1. To my fellow forum-dependent buddypress admins: Since buddypress disables/omits the bbpress admin panel, I wanted to share a tip for how to change the number of topics per page/posts per thread:

Find the file bp-forums-templatetags.php, and edit the functions “bp_has_forum_topics” and “bp_has_forum_topic_posts”. Alternatively, I think you can pass arguments to these functions through the template files (I haven’t tried this, but it’s probably better than my awful approach of tinkering with existing bp functions). If you use a child theme (good for you), be sure to do this editing in your Child theme so the core BP files remain untouched!

I also encourage you to go check out rich!’s brand new “forum extras” plugin, which brings several key bbpress plugins into the BP environment:

http://buddypress.org/forums/topic/new-plugin-buddypress-group-forum-extras

2. To Andy and other committed developers: for a future release, would you consider enabling the bbpress admin panel or passing through the admin functions so that basic board settings can be changed and classic bbpress plugins can be enabled??

I know “forums” are old school… but a lot of existing communities out there are quite addicted to their forums, and the users really demand those features not included in the bbpress “skeleton”. If you search this forum, you’ll see that the alternatives are to run a separate bbpress install synced to BP (which seems to defeat the purpose of integration) or to hack in an admin panel (neither of M’s approaches worked for me, in terms of being able to activate plugins). If BP is going to integrate bbpress, I think it should go all the way and make it a functioning member of the BP society!

Thank you! Soapbox off!

[@mydesignbytes Participant 14 years, 9 months ago]

I second this!

[@boonebgorges Keymaster 14 years, 9 months ago]

I’d be curious to hear more about what people miss about the bbPress admin panel. If it’s about activating plugins, I’m afraid that access to bb-admin.php won’t do any good. If the plugin is compatible with BP, then you should be able to put it in the WP plugin dir and activate it. But chances are good that it won’t be, as BP and bbPress are very different at the level of the template. bbPress plugins, at least the ones that have big surface effects, need to be rewritten to some extent to be compatible.

If the purpose is group-independent forums, then I think that a far, far better solution is to rig up a way to have some groups “unlisted”, so that their forums, while still attached to groups, would seem group-free. Not entirely trivial, but easy enough, and far, far less overhead than an entirely separate installation of bbPress that has to be separately themed, etc.

Or is there something else about the bbPress admin panel I’m forgetting? I suppose it would be kinda nice to have a place to see all topics at a glance from the admin panel.

[@gregfielding Participant 14 years, 9 months ago]

I agree with Boone about having the option for some groups to be “unlisted”…

I’d like to see the ability to “feature” some forums as well above the others.

[@3sixty Participant 14 years, 9 months ago]

I’d be curious to hear more about what people miss about the bbPress admin panel. If it’s about activating plugins, I’m afraid that access to bb-admin.php won’t do any good. If the plugin is compatible with BP, then you should be able to put it in the WP plugin dir and activate it. But chances are good that it won’t be, as BP and bbPress are very different at the level of the template. bbPress plugins, at least the ones that have big surface effects, need to be rewritten to some extent to be compatible.

It was about activating plugins. At the time I wrote this post, I had no idea that the bbPress in BuddyPress was so different than the stand-alone bbPress. It’s clear now that the best approach is to adapt existing bbPress plugins to BuddyPress Forums, or write new ones.