bbPress 2.2 is now available. This the third major release for the bbPress project and it’s awesome. Your forums will not be left hanging when you upgrade to WordPress 3.5 and BuddyPress 1.7. The good news is that bbPress is already one step ahead and fully compatible with upcoming releases.

You may have noticed everyone raving about the latest bbPress release on Twitter. That’s because 2.2 is packed full of all kinds of goodness:

• Added What’s New and Credits pages
• WordPress 3.5 and BuddyPress 1.7 ready
• Improved user roles and capabilities
• Improved theme compatibility
• Improved BuddyPress Group Forums integration
• Improved forums convertion tool
• Improved forums tools and settings
• Improved multisite support
• Numerous bug fixes and smaller enhancements

Improved Forum Profiles and User Management

Forum profiles are now more useful than ever with more details, including your forum activity, your topics and replies, subscriptions, and favorites. This organization is sure to boost activity and participation on your site.

bbPress 2.2 also includes new user roles and capabilities for a more structured approach to user and topic management. The new roles include Key Master (complete administrative access), Moderator, and Participant. The bbPress settings page gives you the option to set the default user role and automatically assign the default role to newly registered users.

Major Updates to BuddyPress Integration

The new bbPress release also works more intuitively with BuddyPress. You can now use bbPress to manage your BuddyPress group forums as well as extend group forums with plugins that have been developed for bbPress. This improvement makes all bbPress-related community contributions available to your site, whether you choose to use stand alone bbPress or the integrated group forums. There are no more limitations in that regard.

bbPress now keeps track of changes to topics and replies and keeps their corresponding BuddyPress Activity Stream updates synced.

Many thanks to all the folks who have worked so hard to prepare this bbPress release. You can find all of their faces on the Credits page after you upgrade. Overall, bbPress 2.2 provides a better experience for both users and developers alike. Check out the 2.2 release announcement on bbpress.org for more details. Upgrade now to take advantage of all new features. You’ll be happy you did, because bbPress 2.2 is downright delicious.