bbPress Usage Guide – Best Blog Forum Script

If you are a blogger and looking to run a discussion board along with your web blog, then you need to decide with the script which you should be using to get started.

You have mainly two options :
1. Get a New Domain and run the discussion forum
2. Install a forum script on your current blog’s domain name under a Sub-Folder or a Sub-Domain

Out of the above listed 2 options, i would recommend going for the 2nd option because in the first case you need to work completely from start and in the 2nd option you already have a blog which can have a forum as a added feature and you can instantly divert traffic to it. You can even bridge your blog & forum and make all your blog comments to be shown on the forum getting instant replies on your discussion board.

Selection of a Forum Script :
If you have got a good budget which would be in the range of 300$ then i would recommend you to go for Vbulletin Script along with Vbseo for complete search engine friendly features. If not you can check out other available free forum scripts like Phpbb, Simple Machines Forum, PunBB & bbPress. Again out of these i would recommend you to go for bbPress because of its simple and excellent features , rather than running scripts on which you need to spend hours even days for just configuring them in terms of designs, front end customization, search engine friendly URL etc

You just need to download the latest version of bbPress from the official download page and then follow the installation procedure.

Installation of bbPress :
Download the bbPress.zip file, Extract all the files and upload them to the folder where you want to install the forum, it can be a sub domain, sub folder or the main root folder itself which depends on your own choice. Access the folder where you have uploaded the files using a browser and complete the installation process, thats it you have started a discussion board within minutes without even investing a dollar.

Customizing bbPress Forum :
In order to make sure that the URL’s of all your threads and forums are Search Engine optimized ie friendly URL’s , you need to create a .htaccess file in the folder where you have uploaded the bbPress files. Then enter the following code in the .htaccess to make sure all the conditions run properly.

#Options MultiViews
#AddType application/x-httpd-php5 .php
# BEGIN BBPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /help/
Options MultiViews
</IfModule>
# END BBPress

You need to change the RewriteBase entry with the forum folder name where its installed. Once the above mod rewrite rules are set you need to hook into the General Settings tab under the Admin Interface and then under the ‘Pretty permalink type:’ select Name based …/forums/first-forum if you are looking for seo friendly URL’s. Here are few sample forum topics at our Help Desk created using bbpress which can give you a idea on how the URLs would look like.
How to build reader base
How to Prevent iframe Injection
How to Install WordPress Super Cache

Installing bbPress Plugins :
If you have used WordPress Blog CMS then iam sure you would have loved their plugins system where you browse for different plugins, download and upload to your Plugins folder and activate them. Its a simple and easy job to get excellent features. In the very same way in case of bbpress you need to look into the bbPress Plugins Browser, find the best plugins you would need like Anti-Spam, Member Advance Profiles, Tags related Plugins etc and then upload these extracted folders to bb-plugins folder under your forums root folder. Then login to the Admin Interface and activate these plugins to get them into working.

Setting up bbPress Themes :
The themes or designs function as works as simple as the plugins system works and for finding new themes you need to check out bbPress Showcase website where a huge number of beautiful themes are shown along with a preview link and download link. Select the best theme which you like after checking our a preview and then download it to your computer. Extract the folder from the zip file and upload it to bb-templates folder under your forums root folder and then access your bbPress Admin section. Under Designs>Themes section you will find all the themes which you have uploaded and you need to click on the thumbnail to directly activate a new bbPress design.

Adding Forums & Sub Forums :
In order to setup your new blog forum based on bbPress you need to login to your admin interface of bbPress and then look into the Manage > Forums section to find the default forum. Delete it and start creating different forums as per your needs in the Forum Management section. Its better to limit your Forums to a small number rather than going for a very high number because its recommend to start with limited forums and then waiting for the board to have a lot of topics after which you can add more Sub-forums and reassign the topics to them.

Integrating bbPress WordPress :
If you want to integrate your blog with your discussing board then its very important to make sure that both of your scripts are on the latest version. Then visit the Settings > WordPress Integration section of your bbPress forum admin. You need to enter the correct URL of your wordpress blog where its installed and then use this plugin which allows the users who are logged into your wordpress blogs to directly reply on your bbPress forum. In short its going to connect both of these scripts and make single logins for both to the users.

Best bbPress Plugins :
There are numerous plugins available for the bbPress based boards but i would like to recommend you a few – Human Test for bbPress, Hidden Forums, bbPress Attachments, Reputation (Karma) for bbPress, bbPress Smilies, bbPress Polls, bb Topic Views, Post Count Plus – Dynamic Titles, Colors & More!, BBcode Buttons, BBcode Lite for bbPress, Topic Icons, Report Post & Allow Images.

You can ask all your questions regarding bbPress Blog Forum Script using the below comment form or else at our Help Desk