The next installation in the bbPress 1.0 alpha series has been released. bbPress 1.0 alpha 2 introduces new features and fixes most of the issues raised by testers from the previous release.

A lot of the features were covered in a previous post. You can view the changes in bbPress between 1.0-alpha-1 and 1.0-alpha-2, as well as the changes that have been made to BackPress between revision 109 and 161.

The XML-RPC functionality now built into bbPress 1.0 alpha has made possible a new plugin for WordPress called “bbPress Live“. Currently this plugin can grab a list of forums and latest topics for display on a WordPress blog. Two configurable widgets are provided to pop the information into sidebars. Future versions of the plugin will allow WordPress posts to be copied to a bbPress forum, much like the bbSync plugin does for earlier versions of bbPress. The difference is that bbPress Live does not require the bbPress and WordPress sites to be on the same server, as all interaction is via XML-RPC calls rather than direct database queries.

Over the coming weeks we will be releasing a series of 1.0 alpha versions for download.

The more adventurous among you may want to help out with testing these alpha versions. Probably the best thing to do is create a duplicate version of your installation (including a duplicate database) and then test there.

We would appreciate help with people looking for issues with upgrading, the user interface and any bugs in the new admin interface.

You can download the alpha releases via the download page.

You can use trac to report bugs as you would with the normal release. Please remember to add the version number to any new tickets.

bbPress 0.9.0.2 is available for immediate download. This release includes some small changes and fixes a few bugs, but is first and foremost a security release. The vulnerability is not yet publicly known, but will be soon.

Many thanks go out to Steven J. Murdoch for identifying the issue (CVE-2008-1930) and working with us and WordPress to resolve it.

Note: Those of you with integrated WordPress/bbPress installs should upgrade WordPress first and then will probably have to update the “WordPress database secret” setting in your Settings -> WordPress Integration: Cookies admin panel after upgrading bbPress.

The bbPress team is happy to release bbPress 0.9 for download. This release is important for anyone who integrates bbPress with WordPress and wishes to update to WordPress 2.5.

Primarily this is a compatibility release so that we can continue to provide the same integration levels with WordPress as in the past, however quite a few other improvements have made their way into this version.

Improvements and changes include:

• New installer: 
  • Creates your bb-config.php file for you when possible.
  • Allows for setting up integration with WordPress at install time.
  • Supports languages other than English when language translations are available.
  • Looks pretty.
• Additional RSS feeds for views.
• A “new topics” RSS feed, available on the front-page and on each forum. This feed only returns the first post from each new topic as it is created, instead of all posts.
• More configurable <title> tag available to themes.
• More secure authentication cookies which are compatible with WordPress 2.5
• Passwords now stored using “phpass” hashing library instead of md5. If you still want to store your passwords as md5 for any reason, there is a plugin here which will do that for you.
• A second core theme called “Kakumei Blue”. This theme demonstrates just how little you need to do to start creating a new theme.
• “General” and “WordPress Integration” options configurable via admin interface.
• Built-in support for Gravatars, implemented in a way that makes 3rd-party avatar plugins much easier to author.
• New “Date and time format” and “Date format” options.
• Akismet and Bozo functionalities have been moved to plugins. Akismet key now enterable via an admin interface.
• Removed “replies” querystring argument (?replies=#) from topic links. If you still want that functionality, there is a plugin here which should emulate it.
• Fixes to use of PHP “glob()” function to avoid errors on hosts that don’t support it.
• Moderators can now manage tags by default.
• Fixes to slug incrementing.
• The old “admin_email” setting is now called “from_email”. This is now the email address that emails from your installation appear to come from.
• “No replies” view is now technically “no replies and greater than 2 hours old”.
• Improvements to the export script towards the integration of an upcoming import script.
• RSS feeds now sent as UTF-8
• Full support for slug-based feeds on forum and topic feeds.
• Keymasters can no longer be demoted by non-keymasters.
• Many other smaller bug and typo fixes.

Installation

We have provided updated and more detailed installation and integration instructions in the documentation.

Upgrading

Upgrade instructions are available in the documentation here.

Dedication

bbPress 0.9 is named “Brubeck” after American Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck. In his early career he often performed with saxophonist Paul Desmond, after whom bbPress 0.8 was named. Brubeck has composed a number of jazz standards many of which employ complex rhythms and unusual time signatures.

Due to popular demand we have bundled a bug-fix release for bbPress. 0.8.3.1 (still called “Desmond” I believe) and it is now available for download.

This version is not the latest development release so as to remain as compatible as possible with the current version of WordPress.

The primary reason for the release is to fix some bugs in the MySQLi implementation. We anticipate that MySQLi support will be dropped in the future and to this end we have made MySQL the default extension instead of MySQLi.

A few other fixes and enhancements have also snuck in:

• Deep forum breadcrumbs with thanks to baptiste
• More consistent topic labeling methods - users of the support forum plugin will probably need to upgrade to version 2.3.3
• Some fixes to stop orphaned sub-forums from disappearing from all view
• There is now one of those fancy checkboxes to mark a user as a bozo

A couple of those changes will affect existing themes. If you have questions about adapting your theme to be compatible with the new topic labeling and forum breadcrumb features, then ask over on this forum topic.

If you really need more complicated queries, you have the following filters at your disposal, just by registering your view in the above fashion (assuming the $view_slug is “my-view”).

• bb_view_my-view_distinct
• bb_view_my-view_fields
• bb_view_my-view_join
• bb_view_my-view_where
• bb_view_my-view_group_by
• bb_view_my-view_having
• bb_view_my-view_order_by
• bb_view_my-view_limit

If that sounds complicated, it probably is Most plugin developers will never have to do much besides filter a join or where here and there.

WordPress 2.3 is now available.

I mention that because the current version of bbPress (version 0.8.2) is not compatible with WordPress 2.3 if you are loading both scripts at the same time. If you’re not loading both scripts at the same time, everything is fine.

A new version of bbPress will be coming out in a day or two as soon as we get done testing it, and that version will fully compatible with the latest version of WordPress once again.

bbPress 0.8.2 introduced a new way of counting how many pages worth of information there were to display (how many pages worth of content, for example, there are to display in a user’s profile): MySQL’s FOUND_ROWS() function. It works very well for most bbPress sites.

It cripples large sites.

After upgrading the WordPress.org Support Forums to bbPress 0.8.2, the server very quickly melted into a belligerent heap of protesting electrons. Most of this was bbPress’ fault (though MySQL shares some of the blame).

FOUND_ROWS() seemed to be a “magic bullet” everywhere it was tested (including the bbPress.org forums). While that impression should have made me very wary, instead it led me to use SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS (the SELECT query companion to the FOUND_ROWS() function) in places that really didn’t need it.

Mea culpa.

Because of that misuse and because of MySQL’s poor SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS optimization, sites with hundreds of thousands of topics (such as the WordPress.org support forums) will actually be slower (much slower) using bbPress 0.8.2 than they were using bbPress 0.8.1. This despite the other database and query optimizations that went into bbPress 0.8.2.

A fix for this bug and fixes for those others we collect in the coming weeks will be packaged into a new release.

Until that time, if you have a large site (where large probably means “tens of thousands of topics or users”) that has noticeably slowed since upgrading to bbPress 0.8.2, there is a solution. Use the current code available from the bbPress svn repository’s 0.8 branch (available via svn or zip file).

Our Trac system lets you see the changes in that branch since the release of bbPress 0.8.2. In particular, this performance issue was fixed in changeset 867.

On most sites though, the slowdown will probably not be noticeable. Unless your site is getting bogged down by bbPress’ use of the database, there’s no need to change anything.

A new release! bbPress 0.8.2 has a quite a few changes and features. While you’re downloading, check out the cool new stuff.

Hierarchical Forums

Forums can now be grouped hierarchically (that is, forums can have “children”). To organize your forums, go to Content -> Forums in your bbPress’ admin panels, click “Edit Forum Order” and drag the rows around: up, down, left and right.

Make sure to “Save Forum Order” when you’re done.

“Slug” based permalinks

No longer are you constrained to topics and forums with permalinks that look like http://example.com/topic/14/. By turning on slug based permalinks, your URLs will be generated from the forum’s or topic’s title like http://example.com/topic/see-you-in-hawaii/.

Also, all of bbPress’ different permalink structures (/topic.php?id=14, /topic/14/, /topic/see-you-in-hawaii/) are interchangeable; you can switch to whichever structure you like and all your old links will still work (but see the upgrade instructions in this post).

Plugin Management

Plugins can now be activated and deactivated with the click of the mouse in bbPress 0.8.2. Just go to Site Management -> Plugins in your bbPress’ admin panels. To be activated, however, every plugin must have a “plugin header” that includes at least the plugin’s name. Here’s an example.

/*
Plugin Name: Name of your plugin required
Plugin URI: Plugin’s website
Description: Short description of your plugin
Author: Your name
Author URI: Your website
Version: Current version number of your plugin
*/

As a bonus, “hidden” feature, plugins whose file name begins with an underscore (_) do not need to be activated; they will be loaded automatically and do not require a plugin header.

A few small things

Here a sampling of some of the other minor changes in bbPress 0.8.2.

• More tag cloud formatting options
• Improved consistency in tagging
• bbPress’ default Kakumei theme combines the list of “Your Tags” and “Others’ Tags”.
• No more annoying feed: before all of your RSS feed links. The feed: psuedo-standard was a clever idea, but never really caught on.
• Moderators and Admins are considered “trusted” and will never have their posts marked as spam.
• Admins can change other user’s passwords.
• More filters and actions for plugin authors
• Faster database queries

Upgrade instructions

The only tricky thing with this release is plugins. After upgrading, you’ll have to go to your bbPress’ Site Managment -> Plugins admin panel and activate the plugins you want activated. As mentioned above, all plugins must have a plugin header before they even show up in the plugin list. If you have a plugin that’s not showing up, either give it a plugin header or rename it so that it’s filename begins with an underscore.

Also, if you’re turning on slug based permalinks, you may need to regenerate your .htaccess file’s rewrite rules.

More info

For the nitty gritty, check out these lists of bugs fixed and code changed [2].

As Matt points out, he and I will be at San Francisco’s Chaat Cafe for the first (EV4R!) bbPress meetup on the evening of Monday, June 11th.

I’m excited to meet Sam Bauers and Doug Stewart (who are the catalysts for the meetup) in person and all of the rest of you who can make it.

w00t!

Perhaps more excitingly, this blog (and bbPress itself) will see much more frequent updates in the near future. Good times ahead.