[SOLVED] Forum Plugin
 

I am looking for a good forum plugin to integrate with one of my sites, any recommendations? Thanks, SY

Here is one you could try. Simple:Press forum plugin - http://simplepressforum.com/download/

Thanks for that! Have you used it on a site I could see? SY

No I haven't tried it, I found it a couple days ago looking for a solution for another user.

Juggledad's recommendation is good, but I suggest attaching a separate forum to your site instead.

VBulletin, MyBB, and Invision Power Board are all solid choices.

You can see MyBB working with one of my Atahualpa sites here.

Just curious why you think a separate forum is better than the embedded SimplePress solution...

Me too, and also: How happy are you with MyBB? I tried it out some years ago and it was extremely buggy. I am using SMF on a site, but I am looking for a small, lightweight solution that integrates seamlessly with WP. Will look more into Juggledads suggestions, thank you everybody, SY

I have never found an embedded forum that looks as appealing, works as well, and has as many features as the stand-alone forums like VB. More of a preference issue I suppose, but I think your members will appreciate it too.

While I don't see SimplePress listed, this is a helpful resource to compare forum software:

http://www.forummatrix.org/wizard.php

I have been pretty satisfied with MyBB. For some recent sites, I narrowed my choice down to VB, IPB, and MyBB and found that MyBB can do everything the bigger forums can (through plugins and code modifications) and at this point the code is well resolved and not buggy at all (at least in my experience with a few MyBB forums now).

This is just my 2 cents though, so if SimplePress meets your needs then great. :)

I'm tending to agree with Wimbledon about external vs external forums. I just played around a bit with SimplePress and bbPress and bbPress is much friendlier. It SEEMS like SimplePress may have more configuration choices but bbPress is just "cleaner". It's at version 1.0.2, there are a bunch of themes and plugins available and it has built in integration with WordPress if needed. I'm going to play with it some more but it looks like that is the way I will go.

One nice thing about SimplePress is that you don't have to go to the trouble of "skinning" an external forum script to match your existing web design (it pulls from your existing WordPress theme files). It also automatically syncs forum member logins and pws with your regular WP user dbase. And it only takes about 5 minute to deploy the SimplePress plugin. For a plugin (vs a standalone product), it has an extraordinary amount of options.

I've deployed SimplePress on several sites and it is definitely a "simple" way to get a forum on your site, fast. So don't be afraid to TRY SimplePress to see if it meets your needs for an online forum community. You can always make the plugin inactive again if you decide to go the full open source forum app route...

I need a forum in my page which is being host by bluehost. Should I install the forum from bluehost cpanel or as a plugin?

I tried to install bbpress from bluehost cpanel but it gave me a message:

Overwrite Warning, Please Confirm
It looks like there are some conflicting files in the directory you have chosen. If you choose to continue, conflicting files will be overwritten, which will destroy the original contents of those files.

Should I go ahead and install it or would it screw up my Atahuala blog page? :confused:

NO... You don't want to overwrite anything. It will mess up your Atahalpa install

You should install bbPress to a subfolder of your site. For instance if your site url is you should put bbPress in Of course the subfolder doesn't have to be named bbPress

Here's a page that lists 5 popular WP Forum Plugins:
http://chasesagum.com/5-best-choices...-forum-plugins

I help install WP blogs, and personally I would stay with SMF (simple machines) as it is stable and can be simplified a bit in the settings, while it doesn't plug directly into WP, sometimes that's better as you don't have to worry about conflicts with upgrades (forums can get pretty large pretty fast). Adding a nice link to the forum (which also won't mess up any of your WP files) works for some of my clients.

Simple Machines website is here (software is free):
http://www.simplemachines.org
and there are plenty of good Forum Hosting companies out there to choose from, including the one linked, or you may ask your current host if they can install the forum. Hope this helps

Actually the Forum Server plugin looks promising and uses Simple Machine as the engine.

Hi,

I just installed WP Forum Server. (Using WP 3.0, Atahualpa 3.5.1). Wanted a simple plugin that would integrate with WP.

The WP Forum Server was very simple to install, and it seems to work well, and does integrate completely with the WP user registration. But, it says it is not compatible with Google Analytics. Is this a big disadvantage?

Should I just use an alternative provider of analytics (any suggestions?) and skip Google Analytics? Or, should I switch to another Forum Plugin, such as Simple Press? Does Simple Press integrate with the WP User registration, and is it compatible with Google Analytics?

Many thanks!

P.S. Can someone give examples of sites using Simple Press and sites using WP Forum Server?

Do you use Google Analytics plugin? I suggest you remove that plugin, since you still can track your site with GA from its site here http://www.google.com/analytics/. You only need to add some lines of code to your site.

Kazna, Thank you very much! That will solve it.