bbPress is forum software built for WordPress. It focuses on ease of integration, ease of use, web standards, and speed. bbPress uses forums, topics, and replies as custom post types. It is designed to be simple, extendable via plugins, and compatible with WordPress themes. bbPress provides over 165 hooks for customization and is a popular option for building support forums and other community features.

1. bbPress 101
Jared Atchison

2. photo: archer10 (Dennis)

3. 5/19/12 3
Snitz Forums

4. YaBB

5. 5/19/12 5
YaBB SE

6. phpBB2

8. bbPress

9. bbPress (bbpress.org)

10. Not to be confused with

12. “bbPress is forum software, made the
WordPress way.
…
bbPress is focused on ease of integration,
ease of use, web standards, and speed.”
- bbPress.org

13. Simply said, bbPress is forum.
Also known as bulletin board and message boards.

14. A forum with a purpose.
1. Open Source, always and forever
2. Less (code) is more
3. Code is poetry
4. Simplicity is a feature
5. Speed & security are paramount to a great user
experience
Philosophy

15. photo: DG Jones

16. bbPress is simple (on purpose)
• What do you want in a forum?
• What do you need in a forum?
• Core vs plugins
• Examples: signatures, attachments,
advanced notifications, search, quotes
• bbPress is a solid foundation built to be
extended (like BuddyPress)

18. bbPress 0.72 - 1.x
STANDALONE
https://ma.tt/2004/12/bbpress/
http://bbpress.org/blog/2006/10/bbpress-072/

19. bbPress 2.0+
PLUGIN
https://bbpress.org/blog/2011/09/bbpress-2-0-now-available/

20. FREEDOM

21. bbPress 2.x (behind the scenes)
• Completely rewritten
• One of the most advanced examples of CPTs
• Loads of trickery (great learning example)
• Forums = CPT
• Topics (threads) = CPT
• Replies = CPT
• Topic tags = custom taxonomies

22. THREE CPTS? IS THAT
MADNESS?
5/19/12 22

23. Question

24. Answer

25. THEMES
photo: Julie Paradise1

26. Theme compatibility
It’s pretty darn good

31. Theme customizations: piece of cake
photo: mhaithaca

32. copy
/wp-content/plugins/bbpress/templates/default/css/bbpress.css
to
/wp-content/themes/{your-theme}/css/bbpress.css
CSS Tweaks? No problem.

33. Template or markup changes? You bet.
copy
/wp-content/plugins/bbpress/templates/default/bbpress/form-search.php
to
/wp-content/themes/{your-theme}/bbpress/form-search.php

34. DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS

35. Hooks and filters.
Everywhere.
165+ hooks in the default template
http://wordpress.org/plugins/bbpress-visual-hooks/

36. Documentation and
Coding Standards

37. Excellent learning platform
Makes you a better developer and excel with WordPress

38. Starting small is OK.
Dive in with bbPress plugins

39. Would you say there are a plethora of bbPress plugins?
(10+ pages on WordPress.org)

40. bbPress is a developers paradise

41. Doing big things
• Support forums
– https://easydigitaldownloads.com/support/
– http://support.advancedcustomfields.com/
• Comment replacement
• Voting

42. Jared Atchison
jaredatchison.com
@jaredatch