simple:press
If you are looking for a forum for Your WordPress website You should take a look at Simple:Press. After my research and my own experience with a few other opensource forum software like bbpress, Vanila, pHpBB, and useBB, I found out that when it comes to integration with WordPress blogs there are nothing on the market right now that integrate better with WordPress than Simple:Press. (I did this research jan 2010) A bit strange when You think about that bbpress have the same founders as WordPress and they didnt came closer with an intergration than they really did.
In many forum communities You will find different kind of integrations issues and it seems clear that if you want to use WordPress with a Simple:Press forum You will have less integration problems than using any other forum software.
Well if Your website/blog are not based on WordPress You have several choices and I can recommend
to get a overview at the Forummatrix. This is the right place to compare the features of all those forum tools (aka. bulletin board systems) you heard of. ForumMatrix can help you and Your developer to decide which forum is the best for your needs. check here >
Installation manual for Simple:Press:
I can recommend to read the maual before installation – it might save You for some problems later on. You find the manual here> After reading, download the recommended version from the site to Your PC.
Upload the plugin to your WordPress ‘plugins’ folder. Simple:Press Forum must reside in a folder named ’simple-forum’ directly inside the ‘plugins’ folder. Use a standard FTP client for the upload. This beta will not work with the zip uploader found in WP.
Activate:
Once fully uploaded, Simple:Press Forum should appear on your WordPress Plugins page listing. Click on the ‘Activate’ link on the Simple:Press Forum entry.
Install:
Unlike most plugins, Simple:Press Forum is not installed when activated. A new ‘Install’ link will appear against the plugin entry – or you can select ‘Install’ from the new Forum menu. Select ‘Install’ to load the Simple:Press Forum installer and click on the start button
Please note:
The file is zipped and need to be unzipped befrore uploading it to Your wordpress/plugin folder:
When You unzip the file it create automaticly the “simple-forum” folder where all the SitePress
folders are placed. The name has to be “simple-folder” to work ! Now You upload this simple-forum
to Your Wordpress plugin folder!
Installation steps:
Phase – 1 – Tables Created
Phase – 2 – Permission Data Built
Phase – 3 – User Group Data Built
Phase – 4 – Forum Page Created
Phase – 5 – Default Forum Options Created
Phase – 6 – INSTALL PROBLEM: Unable to Create Avatar Folder
Phase – 7 – INSTALL PROBLEM: Unable to Create Smiley Folder
Phase – 8 – → Sub Phase – 1 – Members Data Created for Members 1 – 250
Phase – 9 – Admin Permission Data Built
Phase – 10 – Version Number Updated
Go to Forum admin
Here You will see any missing folders and You have to create them manualy.
When done press “Update confirguration”
Move content from the Avatar and Smileys folders. You find this content in
/wp-content/plugins/simple-forum/styles
Move it to the new folder destination:
wp-content/forum-avatars and wp-content/forum smileys
If You created other new folders like /forum-badges or /forum-image-uploads
there are no standard content to move so we will wait with that until later.
Now to make this all working You have to set the CHDmode to 777 for the folders in Your database:
If You dont have permissions to do that at Your host You might ask your host to do that for You.
“Design” problems in the WordPress/SimplePress integration :
1. Page wide!
If You need a fullpage wide option keeping Your columns on all other pages
If You use a wordpress generated Theme you can solve the widepage problem here:
Wordpress generated themes:
http://wiki.simplepressforum.com/doku.php?id=howto:template-page
If You use a Artisteer created Theme You can use Artisteers manual to solve the problem:
Artisteer users:
Create the file pagefull.php using this manual:
http://www.artisteer.com/?post_id=123017&p=forum_post
Place the pagefull.php page here:
Your domain/Your_wordpress_blog/wp-content/themes/Your_template
2.List Menu bug
Wordpress have a still not fixed bug in there code concerning the menu list (since version 2.1 and up to 2,8.4)
It means that when you intergrate the SimplePress in Your wordPress theme the “Forum” appear in Your WP menu
as it should .
The problem appear when You start to use the member functions in Your SimplePress forum. The functions will apear in the Wordpress menu instead of the “Forum” and makes a mess in Your WordPress menu.
I really tried to find a way out of this problem but after spending a lot of time with the guys at both SimplePress and WordPress and even some Theme authours, I realized that the bug would not be fixed so far and the solution to the problem is simply to exclude the forum page from the WP menu.
You then have to add a navigation button manually somewhere in the WP theme or alternatively let a “dummy” Forum WP menu open a page where you then have the real forum navigation stored.
Actually You can download the plugin to exclude pages directly in the WP plugin archieve. The plugin is called Exclude pages
Lesson 2 that I will post by next update is:
“Change the appearence of the SP-forum”