WordPress.org

Alrighty, I’ve collated everything from the survey into the most popular requests, which you guys can now vote on, but only once. The votes aren’t necessarily determine what we work on first, but it’ll be good information to have.

What’s most important to you in bbPress 1.1?(polls)

Why WordPress? 21 of the WordPress Community Answer.

Twice now, the jQuery Podcast has mentioned that the jQuery project is going to migrate its online documentation from Mediawiki to WordPress. Which is pretty cool, because, I happen to like WordPress (duh). It’s also interesting, because when a lot of people build documentation websites, it’s pretty normal to choose a wiki. So, why would they want to switch an existing documentation resource from Mediawiki to WordPress?

One of the first factors is probably that the data in WordPress is more structured. In a wiki, you can add some structural information, but there’s not a lot of enforcement, and there’s only a few bits that help you with searching and such. Another factor is probably that it’s much easier to theme WordPress, so you can create custom page layouts depending on what type of content you are displaying. And lastly, I’d guess that ease of use plays a part. WordPress is very intuitive for many content management tasks.

This is also interesting in light of recent discussions started by Matt on the wp-hackers mailing list about the creation of a new Developer Portal. Many have stated that they think such a portal should itself be powered by WordPress. And with the recent addition of custom taxonomies and the upcoming improved support for custom post types, that certainly seems like a great project idea.

If there were to be a developer portal for WordPress, someplace where if
you’re first getting started with hacking on WP, building plugins,
creating themes, you could go and it’d have all the best resources in
one place, what resources do you think would be important to have there?

What do you wish you had when you first started developing for WordPress?

(Bonus points if it’s something that already exists, just scattered
around. )

I’m not an Information Architect, so I’m not sure how I’d go about it. I would probably examine other documentation sites and try to discern what made some better than others. How do you think you would organize a WordPress Developer Portal?

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It’s a question I’m sure everyone reading this post can answer and I’m willing to bet most of the answers are different. WPShout.com has compiled a list of answers from 21 notable people throughout the WordPress community to figure out why they choose to use WordPress. Here is my answer to the question:

The reason I chose WordPress is the same reason I continue to publish content through the software and that is through ease of use.

The publishing process in WordPress was simple when compared to Joomla or Drupal. The process is in a logical order and doesn’t provide 100 different things I should do before I actually hit the publish button. This process has been refined in the two years I’ve been using WordPress so it’s even better today!

Later on in the comments, there is one by Ozh that I whole heartily agree with.

Interesting to see how many different paths lead to the same WP

I have one question for those who have used WordPress for over a year. Is the initial reason you choose to go with WordPress the same reason you continue to use it today or has that reason changed? After you read their responses, feel free to come back and keep the conversation going in the comments.

To get started, here’s a short video from the meetup discussing some of the topics and 2.9. In the opening pan, you’ll see (L-R) Andrew Ozz, Mark Jaquith, Jane Wells, Peter Westwood, and Ryan Boren, followed by Matt Mullenweg as the first person talking. Tip: go full-screen in HD to feel like you were there.

Last week, I posted about the fact that Trac would be quiet for a few days while the core commit team met in person for the first time to talk about some goals for WordPress in the coming year. That prediction wound up being a little inaccurate, as having everyone together inspired a Trac sprint to get us closer to shipping 2.9. As of this morning there are only 11 tickets left against the 2.9 milestone. Yay! I’m sensing a Release Candidate in the near future.

I’d planned to write a summary post to encapsulate the discussions we had over our 3 day meetup, but to be honest, all-day (and night) every-day meetings creates a ton of things to summarize, and the post would be a novella. So instead of one long post, I’m going to split it up into a series and post a summary of the discussion on one or two topics per day until I’ve posted them all. Think of it like a WordPress advent calendar. For today’s post, enjoy the video above and I’ll list the topics we covered to give you an idea of what will be included in the upcoming summary posts.

Topics: Direction for the coming year(s), canonical plugins, social i18n for plugins, plugin salvage (like UDRP for abandoned plugins), WordPress/MU merge, default themes, CMS functionality (custom taxonomies, types, statuses, queries), cross-content taxonomy, media functions and UI, community “levels” based on activity, defining scope of releases, site menu management, communications within the community, lessons learned from past releases, mentorship programs, Trac issues, wordpress.org redesign, documentation, community code of conduct.

You can see why I didn’t want to try to cram it all into one post, right?

Just to make sure it’s clear in everyone’s minds, I want to reiterate that these discussions were just that: discussions. They were not secret meetings ending in hard and fast decisions. The idea was to 1) get the core commit team on the same page in order to improve workflow efficiency and communication, and 2) come out of the meetup with a long list of things we know we want to work on in the coming year, and from there to work with the broader community to determine priorities/strategies before starting the work of getting it all done. As I finish off 2009 by posting summaries of the meetup conversations, I hope you’ll all plan to start 2010 with enthusiastic participation in one or more of the projects that will take these conservations from concept to reality.

Sunflower Bloom

Two column theme based on the default WordPress theme. Also available are four other themes on the page.

Punchcut

A clean and versatile theme featuring two gorgeous fonts, hand crafted social icons, and a theme options page.

Patagonia

Patagonia is a clean and seo optimized wordpress theme with Theme Options. Patagonia Theme supports Tag clouds, categories, dynamic widgets, gravatars.

Tandil

Tandil is a very good looking WordPress theme with theme options.

ScrapBook

ScrapBook is a WordPress Theme with two Sidebars, 120 and 200 pixel wide, ideal for Adsense. There is also an Option Page to populate the Footer. Page in German

Sorry for being quiet around here, I’ve been doing a ton of writing for other places. One went live today, Untitled as part of PHP Advent 2009. Since there are no comments on the site, I’ll accept them here.

You can now Post and Read WordPress.com via Twitter API, which was a pretty fun project. Everything doesn’t work yet because in some ways we’re overloading the Twitter API but it’s 90% of the way there to something really cool, and some relatively minor adjustments to the clients like Seesmic and Tweetdeck can make this a really nice experience.

New Plugins

Flood Defender

This plugin prevents commenters to repetitively post comments into a post. Once a comment shows up (must be approved), the commenter will not be able to post another comment below it – he/she will have to wait until someone else posts another comment.

Style Box

Create a Styled Note box, Alert box, Help box, Tip Box, Important Box in your posts using classes.

iRobots.txt SEO (IRSEO)

A fully customizable robots.txt virtual file generator. IRSEO creates a highly optimized and secure robots.txt file straight out of the box. Users may choose to enable or disable specific user agents, directories or files using intuitive options, all of which include detailed instructions.

Updated Plugins

WP Archive-Sitemap Generator

Generates simple Archives/Sitemap based on your blogs posts and pages. This is not another XML sitemap plugin, but rather a nice post sitemap or page sitemap generator. Now user can show total comments count after posts.

Twitter Goodies

This plugin will show your twitter tweets under Sidebar Area (Widget), Post and/or Pages. Please add <!–wp_twitter_goodies–> to any page/post under HTML section to see awesome Twitter Goodies.

WatchCount.com

Allows you to display Most Popular eBay items and auctions in real-time, directly on your blog. You can also display eBay items from any particular seller

Smart Archives Reloaded

An elegant and easy way to present your posts on a single page.

Google Maps Store Locator

Google Maps Store Locator Plugin for WordPress empowers web developers & web site owners to easily manage and display any set of important stores, products, or other locations on their website in an easily searchable manner.

Grooveshark for WordPress

Grooveshark for Wordpress v1.2.0 is now available for download. The latest version includes optimizations for existing plugin features as well as new features you can use to turn your wordpress blog into a fully integrated online jukebox.

Back at the end of October, What Is The Immediate Future Of bbPress was the question being asked around the bbPress community. Matt had published a thread asking this very question and was also soliciting help to move the project along.

On December 9th, Matt published the chat log to the first bbPress meetup that occurred in the bbPress IRC channel. The attendees were made up of folks who volunteered to keep the project going. Here are some of the tidbits I learned while reading the archive.

There was a great debate amongst those in attendance on whether to continue bbPress as a standalone product, a dedicated plugin, or both. As far as I can tell, a concrete decision has not been made but quite a few leaned towards making an awesome bbPress plugin.

bbPress will become a registered trademark under the WordPress Foundation.

One of the biggest weaknesses of bbPress right now is documentation. Therefor, a documentation team has been put together comprised of Tom39Away, pmall, justintadlock, and Nightgunner5. For the first time, access to the bbPress.org website will be given to outsiders such as the documentation team.

Hajii who has been a long time moderator on the bbPress.org forums will be putting together a state of the forums where he will be stating where the forum needs help the most. If you’ve been looking at being more active on this particular forum, keep an eye out for the announcement for more moderators.

I was wondering when the name _ck_ would be mentioned which it was 37 minutes into the meeting. For those that don’t know, _ck_ was a very active bbPress contributor by being a forum moderator, producing a number of bbPress plugins and was recently brought on by Sam Bauers to help out with the project. But, after Sam left, _ck_ also left. There is some controversy as to why she left the project but Matt himself said he was surprised to find out she left the project.

I was very surprised when _ck_ left, I hadn’t heard anything from her like an email or anything — anyone know the story there?

Everyone took a stab at guessing why she left but the only one who really knows is _ck_. She had a loyal following and many in the bbPress community enjoyed her contributions.

The next big topic was plugins. There are many plugins for bbPress that only work up to 0.9. It looks like there will be a survey published on the bbPress.org blog in the coming days asking users what type of functionality they would like to see in the software which would not only generate core functionality ideas, but plugin ideas as well.

It’s also worth mentioning this information as well.

hajii: yes and to clarify just like wordpress.org, bbPress is not owned or operated by Automattic, it’s separate. Just because I saw a lot of people conflating them in the forums.

I own bbPress.org just like WordPress.org — separate from Automattic — and the plan is to run it in the same fashion. We’ll register the bbPress trademark under the pending foundation

Last but not least, the survey I mentioned previously has since gone online. The poll focuses on ideas and features that you think should be in 1.1.

So in the end, Matt is spearheading the project once again as he did when he created the software over a weekend back in 2004. In fact, this Christmas, bbPress will turn five years old. If you are interested in being a part of this renaissance, now would be a good time to head on over to the bbPress.org forums and make your presence known.

If you visited my site in the last 9 hours and found it displaying nothing but an error message, my apologies. It’s part of the danger of running my site out of the WordPress SVN trunk (i.e., beta code), and taking advantage of new features.

My site automatically pulls in the latest code changes from SVN at midnight. And it seems that sometime yesterday, all of the post_image_* functions were renamed to post_thumbnail_*, and I failed to wrap one of my function calls with function_exists() protection. So from midnight until about 9:00am, my site was bombing out with a fatal call to a non-existent function. Oops!

Anyhow, I’ve fixed it (and added in the protective wrapper), so things are back to normal now.

Oh, and all of you who have written tutorials about how to use the new post thumbnail features in your themes? Time to rewrite them.

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If you have some ideas about what features should be in 1.1 take this survey and let me know. The survey is open until Saturday, and then on Monday will put up a poll for people to vote on what they like. I’ll share the results at the next IRC meetup on Wednesday. Update: Thanks to everyone who voted in the poll, it’s closed now.

Spyware: Spyware is software that gathers information about a computer user, often without that person’s knowledge or consent. Spyware watches what users do with their computers (such as what websites they visit), and sends that information back to a central location (usually the company that produced the spyware). This information is often given to other companies, who then target the user for their advertisements. Especially bad spyware can gather information about email addresses, passwords, and even credit card information and transmit it to other companies. Spyware is often installed as bundled software. Under StopBadware.org’s guidelines, spyware is considered badware if it does not tell the user about the data that it will collect and how it will use that data.

I started using WordPress back around version 2.2 in 2007. Shortly after, WordPress 2.3 was released. This version of WordPress introduced the pre-cursor to automatic plugin upgrades in the form of plugin upgrade notifications. I thought this was an awesome feature but some in the community raised their eyebrows as they discovered the type of data that was being sent from WordPress to API.WordPress.org. Apparently, it was more than just version numbers. You can view the debate that took place around the privacy issues in September of 2007 here along with the corresponding ticket in Trac which has since been reopened by a community member.

Fast forward two years later and the privacy concerns have been raised again. Here is the data that WordPress sends back to API.WordPress.ORG in order to check for plugin, theme and core upgrades.

• Your IP
• Blog URL
• WordPress version
• PHP version
• Locale setting if there is one
• Plugin title, description, author – including all URL’s that form part of this.
• Full list of all plugins on your site, whether they are active or not.

This happens every 12 hours or when you load the plugin page if its been over 12 hours. The sticky point that some folks are arguing is that, the Blog URL should not be part of the information sent back rather just the IP address or some other unique identifier.

Matt has chimed in on the issue of disabling update checks with a response on the WordPress Hackers Mailing list that you can read here. Disabling update checks is a bad idea. It’s not the version number checks that are the problem, it’s the Blog URL that goes along with the checks that is the problem.

The WordPress.org privacy policy does mention that the WordPress software performs checks to API.WordPress.org to look for new versions of WordPress and plugins. However, the privacy policy does not go into detail into what information is sent from the WordPress software back to api.wordpress.org.

It would be in good faith to outline this information in the privacy policy so everyone is on the same page. It’s also good PR. Not doing so just stirs the rumor mill and leaves people asking more questions.

While there are plugins available that disable the ability for WordPress to phone home, one of the best ideas proposed thus far is by Chris Jean.

To me, the only solution for plugin updates is for the server to send what it has since any other option would be highly inefficient or very error prone. So, why not add the ability for a plugin to opt out of having its information included in the update request? This should only require a minimal change to the update code and won’t require any changes to the update servers.

I know other software programs give the end-user a chance to opt-in to data collection/usage statistics but with WordPress, it appears you opt in when you install and use the program and the software does not provide a way of opting out. Some have mentioned that the plugins which strip out the identifying information are equal to an opt-out mechanism but I disagree. When you think about it, the only thing a WordPress powered website needs to send for core, theme, and plugin updates are the version numbers. Everything else just makes up the bigger picture.

It’s pretty simple to me what needs to happen but all of the proposals thus far have met strong opposition that anything is wrong with the way things are currently.

There needs to be disclosure to users of WordPress as they install the software so that they know upfront that their site will be sending data back to the mothership. Most software ships with a long EULA that users agree to by check marking a box. I think it might be time for WordPress to have a page added to the install process but instead of the EULA, make it the WordPress privacy policy. This policy would outline what data is collected, how often its collected, what the intended use of the data is, etc.

Check marking the box would signify that the end-user has opted-in to the data being sent home. No check mark means that the end-user has opted-out. Opting out should not put those users at risk by not receiving plugin, core, theme upgrade notifications so the process of opting out means that only version numbers of those three things will be sent. If someone wanted to opt-in at a later date, the option could be added to the Privacy Options page in the backend of WordPress.

Thoughts, Ideas, Suggestions

I don’t think WordPress is anywhere close to being spyware but according to the definition of the term by StopBadWare.org, WordPress seems to perform a few of the things mentioned.

I think it’s easy to shrug off the privacy concerns that are being raised and call those people paranoid but the points I’ve seen being made for the ability to opt-out have been pretty good. I encourage you to continue the conversation here in the comments or in the following forum thread.

I happened to be poking around in my database a while ago, particularly in the WordPress ‘options’ table for this blog. There’s an awful lot of cruft hanging around from old plugins that I don’t use anymore. I cleaned a few things out, but something hit me as I was perusing all those options: I can’t always tell which options belong(ed) to which plugins, themes, or to the WordPress core.

In many cases, plugin authors tag the option names in a way that you can figure it out. For example, Alex King’s Twitter Tools plugin uses a prefix of aktt_ on all of its options. And many other plugin authors similarly use a prefix of some sort that identifies the author and/or plugin. But it’s very inconsistent.

I would like to suggest a formal namespacing scheme which might help with option management in the future. The option_name field is a VARCHAR(64), so there’s plenty of room for creativity in option naming. Also, there are not really any tangible restrictions on what characters can be used, though most of us tend to stick with identifers that would be legal variable names when programming.

My suggestion for a format is: area:plugin-slug:option-name
Where area is one of core, plugin, or theme (any others that should be separate?). The plugin-slug is the same as the slug used in the Plugin Repository or Theme Repository. For core options, the slug can be ‘_wp_’ for normal options or ‘_trans_’ for transient options, or they might even be broken down in to sub-areas (‘general’, ‘writing’, ‘discussion’, etc.). For backwards compatibility as names are changed to the new format, core options could go through a deprecation phase where they keep the old names, but the get_option functions could be modified to check for the new names first, then fall back to the old.

Using Twitter Tools as an example again, the aktt_last_tweet_download option could be named plugin:twitter-tools:last_tweet_download. The core option rss_excerpt_length would become core:_wp_:rss_excerpt_length.

Advantages:

• Finding and deleting options based on their source would become easy. Need to get rid of some leftover options related to the Shazbot theme that you deleted? DELETE FROM $wp->options WHERE option_name LIKE "theme:shazbot:%"
• New standard option areas and slugs can easily be added in the future while retaining organization.
• Less chance of namespace collisions between various plugins and themes.

Disadvantages:

• Added complexity. Coders need to remember to use the new naming scheme, use new option get/set functions which take extra namespacing parameters, or we need to migrate to some sort of universal OOP plugin/theme frameworks in order to enforce consistency.
• Plugins with longer names get less flexibility with the actual option_name. For example ‘plugin:all-in-one-seo-pack:’ has already eaten up 27 characters which leaves 37 characters for the specific option name. Still not bad, but there might be cases where it could cause problems.
• Without core buy-in, unlikely to to be utilized by the general plugin/theme codign community.

Other Notes:

Backwards compatibility for core options should be easy, for the most part. I am unaware of any code in the wild using the ‘foo:bar:baz’ format for option names, so collisions with existing plugins is unlikely. The current get_option() function can be modified to match $setting against a regular expression to see if the setting being fetched is namespaced. If so, but the option isn’t found, un-namespace it, and look again. If the setting is not namespaced, and it’s not found, try looking for ‘core:_wp_:$setting’ as a last resort. This behavior could be in place for a few version releases, then deprecated later.

Also, as mentioned on the wp-hackers mailing list, current “best practice” is for a plugin or theme to wrap multiple options up into an array, and save it as a single entry. In some ways, that in itself helps mitigate some of the options table clutter. But a consistent naming standard, if followed by enough developers, would make things even cleaner. And there are certain use-cases where it still makes sense to keep multiple separate options.

While I don’t really expect this idea to become part of core, I wanted to put it out in the wild for discussion. At the very least, we might be able to come up with some more solid “best practices” that can be documented on the WordPress Codex.

You can learn more about how to build options pages for your plugins, and how to deal with options cleanly from these two excellent articles:

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We just had our first ever IRC meetup for the new bbPress, here are the logs, sorry if they’re a little rough. If you’d like to join in next time check out the Getting Involved page.

[13:01] <photomatt_sf> alrighty -- <meetup>
[13:01] <hajii> dan milward == wp-ecommerce
[13:01] <Ryan_> San is the WP e-Commerce developer
[13:01] <Ryan_> *San = Dan
[13:02] <Michael_Rockett> I see - thanks
[13:02] <jjj> What's the first topic on the list of things to tackle?
[13:02] <photomatt_sf> well first up could everyone who's present introduce themselves?
[13:03] <jjj> John James Jacoby - Core contributor for BuddyPress from Miami, FL
[13:03] <Ryan_> Ryan Hellyer from PixoPoint.com. I don't have a lot of experience with bbPress but made a theme generator for it about a year ago. It's never worked as well as I'd like and I'm working on a new improved version now.
[13:03] <hajii> chrishajer, bbpress.org moderator
[13:03] <photomatt_sf> I'm Matt Mullenweg, and I'm working on bbPress.org-the-website and hope to help organize some new momentum for the core software
[13:03] <justintadlock> Justin Tadlock here. You know, of justintadlock.com fame, of course.
[13:03] <hajii> of course
[13:03] <hajii>
[13:03] <photomatt_sf> haha
[13:03] <pmall> Pete Mall - WordPress puts food on my table
[13:03] <Michael_Rockett> I'm Michael - pretty much new to bbPress. I'd like to contribute any any way I can - preferably in the visual/design area. My coding knowldge is not good enough to do much more. I will, however, learn in the future.
[13:03] <andrewpowers> hey I've seen your site
[13:04] <jjj> Justin who?
[13:04] <andrewpowers> (justintadlock)
[13:04] <tom_> Tom de Bruin - been using bbPress for about a year.
[13:04] <jjj>
[13:04] <benhuson> Ben Huson from Camber, UK. Use WordPress a lot to develop bespoke sites - plugins and themes. Implemented bbPress a couple of times.
[13:04] <hajii> michael rockett are you Michael888 at bbpress.org?
[13:04] <Michael_Rockett> @Ryan_: Sounds interesting - I'd love to see the developments of that.
[13:04] <andrewpowers> Andrew Powers from Pagelines
[13:04] <Michael_Rockett> @hajii: Yes I am
[13:04] <hajii> 10:4
[13:04] <andrewpowers> how the heck do you create link?
[13:05] <photomatt_sf> alrighty, anyone else want to jump in?
[13:05] <Ryan_> @Michael - http://pixopoint.com/products/bbpress-forum-theme-generator/
[13:05] <andrewpowers> "Everything you need to know about WordPress 2.9’s post image feature
[13:05] <andrewpowers> Everything you need to know about WordPress 2.9’s post image feature" Good article Justin
[13:05] <jjj> photomatt_sf, I'd like to talk about whether to merge into WP or keep a separate platform.
[13:06] <Michael_Rockett> @Ryan_: Very nice - I will look at it in the morning. Thanks and good work, great site.
[13:06] <jjj> Seems there's pros/cons in both directions, and WP can't completely facilitate this until the post-types are readily available.
[13:06] <photomatt_sf> okay, let's make that the first topic
[13:06] <photomatt_sf> and give it a time limit of until 1:20 as a hard break
[13:06] <hajii> 21:20
[13:07] <Ryan_> I don't think there is a problem with post-types, the standard WP post types could be used until more suitable ones are available (bearing in mind I'm somewhat of a PHP moron)
[13:07] <justintadlock> I'm all for making bbPress a plugin and using a "forum" post type. We could use this as a launchpad to see what we need in WP to make post types work better.
[13:07] <Ryan_> Then convert everthing over when most suitable post type setup is available.
[13:07] <hajii> I will speak from the perspective of people. new people, coming to bbpress.org, since I see all the questions
[13:07] <jjj> Ryan_, the problem would be with categorizing the data and making sure WP doesn't think topics are posts.
[13:07] <photomatt_sf> my opinion: let's put it on the roadmap
[13:07] <jjj> ^topics are blog posts
[13:07] <photomatt_sf> I think to get things moving we should focus on a 1.1
[13:07] <Michael_Rockett> I think that bbPress should be available both as a standalone package (for those who do not use WP, but want a forum on an already established site) as well as a plugin/merge-package for WP.
[13:08] <jjj> photomatt_sf, good strategy
[13:08] <photomatt_sf> that fixes current problems, and maybe adds one hook feature like email notifications
[13:08] <photomatt_sf> show the community bbPress is still alive
[13:08] <photomatt_sf> and helps existing users
[13:08] <hajii> many/most people want integration, and to them, that means they want the theme to look the same, and they want users to log in one time, and they want access to WordPress function (but that's only because they aren't running as a plugin)
[13:08] <photomatt_sf> then 1.2 we can focus on new folks, which to me the best strategy is WP integration
[13:08] <tom_> and we need a 'lost username' feature in 1.1
[13:09] <hajii> I can count on one hand the number of people who want a /standalone/ forum, separate from wordpress
[13:09] <andrewpowers> Are people who aren't using WordPress really using BBpress for their sites?
[13:09] <Ryan_> @Michael_Rockett - If bbPress were a plugin, it could still be used purely for standalone forums, it would just happen to be powerwed by WordPress
[13:09] <photomatt_sf> we can do much better integration without redoing all the data structure
[13:09] <photomatt_sf> so I don't know if we should "couple" those tasks
[13:09] <photomatt_sf> (btw we'll do a hard stop for the meetup at 2pm)
[13:09] <Ryan_> I worked on a bbPress site recently which was not using WordPress at all. But that's not really a problem since they could just upgrade to a WP bbPress plugin when/if it became avaialble.
[13:10] <justintadlock> @Ryan_ Agreed. The few folks that actually use it as standalone forums typically have things such as site pages too.
[13:10] <andrewpowers> Could we think about a WP plugin that would inject some BBPress specific information into a WP header?
[13:10] <benhuson> I mentioned in email the possibility to have a checkbox on WordPress install which could essentially auto-install the bbPress plugin - that would esssentially be a bbPress install. Possibility?
[13:10] <andrewpowers> We've had to hack our WP themes to account for being integrated with BBpress
[13:10] <hajii> I would vote for plugin, so you can leverage the themes that are already done. People don't want to make their own themes, they want to use WordPress themes that are already out there
[13:11] <photomatt_sf> andrewpowers: yep
[13:11] <Ryan_> There's a lot of stuff in WordPress which would automatically become available with no effort if the two were combined.
[13:11] <photomatt_sf> that's more along the lines of my [bbpress] shortcode idea
[13:11] <hajii> shortcodes for bbpress would be great
[13:11] <photomatt_sf> [bbpress tag="akismet-plugin"]
[13:11] <benhuson> @hajii - Yes, I think being able to benefit from existing wordpress theme would be a huge asset
[13:11] <photomatt_sf> [bbpress forum="newbies"]
[13:11] <andrewpowers> It would be a simple plugin to build
[13:11] <jjj> Without going off topic too much, why did bbpress come about in the first place photomatt_sf? Since it is so similar to WP, what was the motivation? Why not just have it be part of WP in the first place? Easier to develop as a standalone maybe?
[13:11] Nightgunner5 Agrees with photomatt_sf's bbpress idea
[13:11] <Michael_Rockett> @Ryan_: Considering that there is plenty integration with most WP and bbPress users, you're right. Matt, what do you think the chances of a standalone forum existing as well as a WP merger?
[13:11] <photomatt_sf> hajii: to clarify, I'm not saying shortcodes for bbPress, but a bbPress shortcode for WP
[13:11] <justintadlock> I've got tons of users that want to use bbPress, but they want to be able to do all the same stuff as they do with WP (theme-wise).
[13:12] <photomatt_sf> this assumes that you can drop bbP as a plugin in WP
[13:12] <tom_> A unified user profile page is required, with forum history, etc.
[13:12] <hajii> right, I knew and should have said that
[13:12] <jjj> tom_, that's where BuddyPress probably comes in.
[13:12] <Ryan_> @MichaelRockett - why would you want a standalone system? Once merged, WP would be the standalone system, you would just need a plugin to convert it.
[13:12] <Nightgunner5> What if bbPress would work both ways - a standalone forum and a plugin?
[13:12] <photomatt_sf> tom_: that's an interesting question -- do we need profiles to be a dependency?
[13:12] <jjj> I think when people hear forum, they assume some kind of profile system exists.
[13:13] <pmall> jjj: +!
[13:13] <CIA-14> bbPress Plugins: Nightgunner5 * r2573 /bbpress-moderation-suite/ (7 files in 5 dirs): Release 0.1-rc1. It's been forever since I said I would. Props Ben (not me) - http://wp.me/pvLZ6-M#comment-83
[13:13] <justintadlock> Why not have a specific "user.php" template that handles profiles?
[13:13] <Ryan_> It would be weird if you were just installing WordPress to use as a forum and you had to add a shortcode just to make a forum.
[13:13] <photomatt_sf> me too, but I look at my profile usually purely for tracking things I've participated in
[13:13] <Nightgunner5> We have profile.php
[13:13] <photomatt_sf> if I got email notifications I probably wouldn't look at it at all
[13:13] <photomatt_sf> all of the information in a profile could be a 100px square popup
[13:14] <Ryan_> Ick, popups are awful!
[13:14] <jjj> But other forum software use profiles as a way to quickly see their activity on the site, and some basic info about who they are.
[13:14] <Michael_Rockett> @Ryan_: There are some, like me, who want to have a standalone community forum.
[13:14] <Ryan_> It would need to work just like other forum softwares IMO.
[13:14] <justintadlock> @Nightgunner5 - And WP uses author.php, so users have two different pages, essentially.
[13:14] <hajii> @Ryan_ it would be weird, but right now bbPress meets the needs of like 1% of users instead of 99%. as a plugin I think it would meet more, at least based on feedback at bbpress.org
[13:14] <jjj> Not just from MY perspective, but me looking at another user, their reputation, time registered, etc...
[13:14] <photomatt_sf> Ryan_: really? I like how intensedebate and disqus do it
[13:15] <Nightgunner5> justintadlock: WP author.php shows the posts from the blog, bb profile.php shows topics, posts, and general information
[13:15] <hajii> I like @justintadlock's idea for using page templates
[13:15] * DJPaul (n=DJPaul@host86-161-186-114.range86-161.btcentralplus.com) has joined #bbpress
[13:15] <Ryan_> Intense debate and Disquis are not very popular for a reason. Plus there needs to be a way for users to display it as per other forums.
[13:16] <Ryan_> Suggestion: (1) Install WP; (2) Install bbPress plugin; (3) user choose either to turn entire WP install into a big fat forum OR uses a shortcode.
[13:16] <photomatt_sf> Ryan_: they're more popular than bbPress right now
[13:16] <hajii> @rynan, that's interesting
[13:16] <hajii> would that #3 come after installing the plugin?
[13:16] <jjj> ryan_, I can't think of an instance where I've ever needed either of those though. Not to say I couldn't make a reason.
[13:16] <justintadlock> @Nightgunner5 - Only if you've written posts. Themes handle how this information is displayed for users without posts as well.
[13:16] * aufumy (n=anonymou@d75-157-133-111.bchsia.telus.net) has joined #bbpress
[13:17] <Ryan_> I think most themers will get grumpy if they can't style their profile pages how they like though. Although I guess you could fairly easily custom build everything into the theme and bypass the built in popup idea.
[13:17] <Michael_Rockett> This is why we should leave options open. Word would need to get out that bbPress is available as a standablone product, whilst it can be downloaded as a plugin for WP.
[13:17] <hajii> I disagree with standalone
[13:17] <Michael_Rockett> Completely?
[13:17] <hajii> completely disagree
[13:17] <andrewpowers> Me too.
[13:17] <andrewpowers> I agree with Chris
[13:17] <hajii> I think it should be an awesome plugin
[13:18] <hajii> what are the top 3 complaints from people coming to bbPress?
[13:18] <hajii> not developers, users
[13:18] <Ryan_> Wouldn't the standalone just be WordPress with a plugin auto-activated? That would be like downloading BuddyPress already packaged with WordPress.
[13:18] <hajii> ahh, interesting
[13:18] <photomatt_sf> hajii: there are two audiences, people we have now, and people who have never considered us
[13:18] <Ryan_> @Haijj - lack of features.
[13:18] <andrewpowers> Leverage WPs momentum.
[13:18] <photomatt_sf> the reason I made bbPress and WP separate
[13:18] <jjj> I don't think it's a good idea to force any one platform to require the others.
[13:18] <Ryan_> However, lack of features is a feature in itself. And many of those features already come pre-packaged with WP.
[13:19] <photomatt_sf> was at the time WP just powered part of your site
[13:19] <hajii> @Ryan, that's a good one too. Nothing bundled, everything plugin, and plugin dev has stopped
[13:19] <justintadlock> @hajii - Complaints from bbPress users: 1) No theme integration. 2) No email option for threads (though I point out the RSS feed). 3) Want to use WP functionality such as widgets.
[13:19] <photomatt_sf> so you'd have different software on different parts
[13:19] <tom_> realistically there's a lot of standalone forums out there, why try and take market share from them when the main selling feature is its WP integration?
[13:19] <andrewpowers> There is no point in competing with the well-developed *stand-alone* forums
[13:19] <jjj> photomatt_sf, I still like that idea the best.
[13:19] <photomatt_sf> now people use WP for their entire domain, and want everything to plug in without hacking around
[13:19] <hajii> @jjj - which?
[13:19] <photomatt_sf> even something as simple as google analytics code, people use a plugin to put it in their theme
[13:19] <hajii> you can have a blog and a site now, with WordPress
[13:19] <photomatt_sf> because that means they can switch themes without having to re-code everything
[13:20] <pmall> 1:20
[13:20] <photomatt_sf> thanks pmall
[13:20] <photomatt_sf> to close I think everyone should check out
[13:20] <hajii> I agree, main selling point is integration with WordPress
[13:20] <Michael_Rockett> @tom_: You have a strong point. It's probably best to stick with the merger.
[13:20] <photomatt_sf> our competition in the WP piece
[13:20] <photomatt_sf> which is simple:press
[13:21] <andrewpowers> Full agreement with Chris
[13:21] <photomatt_sf> http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tags/forum
[13:21] <Ryan_> SimplePress is a good idea, unfortunately poorly executed
[13:21] <photomatt_sf> huh, haven't seen this until just now: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/embed-bbpress/
[13:21] <hajii> @Ryah_ +1, execution
[13:21] <andrewpowers> simplepress isn't great.
[13:21] <justintadlock> SimplePress is really no competition if bbPress becomes a plugin.
[13:21] <photomatt_sf> http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wpforum/
[13:22] <photomatt_sf> justintadlock: agreed, but today the integration pieces you point out are more important to people
[13:22] <photomatt_sf> I meet folks all the time that use one of the embedded plugins instead af bbPress for that reason alone
[13:22] <justintadlock> Me too.
[13:22] <pmall> that is why bbPress needs to be a plugin
[13:22] <photomatt_sf> but let's move on
[13:23] <photomatt_sf> I have a topic: bbpress.org
[13:23] <hajii> function ebb_activate_shortcode() { add_shortcode( 'EmbedBBpress', 'ebb_embeding_the_object' ); }
[13:23] <photomatt_sf> I know a redesign will sex it up and everyone wants that
[13:23] <photomatt_sf> but what do you guys is most important *functionality-wise* to make it more effective
[13:23] <justintadlock> bbPress.org - We need a Codex first.
[13:23] <hajii> how about making it accurate?
[13:23] <jjj> +1 codex
[13:23] <Nightgunner5> Codex
[13:23] <andrewpowers> Documentation
[13:23] <pmall> agreed... the current look and feel is 'dated' -> scraems like a dead project
[13:24] <Ryan_> If bbPress becomes a WP plugin, then perhaps the plugins should be stored in the WP plugin repo?
[13:24] <tom_> there needs ot be very clear distinction about which plugins work in 0.9 and 1.0
[13:24] <hajii> I don't mind the look so much, but the information is inaccurate
[13:24] <justintadlock> Second, updated design.
[13:24] <Michael_Rockett> I think that the front page should be more interactive. +Themes browser.
[13:24] <photomatt_sf> justintadlock: when you say codex, is the important bit that we use mediawiki like WP or that we have lots of people editing it, or that ANYONE can edit it
[13:24] <pmall> model it after wp.org?
[13:24] * nicolagreco (n=nicolagr@151.54.95.92) has joined #bbpress
[13:24] <photomatt_sf> (because we hate and struggle with mediawiki on wp.org)
[13:24] <Nightgunner5> Ryan_: BuddyPress has its own repository
[13:24] <Ryan_> @Nightgunner5 - Good point.
[13:24] <Michael_Rockett> @pmall: I have already designed something like that - problem is that wp.org will change soon and bbPress should not look like something old. Matt pointed this out in our emails.
[13:24] <jjj> More powerful search is a good functionality for bbPress to have also.
[13:25] <Nightgunner5> photomatt_sf: I think the BuddyPress codex is a nice example of what it should be
[13:25] <hajii> I think more information and accurate information is more important than sprucing up design
[13:25] <andrewpowers> what is the best 'wiki' software out there?
[13:25] <photomatt_sf> bbpress.org is just a WP site, so trusted people could be give access to edit pages
[13:25] <justintadlock> I like how anyone can edit it as on WP, but I'm all for using a different system. There at least needs to be a way for some people to update the documentation.
[13:25] <Ryan_> Perhaps use Instinct.co.nz's WP Wiki plugin instead?
[13:25] <hajii> Michael888 - I liked your design but understand the part about wp.org going with a new design
[13:25] <jjj> Custom post-types will spice up the ability to use WordPress as a Wiki also.
[13:25] <justintadlock> I think documentation is the worst aspect of the entire project right now, so any ideas in that direction would be fine.
[13:26] <jjj> With custom taxonomy clouds and categories to relate the data.
[13:26] <hajii> +! @justintadlock
[13:26] <Michael_Rockett> @hajii: Matt mentioned something about it in the emails.
[13:26] <Nightgunner5> photomatt_sf: Why not have a WP blog integrated with the wp/bb/trac user system?
[13:26] <hajii> +1
[13:26] <photomatt_sf> we don't need a wiki plugin though if there's just a few of us working on it and talking on bbdev or forums about it
[13:26] <hajii> I don't think wiki is a good idea
[13:26] <hajii> for bbpress.org
[13:27] <Michael_Rockett> Niether do I - maybe when it's bigger and more popular.
[13:27] <Ryan_> If the WP codex is not the preferred route to doing things. Then maybe bbPress.org could be used as the testing ground for a new system?
[13:27] <andrewpowers> how do you stay on top of it without a wiki?
[13:27] <photomatt_sf> perhaps a good way to couch it is -- who wants to be on the documentation team?
[13:27] <jjj> codex.buddypress.org just uses another MU blog.
[13:27] <tom_> i would do some documentation.
[13:27] <Ryan_> If not a Wiki, then how do we improve documentation? Perhaps write a blog post requesting article submissions?
[13:27] <pmall> photomatt_sf: I'll volunteer
[13:28] <justintadlock> I'll be a part of the documentation team.
[13:28] <nicolagreco> i think the bp.org site is a good solution for the bb site
[13:28] <Nightgunner5> photomatt_sf: Me too
[13:28] <Ryan_> @Nicola - BuddyPress.org or bbPress.org?
[13:28] <photomatt_sf> that sounds like a good team: Tom39Away, pmall, justintadlock, and Nightgunner5
[13:28] <hajii> better than one person, I think
[13:28] <Tom39Away> uh?
[13:28] <Michael_Rockett> I can probably get involved with that - though not 'in-too-deep'
[13:29] <photomatt_sf> Tom39Away: sorry meant tom_
[13:29] <nicolagreco> the buddypress site is a good example i meant
[13:29] <hajii> he was PUSHED
[13:29] <hajii> heh
[13:29] <Michael_Rockett> 1:10
[13:29] <photomatt_sf> doc team: I can give you guys access to the site
[13:29] <photomatt_sf> there are no access controls beyond built-in WP stuff yet
[13:29] <photomatt_sf> so please don't put porn everywhere
[13:29] <nicolagreco> ahah
[13:29] <tom_>
[13:30] <Michael_Rockett>
[13:30] <hajii> @matt, I'd like access too, since I get a lot of requests along the line of "why don't you fix this" at bbpress.org
[13:30] <Nightgunner5> Two of the top searches for my wp.com site are about 404s
[13:30] <photomatt_sf> could you each let me know your bbpress.org usernames?
[13:30] <Nightgunner5> bbpress pretty permalinks gives me a 404 error and 404 permalink errors bbpress
[13:30] <Nightgunner5> Nightgunner5
[13:30] <jjj> Only put porn in *some* places is what he's saying.
[13:30] <nicolagreco> if you need help (as i've done for bp i'm here) and i can't have access to porn giving that i'm not of age yet..
[13:30] <justintadlock> bbPress username - greenshady
[13:30] <photomatt_sf> hajii: this is just editor access, can't change templates or file stuff
[13:30] <tom_> bbP: tomdebruin
[13:30] <hajii> bbpress.org chrishajer if you'll have me
[13:30] <hajii> @photomatt_sf, that's OK
[13:31] <hajii> @photomatt_sf just accuracy stuff
[13:31] <pmall> photomatt_sf: wp.org -> PeteMall
[13:31] <benhuson> username husobj
[13:31] * nicolagreco (n=nicolagr@151.54.95.92) Quit
[13:31] <photomatt_sf> this is a bit of an experiment, we've never opened the site up to outside contribution before on the WP side
[13:32] <Michael_Rockett> Michael888 - but I think I'd rather get into forum moderation at the moment.
[13:32] * nicolagreco (n=nicolagr@151.54.95.92) has joined #bbpress
[13:32] <Ryan_> Without post revisions it would have been a bit dodgy back in the day.
[13:32] <hajii> keep good backups
[13:32] <photomatt_sf> that's a good place to transition to: hajii you're a current moderator, could you give a state of the forums and where you need help?
[13:33] <justintadlock> @Ryan - Finally a use for those post revisions.
[13:33] * apeatling (n=apeatlin@83.111.219.33) has joined #bbpress
[13:33] <Ryan_> Hello Andy
[13:33] <nicolagreco> hello apeatling
[13:33] <pmall> jjj: 4 more to go
[13:33] <hajii> for moderating the bbPress.org forums, I'm not sure there's any trouble moderating, I am there daily, 3x or 4x /day
[13:34] <hajii> but more moderators are always good
[13:34] <jjj> pmall, almost there
[13:34] <apeatling> hello
[13:34] <hajii> it would be nice to be able to fix inaccuracies in existing WP pages
[13:34] <photomatt_sf> pmall: what's your username? missed it earlier
[13:34] <Michael_Rockett> jjj: really determined hey?
[13:34] <hajii> I assume they're WP pages
[13:34] <pmall> PeteMall wp.org
[13:34] <photomatt_sf> hajii: how many other moderators are there?
[13:35] <hajii> @photomatt - I don't know. _ck_ was one active one, but she's gone
[13:35] <Ryan_> bbPress.org could do with a "report post" button in the forums (and so could WP.org). Private messaging and forum signatures wouldn't go amiss either.
[13:35] <hajii> maybe just me actively now?
[13:35] <hajii> trentadams was for a while
[13:35] <jjj> ryan_, buddypress has pm's and could use profile data for signatures too.
[13:35] <hajii> @Ryan_ - if you tag the topic with modlook, I will take care of it
[13:36] <hajii> that has sort of developed
[13:36] <Michael_Rockett> I'm around the forums almost 5 to 10 times a day.
[13:36] <Ryan_> Yeah, I know how to do that, but most people don't and I usually forget the tag anyway.
[13:37] <hajii> @Ryan_ right now it's not a problem since the forums are low volume, will be a problem in the future. Not sure how they handle the volume at wp.org
[13:37] <pmall> w/o jumping the gun... what else do we have on the agenda for today?
[13:37] <photomatt_sf> I was very surprised when _ck_ left, I hadn't heard anything from her like an email or anything -- anyone know he story there?
[13:37] <pmall> 20 mins to go... I wanna make sure we cover everything
[13:37] <hajii> @photomatt_sf [opens can of worms]
[13:37] <photomatt_sf> hajii: anyone else who's been active you'd like to nominate to be a moderator?
[13:37] <andrewpowers> she didn't get enough donation?
[13:37] <Ryan_> I think she just plain doesn't agree with the direction of the project.
[13:37] <aufumy> she was soliciting donations from her showcase site, but hadn't received much, and was looking for a leader
[13:37] <andrewpowers> Thats what here site said...
[13:37] <andrewpowers> *her
[13:38] <aufumy> leadership
[13:38] <hajii> @photomatt_sf - I would have to look at the logins to be sure. There are a couple very helpful people there right now
[13:38] <Michael_Rockett> @photomatt_sf: I think she just lost it - probably mixed feelings about the continuity of bbPress.
[13:38] <tom_> she much preferred 0.9 to 1.0 for some reason.
[13:38] <hajii> @tom_ performance
[13:38] <hajii> !bloat
[13:38] <photomatt_sf> true and bbPress has floated rudderless for a few months now
[13:38] <Ryan_> I'm guessing it was a long term decision based on her wanting to take the project in an entirely different direction ... that's just a wild guess on my part though. I don't know her beyond her forum posts.
[13:39] <photomatt_sf> well maybe we'll make it so awesome she jumps back in again I miss her
[13:39] <hajii> I miss her plugins.
[13:39] <jjj> haha
[13:39] <jjj> But not her?
[13:39] <Michael_Rockett> It would be great. I'm sure she might consider it when bbPress is alive and kicking again.
[13:39] <hajii> I hate telling people "there is this plugin, but it only worked up to 0.9"
[13:39] <Ryan_> The thing is, most of the plugins will automatically become available if the system is switched to WP.
[13:39] <DJPaul> @hajii lol
[13:40] <photomatt_sf> that'd be a good next topic: plugins
[13:40] <Ryan_> Since there are equivalent WP plugins.
[13:40] <hajii> @Ryan_ right
[13:40] <photomatt_sf> Ryan_ has a good point that a lot become not needed if we make the plugin good
[13:40] <hajii> ok, next topic
[13:41] <jjj> Those equivalent plugins need to be updated to be bbPress aware though...
[13:41] <Ryan_> Should any existing plugin functionality be included in the core download?
[13:41] <photomatt_sf> jjj: how so? like a FB connect plugin would just start working
[13:41] <photomatt_sf> we get widgets for free, wouldn't need to redo that in bbPress
[13:41] <Michael_Rockett> About plugins, I think that we should keep most features as plugins as people will want to be able to choose. Exceptions would be avatars,messaging,and subscribing - I guess.
[13:41] <Nightgunner5> photomatt_sf: I don't want bbPress to turn into a CMS
[13:41] <photomatt_sf> google analytics, typekit, and insert JS plugin would work too
[13:42] <hajii> +1 Nightgunner5
[13:42] <jjj> True, but things like tinyMCE for post forms, etc... Unless they all use the existing WP code.
[13:42] <photomatt_sf> Nightgunner5: that's why we're embedding in WP, it is
[13:42] <Ryan_> Private messaging is a BuddyPress plugin already so would become automatically available after the WP merge.
[13:42] <hajii> what bbPress plugin functionality would NOT be present in WordPress?
[13:42] <Nightgunner5> Ryan_: bbPM, anyone?
[13:42] <justintadlock> I'd personally like to see a poll on the bbPress site that gets some user feedback on the type of functionality they'd like to see. We could see what those things are and either incorporate it into bbPress or create new plugins.
[13:42] <tom_> some great moderation functionality should be core.
[13:43] <andrewpowers> support forum functionality
[13:43] <Ryan_> @NightGunner5 - I assume your plugin would break on converting to WP though, and would unfortunately become redundant since there will already be the BuddyPress one.
[13:43] <Michael_Rockett> +1 justinadlock
[13:43] <justintadlock> @tom_ Maybe extend the current role/capability system through bbPress.
[13:43] <jjj> What I'm saying is, just because there's a plugin out there to perform a specific task in WP, doesn't mean it will magically work exactly like it is today for bbPress. There's lots of plugins that don't work with BuddyPress, and needed updates or rewrites to focus on that specific functionality of BP.
[13:43] <Nightgunner5> Ryan_: The BuddyPress one requires BuddyPress
[13:43] <photomatt_sf> justintadlock: I can do that
[13:44] <hajii> role mapping always seemed like a pain in the butt
[13:44] <jjj> justintadlock photomatt_sf, buddypress extends the role.cap system for bp-forums already.
[13:44] <hajii> now, will be gone
[13:44] <justintadlock> @andrewpowers - Such as "resolved", "not resolved," and so on? Custom taxonomy, maybe?
[13:44] <jjj> It adds the bbpress roles/caps to the WP ones.
[13:44] <Michael_Rockett> Yeah - A poll would be great, but with functionality for people to bring in ideas?
[13:44] <photomatt_sf> jjj: nice
[13:44] <hajii> http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/
[13:44] <andrewpowers> Yes, you've faced the same problem
[13:44] <photomatt_sf> I'll put a survey like we do on WP.org
[13:45] <hajii> @photomatt_sf, like the ones Jane does?
[13:45] <hajii> Wells
[13:45] <photomatt_sf> hajii: yep
[13:45] <photomatt_sf> what if someday bbPress was a canonical plugin for WP?
[13:45] <Michael_Rockett> good idea. There's also UserVoice. Quite handy, I must say.
[13:45] <hajii> I like bbPress becoming a WordPress plugin
[13:45] <nicolagreco> that's cool photomatt_sf
[13:46] <hajii> canonical is an interesting idea
[13:46] <hajii> for wp plugins
[13:46] <justintadlock> @andrewpowers - Support forum functionality could also be handled by custom fields.
[13:46] <nicolagreco> i think that MU should be a plugin too
[13:46] <photomatt_sf> jjj: are there any lessons from the BuddyPress side of things we should think about?
[13:46] <Ryan_> @Nicola - no, it is merging instead.
[13:46] <pmall> photomatt_sf: when we started this... I thought canonical plugins
[13:46] <hajii> isn't it already merged? WPMU && WP
[13:46] <nicolagreco> you mean buil-tin Ryan_ ?
[13:47] <photomatt_sf> hajii: not yet
[13:47] <jjj> photomatt_sf, from my experience users want this to be seamlessly super insane easy, and if it isn't they'll be turned away...
[13:47] <Ryan_> Yes, it's going to be built in for 3.0 probably.
[13:47] <hajii> +1 jjj
[13:47] <hajii> some people are persistent though, and bbPress makes their head explode after about 48 hours of attempting integration
[13:48] <photomatt_sf> hajii: yes, fewer heads exploding is good
[13:48] <jjj> photomatt_sf, some of the dev hurdles BP went through before 1.1 with themes and moving files and stuff, it turned a lot of people off at first for being too hard, unlike WP which is easy.
[13:48] <photomatt_sf> it's like the unofficial WP slogan: we suck less with every release
[13:48] <Ryan_> Deep integration would become automatic on WP merger which would make everything super easy.
[13:48] <Michael_Rockett> Haha! I never knew that one - brilliant!
[13:48] <hajii> that is a big one; people have come to expect WordPress like functionality/experience from all things Automattic. bbPress fails in that regard
[13:49] <pmall> photomatt_sf: I'm tweeting that!
[13:49] <benhuson> Yep, I like WordPress core + bbPress / BuddyPress / MU - Easy for users and shared functionality
[13:49] <nicolagreco> pmall: i'll retweet sure
[13:49] <Nightgunner5> I think bbPress's main problem was being dropped for half a year
[13:49] <Nightgunner5> And that's why it's not up to WP standards
[13:49] <photomatt_sf> hajii: yes and to clarify just like wordpress.org bbpress is not owned or operated by Automattic, it's separate
[13:50] <hajii> I personally have no need for WPMU or BuddyPress, but having them built in isn't going to turn me off
[13:50] <Michael_Rockett> I'd actually love to know the reasons why bbPress halted for so long.
[13:50] <jjj> photomatt_sf, I know for myself, that having Andy as an active part of the community was awesome also...
[13:50] <photomatt_sf> just because I saw a lot of people conflating them in the forums
[13:50] <hajii> @photomatt_sf, I have no idea what that means
[13:51] <Ryan_> jajjj = he means people confuse bbPress.org as being owned by Automattic which it is not. The question is ... who does own bbPress.org?
[13:51] <hajii> other than morbid curiousity, I have no need to know what happened in the past with bbPress. Looking forward now.
[13:51] <photomatt_sf> Michael_Rockett: it didn't actually halt until a few months ago, it's always had at least one full-time developer from the time I worked on it
[13:51] <Michael_Rockett> I thought Automattic did - or is it just a contribution project from Automattic's side?
[13:51] <jjj> hajii, some people can't get past politics.
[13:52] <hajii> it's not owned by automattic? interesting
[13:52] <hajii> bbpress.org owned by Matt?
[13:52] <hajii> I don't really care
[13:52] <photomatt_sf> I own bbPress.org just like WordPress.org -- separate from Automattic -- and the plan is to run it in the same fashion. We'll register the bbPress trademark under the pending foundation
[13:52] <junsuijin> having a start from buddypress 1.1-pre i think another lesson to learn is that changing the way something works is going to confuse many of the early adopters
[13:52] <hajii> AH - got it
[13:52] <junsuijin> ie the theme change
[13:52] <Michael_Rockett> photomatt_sf: well, it's been going pretty slowly - I'd love to know the reasons behind it. But I think I can guess a few.
[13:52] <hajii> changing from .9 to 1.0 is what chased _ck_ away, partly
[13:52] <junsuijin> for the better, but lots of whiners and futile resistors
[13:53] <Ryan_> Well moving from bbPress 1.0.x to WordPress will be huge. All plugins and themes will break.
[13:53] <photomatt_sf> Michael_Rockett: I think we were pursuing something harder than it needed to be, building backpress instead of just embedding in WP
[13:53] <jjj> junsuijin has a good point. photomatt_sf, are there stats from active bbPress installations to tell us how many are standalone versus integrated? Probably not eh?
[13:53] <photomatt_sf> jjj: there's no update system, so no stats
[13:53] <hajii> will there even *be* bbpress themes any more?
[13:53] <Michael_Rockett> photomatt_sf: I see - that makes a heap load of sense.
[13:53] <hajii> they could be page templates
[13:54] <photomatt_sf> hajii: good point
[13:54] <photomatt_sf> to jjj's idea of making things as simple as possible
[13:54] <Nightgunner5> I've got download stats from the past few days: http://nightgunner5.is-a-geek.net:1337/bbpress/downloads/
[13:54] <Ryan_> Yeah, there would be no need for bbPress themes, just forum specific template files or conditionals in themes.
[13:54] <photomatt_sf> a lot of things that are currently templates, namely registration, could be a lightbox-style popup
[13:54] <photomatt_sf> for ultra-simple theme integration, error handling, etc
[13:54] <junsuijin> it'd actually be a good idea to consult with apeatling on what works well for making such an encompassing plugin out of bbpress i think
[13:54] <justintadlock> I'd rather see some stuff broken now with few bbPress users rather than later when there are more.
[13:54] <hajii> that would make life so much easier for bbPress theming
[13:54] <Ryan_> Ack, NO POPUPS please!
[13:54] <jjj> hajii, they could also work like BuddyPress pages do, and be "virtual" pages.
[13:54] <Ryan_> People don't use those for good reason.
[13:54] <photomatt_sf> Ryan_: it's gonna happen
[13:55] <Ryan_>
[13:55] <hajii> gack!
[13:55] <photomatt_sf> lightbox is everywhere, it's a really nice interaction -- like adding a friend or sending a message from a profile page on facebook, it's a little box
[13:55] <Ryan_> There must be a way to avoid popups or lightboxes.
[13:55] <hajii> 5 minutes
[13:55] <photomatt_sf> faster than a new pageload
[13:55] <tom_> i love lightboxes
[13:55] <photomatt_sf> and doesn't need a brand new template
[13:55] <photomatt_sf> also a lot of those things don't entirely warrant their own page
[13:55] <benhuson> Lightbox popups OK - Window popups bad
[13:55] <justintadlock> A Lightbox-style popup sounds more like a plugin thing to me. But, I'm personally becoming a fan of Colorbox.
[13:55] <Nightgunner5> photomatt_sf: It would need to load a new page in the popup
[13:55] <jjj> junsuijin is right again. Frankly apeatling has already made bbPress a plugin, it's just part of BuddyPress that includes all of the extra social things that forums have; profiles, pms, friends, etc...
[13:55] <photomatt_sf> there's no SEO reasons to have registration forms be its own standalone thing
[13:55] <Ryan_> It doesn't matter if people like them, but it massively reduces the extensibility of the platform if you can't theme as you like.
[13:55] <aufumy> +1 lightbox
[13:56] <Ryan_> Otherwise you run into the same problems SimplePress has.
[13:56] * GIGALinux2 (n=GIGALinu@82.113.121.222) has joined #bbpress
[13:56] <Michael_Rockett> +2 lightbox - it's quick. it's simple. it's elegant.
[13:56] <photomatt_sf> Ryan_: it's just an iframe, everything to make that page could be embedded
[13:56] <hajii> it's cliche
[13:56] <jjj> One could essentially install BuddyPress and only turn the BP-Forums component on, and now you have bbPress's code embedded into WordPress.
[13:56] <Nightgunner5> Michael_Rockett: "Simple, fast, elegant"
[13:56] * GIGALinux (n=GIGALinu@82.113.106.218) Quit (Nick collision from services.)
[13:56] * GIGALinux2 is now known as GIGALinux
[13:56] <Ryan_> Oh dear, this is sounding truly horrid
[13:56] <hajii> but it's quick and uniquitus
[13:56] <apeatling> If the integration code is extracted from BuddyPress and moved into bbPress then we could get it integrating with one click tomorrow.
[13:56] <apeatling> it's not a lot of code
[13:57] <Ryan_> I hope you aren't suggesting using an iframe for an entire embedded forum right?
[13:57] <junsuijin> +! apeatling
[13:57] <apeatling> and it works
[13:57] <apeatling>
[13:57] <photomatt_sf> let's revisit the lightbox topic later, sounds like we need to talk about it more
[13:57] <photomatt_sf> we're running out of time on the official meetup, let's summarize the todos everyone is taking away
[13:57] <Michael_Rockett> nightgunner5: That too
[13:57] <Ryan_> I can guarantee you any serious HTML/CSS people will throw a hissy fit over that.
[13:57] <photomatt_sf> I'm going to add a few folks access for bbPress.org WP install
[13:57] <photomatt_sf> and put up a survey on the blog
[13:57] <photomatt_sf> for 1.1 features
[13:58] <hajii> @photomatt_sf, I will send you a list of people who have been helpful at bbpress.org and should be considered as moderators
[13:58] <photomatt_sf> hajii: perfect, thank you
[13:58] * @ChanServ (ChanServ@services.) Quit (shutting down)
[13:59] <pmall> http://j.mp/5JydpG
[13:59] <photomatt_sf> wow we lost chanserv?
[13:59] * ChanServ (ChanServ@services.) has joined #bbpress
[13:59] * irc.freenode.net sets mode: +o ChanServ
[13:59] <Nightgunner5> ChanServ: +1 timing
[13:59] <jjj> haha
[13:59] <Michael_Rockett> pmall: nice
[14:00] <hajii> +1 @pmall
[14:00] <hajii> adios?
[14:00] <photomatt_sf> alrighty lets wrap up then
[14:00] <tom_> thanks everyone. IRC moves fast! Really looking forward to the outcomes of this.
[14:00] <photomatt_sf> thank you everyone for coming out
[14:00] <Ryan_> Thanks for organising it
[14:01] <Michael_Rockett> pleasure
[14:01] <justintadlock> Great discussion, everyone. I enjoyed my first IRC chat.
[14:01] <andrewpowers> thanks ... looking forward to working with you kids
[14:01] <Nightgunner5> It was nice to have more than 3 people talking within an hour in #bbpress
[14:01] <Michael_Rockett> Ryan_: Agreed - thanks matt. Finally, some action can happen.
[14:01] <nicolagreco> 'kid' is for me ?
[14:01] <andrewpowers> @justintadlock - haha me too
[14:01] <benhuson> yes, thank Matt - looking forward to bbPress development
[14:01] <jjj> <gavel>
[14:02] <hajii> second that motion
[14:02] <Ryan_> This puts me an interesting situation now, as I'm in charge of the SitePoint bbPress theme project.
[14:02] <justintadlock> Are we going to have a regular IRC meetup for bbPress?
[14:02] <photomatt_sf> I'll post the logs to the bbPress blog
[14:02] <Ryan_> But I'm not seeing much point in plowing ahead with it now if the bbPress system is giong to change so massively.
[14:02] <photomatt_sf> </meetup>

knGreen

knGreen is a WordPress theme with 2 sidebars, clean design, several language supported, multi-levels menu and some effects as ThickBox and some shortcodes as for inserting YouTube videos.

GreenFrog

GreenFrog is a free WordPress Theme with two Sidebars. There is an Option Page to populate the Footer. (Page in German)

cleanRoar

Released with a Christmas celebration look. It featuring a bold Christmas skin with build-in snow effect option.

GreenSkyline

GreenSkyline is a WordPress Theme with two Sidebars, one Topbar for Ads or whatever you want to place there and Widget Support. There is an Option Page to populate the Footer. (Page in German)

Akira

Fixed one column layout with widgetized sidebar

Are you a theme author? Submit your theme to get listed in these posts.

If you use the Sitewide Tags plugin for WordPress MU you may have missed Ron’s announcement post about the new release.

This version is all Ron’s doing. He merged in features he has worked on over the past year. Check out his blog post for the full list of changes.

Oh yeah, I’m doing mini-merges of WordPress and MU code all the time. Update from trunk (svn link) if you want to try it out, and please report any bugs on trac! I love the new trash feature!

Related Posts

• WordPress MU Sitewide Tags
• Sitewide tags pages for WordPress MU
• WordPress MU Sitewide Tags Pages 0.3.1

There have been a lot of references to “canonical plugins” over the past year, especially at WordCamps by Matt, but we haven’t really posted anything official about the idea, nor have we really made much progress beyond discussions about how awesome it would be to have canonical plugins and how good it would be for the community. But what are canonical plugins, you ask? Well, that’s one of the many things the core commit team has been talking about over the past few days, and everyone agrees that we need to prioritize this aspect of the project sooner rather than later. So, here’s a super high-level description of how we’re currently thinking about canonical plugins, which we’d like to use to initiate some focused community discussion on the topic.

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.

In order to have a system like this, each canonical plugin’s development community would probably need similar infrastructure to WordPress itself, including things like Trac, mailing lists, support forums, etc. These things will be worked out within the development community over the coming months, but in the meantime, we really need a better name for this. Many people have no idea what canon/canonical means (clearly, they are not Dr. Who fans!), and having to define the word distracts from discussing the core ideas behind the concept. So, we thought we’d do a community poll to see what people think we should call canonical plugins. We brainstormed a few dozen ideas yesterday and whittled it down to our top handful. Based on the definition of canonical plugins given above, which of these terms do you think best describes them? I’m including a short description of our thoughts on each.

Standard - Implies that these are the standard by which all other plugins should be judged, as well as the idea of them being the default plugins.
Core - Makes the close relationship to core WordPress development very clear, and has the implication of bundled plugins (even though we don’t need to actually bundle them now that the installer is right in the admin tool).
Premium – Identifies these officially-supported plugins as best-in-class and of the highest value, and could potentially disambiguate the word Premium as it is currently being used in the community (to refer to anything from commercial support to licensing terms to actual code quality).
Validated - Focuses on the fact that the code is reviewed for compatibility with core and for security.
Official – Makes it plain that these are the plugins officially endorsed by the core team as being the best at their functions.
Canonical – Maybe once people get used to it, canonical wouldn’t confuse so many people?

Cast your vote in the poll below to have your opinion considered during the decision-making process. And if you can think of a word that we haven’t listed here that you think is better, please submit it in the poll! The poll will remain open until 11:59pm UTC Thursday, December 10, 2009.

What should we call canonical plugins? “________________” Plugins(survey software)

We’ve restructured WordPress HelpCenter a little bit, and it is now fully run by Crowd Favorite and staffed by Crowd Favorite developers. This change is due to how the business has evolved as it’s grown, and what we believe will allow it to flourish going forward.

We have a:

• new phone number¹: (303) 395-1346
• and new hours: 9am-5pm US/Pacific

as well.

While we are continuing to focus on providing top notch support and customer service for the community, we have added more development experience on the day-to-day team. This allows us to provide expanded on-demand development and customization services as well as offering support and troubleshooting services.

I’d also like to thank all of the plugin developers, theme authors and other affiliates that are working with us – we really appreciate your partnership. If you create plugins and/or themes for WordPress, be sure to sign up for our affiliate program and register them with us so we can give you a little reward when we work with something you’ve built.

1. The old number will continue to work for a few months. [back]