I’ve selected some of the best current add-ons for bbPress. These plugins will help you to be able to provide a smooth experience as well as many of the commonly-expected features of a standalone forum.

GD bbPress Attachments

This plugin lets you add attachments to the topics and replies in bbPress. The attachments are handled through WordPress media library and you can control the file sizes from the main plugin settings panel. You can also limit the number of files users can attach for each topic and reply. The plugin embeds a list of attached files into topics and replies, and the file images can be displayed as thumbnails.

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bbPress Threaded Replies

Threaded replies are a staple of most full-featured forums. This plugin causes bbPress to inherit the comment threading options that you select in your WordPress settings. When you install it you get nested forum replies, which help users to understand the flow of conversations on your forums.

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bbPress Search Widget

The bbPress Search Widget is just like the regular WordPress search widget but limited to only search the bbPress post types. This highly-rated plugin is very easy to use. Just drop it in a widget area and you’ll have a search limited to your forums. The ability to search topics and replies is a must-have for any forum.

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bbPress No Admin

This plugin prevents all users except super-admins from creating bbPress content when inside the WordPress dashboard. There’s no UI or settings to mess with – just install and activate it. I wouldn’t use bbPress without this plugin.

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bbPress Moderation

If you have a spam problem on your forum, this is the plugin to get. It changes the status of new topics and replies to ‘pending’ and will be shown as ‘Awaiting Moderation’ until the administrator approves publishes them. If you enjoy a more hands-on approach to moderating your forum, this plugin will give you what you need.

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Dashboard Forum Activity

Dashboard Forum Activity is a useful plugin that will display recent bbPress activity within your dashboard, so that you can get a quick summary of what’s going on. It displays all new topics and replies, with the ability to either open the post to edit it or to view it on the front end of the site.

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bbP Signature

The ability to create your own signature is pretty much a standard feature of most standalone forums. This plugin gives users their own signatures for topics and replies. It limits the signature length to no more than 500 characters.

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bbPress Custom CSS File

This is a very simple plugin that, when activated, will let you use the bbpress.css file in your theme directory instead of the one included in bbPress core. Instead of having to create an entirely new bbPress theme, you’ll be able to make simple changes to just the bbpress.css file.

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bbPress Notify

The bbPress Notify plugin sends a notification via e-mail when new topics or replies are posted. The settings allow you to configure the notification recipients for new topics, notification recipients for new replies, and the notification e-mail’s subject and body for both new topics and replies.

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bbPress Admin Bar Additions

This is a very handy plugin that adds bbPress-related resources to your toolbar / admin bar, such as bbPress docs and support. It also integrates the menus of other 3rd party bbPress-related plugins. The bbPress additions are only displayed for forum admins and moderators, helping you to quickly navigate around your WordPress site and bbPress forum.

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New bbPress add-ons are hitting the WordPress repository all the time. We’ll make sure to keep you updated about any new plugins that might be worthy of this must have list so make sure you’re subscribed. Are we missing any of your favorites in this list? Let us know in the comments.

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That’s where the bbPress Custom CSS File plugin can be handy. It causes bbPress to use a bbpress.css file that you add to your theme directory, instead of the one included in the bbPress core. This lets you keep all of your stylesheets in the same place for easy access. Download bbPress Custom CSS File from the WordPress plugin repository for a more convenient way to theme your forums.

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Below you will find some of the major players among forum plugins, in no particular order, all of which are known for being stable and well-supported.

bbPress

The bbPress plugin is one of the most commonly used forum plugins for WordPress. The developers of bbPress are focused on keeping it light and lean. If there’s anything you find that the core bbPress plugin doesn’t do, you are very likely to find that extra functionality through the many bbPress add-on plugins available in the WordPress repository. This means that you’re able to keep your forum overhead light while only adding features you need. However, the downside is that you will be dependent upon the developers of the add-ons to keep updating their plugins, since some of the features you may need are not included in the bbPress plugin core.

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Simple:Press

Simple:Press is a full-featured forum plugin for WordPress, available for download on the Simple:Press website only. It has all of the normal features you would expect from a standalone plugin, including a comprehensive admin, powerful user and permissions system, spam prevention, public and private forums, subscription and watched topics, user signatures, avatars and much more. Check out our recent writeup: Simple:Press: A Fully Scalable Forum Plugin for WordPress

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Vanilla Forums

Vanilla Forums is not actually a plugin for WordPress, but there is a plugin available for deep integration, including the ability to embed the entire forum into a WordPress page. It also gives you the ability to add forum widgets, such as recent discussions, discussion categories, and recent forum activity. Users of Vanilla Forums are raving about its simplicity and easy-to-use interface. One of the most notable features is that it provides a native mobile version for easy browsing and posting from any mobile device. You can also manage your Vanilla forum without having to leave your WordPress dashboard.

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ForumPress

Also known as WP Forum Server, ForumPress is an advanced, stable fork of WP Forum. This plugin supports some valuable sought-after features, including: various topic statuses, guest postings, skins, email notifications, and SEO-friendly URLs. They also offer free support in their forums.

ForumPress

Mingle Forum

The Mingle Forum plugin works with or without the Mingle social networking plugin by Blair Williams. This plugin focuses on simplicity and boasts a setup time of under five minutes. One cool feature the developer has added is the ability to automatically create a forum post when publishing a WordPress post. Other notable features include media embedding (ie. Youtube, Flickr, Photobucket..), integrated HTML areas for ads, forum sitemap, quick reply, moderators, skins, locked forums, hot topics and more.

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Have we missed your favorite?

Is there another forum plugin you prefer? Let us know your favorites in the comments!

Sarah Gooding on Google+

Don’t like the background and color scheme? Check out the demo to see how easy it is to change the background patterns and colors. The ease of customization is one of the many highlights about this theme. Feature! also includes:

• Unbranded Admin Panel
• Unlimited BG Colors (built-in color picker) and 100+ Background Patterns
• 6 Color Schemes
• Utilizes Google Fonts for a vast array of available fonts
• Full Localization Support (contains .po/.mo files)
• 3 Review Types (Box (DVD, Game etc), App & Standard)
• Tons of widgets, including Blog, Review, Flickr, Twitter, and Video
• Unlimited Sidebars – Create and select sidebar for each page!
• Built-in Form Builder
• Loads of Shortcode (Flexible Columns, Typography, Dividers, Notifications, Toggles, Listing Styles, Buttons) – Plus add shortcodes directly from the editor
• Valid HTML5 & CSS3

Feature! makes it easy for anyone, even a WordPress beginner, to build their own community with BuddyPress and bbPress. It is especially tailored towards sites that will be focusing on user reviews of DVDs, games or apps. It also works very well for a news-oriented community site.

If you’re looking for a bold, magazine-style BuddyPress theme, you can pick up Feature! from Themeforest for $45. Make sure you’re following @wpmuorg on Twitter and we’ll keep you up-to-date about all of the newest BuddyPress themes available around the web.

Sarah Gooding on Google+

bbPressModeration also includes a few more helpful features for managing your forum:

• Blog administrator can be notified of new topics and replies requiring moderation.
• Anonymous postings can always be marked for moderation.
• Registered users can post without moderation after the first topic/reply is approved.
• A bubble counter is shown on the Topics and Replies menu to indicate the number of posts awaiting moderation.

This is by no means an all-or-nothing plugin, since the settings page lets you activate moderation for users based on if they’re registered or not and if they have successfully posted topics before. Download bbPressModeration for free from the plugin repository to start keeping your forum spam-free.

Sarah Gooding on Google+

Simple:Press has been under development for the past six years, steadily becoming a full-featured forum plugin that can scale into the thousands.

Simple:Press Features:

Simple:Press boasts all the robust capabilities and features of a standalone forum, seamlessly integrated into WordPress. Here are just a few of the most important features:

• Fully integrated with WordPress user registrations and logins
• Supports WordPress 3.0 standard, Multisite and BuddyPress
• Optional Cookies to track Guests and Members
• Comprehensive Admin Options and Settings
• Underpinned by a powerful user and permission system
• Can create private and/or public forums
• Optional Spam Prevention tool
• Optional post moderation (approval)
• User Signature and Avatars
• Forum Statistics – including who is online
• Admins Unread Post list with Quick Reply
• Subscription and Watched topics
• Image, Media and File Uploader
• User defined Topic Tags
• Fully customizable skins and icons
• Extended Member Profile Options with ability to add custom Profile data items
• Extensive set of Template Tags for showing forum data outside forum pages
• Custom icons for forum/topics
• Custom Smileys and Badges

Simple:Press is completely localized for language support and there’s a growing list of translations available. It’s also created to be SEO friendly with optimized permalinks, page and browser title settings, and custom descriptions and keywords.

Why would you use Simple:Press instead of bbPress?

Many of you might be wondering why you might use the SimplePress plugin instead of bbPress, which seems to be the standard around these parts. Simple:Press has more features built in. While bbPress is widely used and has a large community of people contributing, many of its add-on features are only available through additional plugins at the moment. Simple:Press offers all the features you would expect from forum software in one package.

If you’re the adventurous type, go ahead and give Simple:Press 5.0 Beta a spin. SP V5 requires WordPress 3.3+ and will not work with any other versions. For the latest updates, make sure to follow Simple:Press on Twitter and subscribe to the Simple:Press blog.

Sarah Gooding on Google+

Group Forums vs. Sitewide Forums for BuddyPress

When you set up BuddyPress, you’ll be presented with the option to add forums to your community. You can set up forums for groups or enable forums sitewide. You also have the option to use an existing bbPress installation.

What are Group Forums?

Group forums are a slightly paired down version of bbPress. Installing group forums gives each individual group its own discussion forum, which can be turned on or off by the group admin. The installation page says: “Choose this if you’d like to keep your members’ conversations separated into distinct areas.”

So, what does this look like? Here’s a screenshot of the placement of group forums within a group:

As you can see, all the action on the forum happens within the individual group. Group Forum features include:

• Group Integration
• Member Profile Integration
• Activity Stream Integration
• @ Mention Integration

Now, let’s take a look at how the group forums are different from sitewide forums.

What are Sitewide Forums?

Sitewide forums are the newest option for BuddyPress. These forums are not tied to groups. Sitewide forums set up a central forums area for all members of the site. This is probably the most common experience that users have had in the past with forums on other websites.

When setting up sitewide forums you are setting up a new bbPress installation. Fortunately for BuddyPress users, John James Jacoby has ensured that the new bbPress 2.0 is fully compatible with BuddyPress communities.

Here’s a screenshot of how sitewide forums might appear within your community:

Features of Sitewide Forums:

• Central Discussion Area
• Forum Plugins Available
• Activity Stream Integration
• @ Mention Integration

Using the bbPress plugin for sitewide forums offers you more fine-grained control over your forums as well as the ability to use third party plugins made to extend bbPress.

Setting up sitewide forums can be a bit tricky. After you install and activate bbPress, you’ll need to add the bbPress shortcode for your forums index to that page:

[bbp-forum-index]

Check your bbPress settings page in the dashboard to see if you’ve got a page/slug conflict with BuddyPress. If you have any trouble, you may want to try unticking the Discussion Forum box in the Components setup page. I’ve found that this helps users who are getting the error: “The forums component has not been set up yet.” I’m sure this process will be smoother in the future, but for now that hint may come in handy.

Can I have both Group and Sitewide forums?

Yes, it is possible to have both group and sitewide forums but it’s not recommended. The installation page contains the following warning: “You may activate both Group and Site Wide forums, but this may create a poor experience for your members.” Having both kinds of forums active on your site may cause confusion for users when they’re wondering where to start and participate in discussions.

The process for setting up either kind of forum on your BuddyPress site is fairly intuitive. Each type of forum has its own distinct advantages and disadvantages. Once you’re familiar with the options, you can select the best forum setup for your particular community. Let us know if you have any questions. The BuddyPress Support Forums are also a great place to ask for further support.

Sarah Gooding on Google+

Install and activate the plugin and then turn it on by going to the settings and entering your Public and Private keys. It will make a dramatic difference in the amount of spam you receive on your forum, and may even eliminate it altogether. If any spam bots are able to get past your registration form, at least they won’t be able to junk up your forums with spammy replies. Check out a demo at the plugin developer’s example site. Download bbPress reCaptcha from the WordPress plugin repository.

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The plugin does not write any options to the database. It uses Javascript to grab the topic or reply content and push it into the reply box. The only requirement is that you’ll have to have Javascript enabled on the browser. In the future the pugin’s developer plans to add the ability to change how a quote is rendered.

Download bbPress Quotes from the WordPress repository for use with the bbPress plugin.

Sarah Gooding on Google+