2010): After the Deadline v1.6.1 has been released which has the latest version of AtD/jQuery and also fixes some upgrade notification issues.

Download: http://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/after-the-deadline/

Changelog

• Compatibility with bbPress 1.0
• Usage of reliable WP_Http instead of cURL or fopen
• Automatically gets the new repository list if available, when you go to the plugin browser page
• The directory folder of a plugin now need not have pb– in its name, nor a pb–revision.php, which means that now the plugins are checked with their version numbers.
• Added i18n support
• Coding cleanups (including WordPress style coding), optimizations and improvements

Todo

• Add a daily auto-check for plugins and notify the administrator if any plugin has a new version

Notes

• If you were using an older version of plugin browser for bbPress than v0.2, then it is recommended that you remove pb-- from the plugins’ directory name in the my-plugins folder.
• If the plugin list is not updating for some reason, then go to the plugin browser page, and in the URL add this – &force_update=1 and press enter. The plugin should then make a new list of the available plugins.

Download: http://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/plugin-browser-for-bbpress/

Screenshots

After the Deadline Plugin in Action

After the Deadline's Settings Page

Changelog

• The proofreader now supports English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish
• Removed API key requirement
• Updated AtD/jQuery – Changelog
• Removed compatibility with bbPress 0.9
• Improved coding efficiency
• Updated translations & screenshots

Download: http://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/after-the-deadline/

To check it, just make a new post, write the content with a @username (could be any username) in the text. When you submit the post, the plugin will automatically link the usernames (which exist) to their profile. Note that the plugin doesn’t link the usernames with spaces.

The plugin can also add a Reply link below each post and when clicked, adds @username with the post link in the post text box. This could be enabled via the settings page, but before that please see #1 question in the FAQ.

Screenshots

Easy Mentions Plugin in Action!

Settings Page of Easy Mentions Plugin

Update (9-2-2010): Easy Mentions Plugin v0.2 has been released with the following changes:

• Now the plugin can also link tags (use #tag)
• Added option to let the user to choose whether to link tags/users or not
• Added option to choose reply format
• Removed the Javascript file for public section, hard-coded the reply values
• Removed the use of jQuery from public section
• Updated Hindi Translation
• Updated Screenshots

Download: http://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/easy-mentions/

Changelog

• Added localization support! Please refer to this post to know how to contribute!
• Updated AtD/jQuery – Changelog
• Compatibility with login-less posting feature, which will be released in bbPress 1.1
• Compressed the JavaScript
• Added Other Notes & Upgrade Notice sections in Read Me
• The plugin now attaches itself to every text box on every page of your forums (but only for logged in users, or if the login-less posting feature is turned on, which will be introduced in bbPress 1.1)

Translations

• Hindi Translation by Gautam (me)

You can contribute by translating this plugin. Please refer to this post to know how to translate.

To Do

• Add ignore always option
• Add the option to let the user select ignore types
• Auto-Proofread if the user has forgotten to run the spellcheck

Thanks/Credits

• After the Deadline service by Mudge, Raphael S. Automattic
• jQuery Alert Dialogs Plugin by A Beautiful Site

Download: http://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/after-the-deadline/

The fixed plugin contains many changes like changing the deprecated function names in bbPress 1.0, fixing the issue of plugin not creating database table on activation, etc. To get the patched version, click the download link below.

Download it here

Note – This version is not compatible with bbPress 0.9. For bbPress 0.9.0.6 or lower, please download the 0.2.7 version from here.

Screenshots

bb Attachments - Upload Files

bb Attachments - Files in Post

If you face any issues with this fixed version, please ask your queries in the comments form below.

Here are the messages by Matt (from the meetup):

[21:26] photomatt: bbPress will definitely be a WP plugin
[21:26] photomatt: but don’t want to change the data structure decision until 1.2-ish
[21:26] photomatt: we owe users improvements before we rewrite data structures

Wait wait.. by the way, what are canonical plugins?

Quoting from the WordPress Blog:

Canonical plugins would be plugins that are community developed (multiple developers, not just one person) and address the most popular functionality requests with superlative execution. These plugins would be GPL and live in the WordPress.org repo, and would be developed in close connection with WordPress core. There would be a very strong relationship between core and these plugins that ensured that a) the plugin code would be secure and the best possible example of coding standards, and b) that new versions of WordPress would be tested against these plugins prior to release to ensure compatibility. There would be a screen within the Plugins section of the WordPress admin to feature these canonical plugins as a kind of Editor’s Choice or Verified guarantee. These plugins would be a true extension of core WordPress in terms of compatibility, security and support.

Well, if you ask me, it doesn’t matter whether it will be a plugin or a standalone. I just want to see the progress of bbPress going on and on.

So what is your opinion on this topic? Let us know by typing in your suggestions in the comments form below!