[Kathleen Fitzpatrick]

Hi. What I hope is a quick question with an easy answer: is there a way to access group forums/topics through the WP backend? The forums/topics tabs in our installation are only taking me to the sitewide forums.

Thanks!

[Scott Voth]

Hi Kathleen – I don’t think there is a way from the WP backend to see group forum info.  Is anyone else aware of a way?

[Ray]

Hi Kathleen,

Are you using also using the bundled forums that come with BuddyPress in addition to the bbPress plugin?

If so, there is currently no way to view topics from the bundled forums in the backend.

If you use bbPress to power your BuddyPress group forums, then you can administrate topics via the Forums and Topics tabs in the WP admin backend.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

[Kathleen Fitzpatrick]

Hi, Ray. Can you tell me a bit more? What needs to happen, configuration or setup-wise, to be sure that we’re using bbPress to power the group forums, rather than the bundled forums? I’m not sure I understand the difference.

For instance, if we’ve created a group through the CBOX front end, is its forum automatically a bbPress forum, or do we have to do something when setting up the software to be sure we’re using only the bbPress forums?

Thanks!

[Ray]

Hi Kathleen,

First, can you let me know if you ever enabled the “Discussion Forums” component in BuddyPress and went through that forum setup phase?
http://codex.buddypress.org/user/setting-up-a-new-installation/installing-group-and-sitewide-forums/#forums-setup

If you did not, this will make things easier.

If you did, then we will have to convert the older forums over to the bbPress plugin. Currently, there are still a few bugs with converting the forums over so they are properly attached to groups. I would wait until the conversion process in bbPress is finalized before we go down that road; I’m going to personally try and debug the issue in the coming week because a lot of people are asking about this.

About the difference betwee the bundled forums and the bbPress plugin, read the response I made here:
https://commonsinabox.org/groups/help-support/forum/topic/bp-docs-wiki-and-forums-questions/#post-1019

Hope that helped and let me know if you have any additional questions.

[Kathleen Fitzpatrick]

Hi, Ray. Thanks for the answer. Looking at our BP settings, it does appear that we turned on group forums in the BP setup process. It sounds from your links as though it would be better to have bbPress run our forums (not least so that the sitewide forums page works a bit better, and so that we can get to the forums in the backend), so if you do get that conversion process debugged, please let me know. Right now, we don’t have terribly many group forums, and there hasn’t been much activity on them, but we’re of course hopeful that that will change soon — so the sooner we make the conversion, the better. I’ll look forward to hearing more — thanks again!  –K.

[Boone Gorges]

Hi all – Just wanted to chime in and echo what Ray’s said. Basically, BP itself is in the process of transitioning from an old version of bbPress (v1.x – this is the “bundled forums” that Ray mentions above) to the new version (v2.x). The upcoming major BuddyPress release, BP 1.7, is actually formally retiring the old-school forums – they’ll still work, but they won’t be offered as an option when installing BP from scratch.

So, basically, Ray’s right that using bbPress 2.x is the best way forward. In my experience, the migration tool that Ray alludes to is pretty robust, so as long as you have taken database backups, I would feel comfortable running it. If things go awry during the migration process, feel free to reach out and I’ll see what I can do to help.

[Ray]

The forums migration tool is pretty awesome, but there are a few lingering issues.

I’ve posted these issues at the top of the bbPress migration guide so people are aware of them:
http://codex.buddypress.org/buddypress-site-administration/migrating-from-old-forums-to-bbpress-2/

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