valadiléne

While working on vgmTorrents, I decided that I was going to need a message board. I already had a working WordPress setup, and I needed a lightweight and fast piece of software, so I searched for a forum package with those requisites which could be easily integrated with WordPress. That’s how I discovered bbPress.

Methods for integration between WordPress and bbPress have changed through the years. Here I’m going to talk about the latest releases of both packages: WordPress 2.8.4 and bbPress “Bechet” 1.0.2 (of course these instructions may work with other versions as well).

Installation and integration keys

First of all, we need to install our blog and message board. Download WordPress and bbPress and upload them on your server.
It is preferable that you install them on the same database, although it’s not necessary. Using the same database will only need one database connection per-pageload and will make things easier in general.

After you’ve entered database data, you will access the second step of the installation. In this step you have to copy and paste some keys from your WordPress wp-config.php and from your settings page. You can access your settings page at this URL:

http://example.com/wp-admin/options.php

Here’s a quick list containing each bbPress key with the corresponding WordPress one. They must be the same on both WordPress and bbPress.

• WordPress “auth” cookie key: AUTH_KEY (wp-config.php)
• WordPress “auth” cookie salt: auth_salt (settings page)
• WordPress “secure auth” cookie key: SECURE_AUTH_KEY (wp-config.php)
• WordPress “secure auth” cookie salt: secure_auth_salt (settings page)
• WordPress “logged in” cookie key: LOGGED_IN_KEY (wp-config.php)
• WordPress “logged in” cookie salt: logged_in_salt (settings page)

If one of those settings is not set on your WordPress settings page, then you must leave it blank on bbPress as well.

User table sharing

In the next step of the installation, you can tell bbPress to use your blog’s users table. You can do this by specifying your user table prefix. This is usually “wp_”; otherwise, if you have changed it, just use the value of $table_prefix in your wp-config.php. Also, if you have decided to install bbPress on a different database, here you can enter database settings for the database which contains the wp_users table.

Extra needed cookies and role map

You will also need to install this bbPress Integration plugin on your WordPress. This sets some required extra cookies for the integration to work properly.

As a last step, you’ll have to access your bbPress admin area, WordPress Integration section, and setup the user role map which matches WordPress roles with bbPress roles. Usually you may want to map Administrator to Key Master and Subscriber to Member.

Deep integration

What we have just done is usually referred to as “simple integration”.
A further step is to integrate WordPress core and plugin functions into bbPress. This may be useful to perfectly match your forums template with the one in your blog, using template tags and plugins functions.

In order to fully integrate WordPress in your forums and have access to WP functions, just add this line in your bb-config.php file:

Of course you will need to set the real path to your blog.

I really discourage this kind of integration because it will double your server load, since the entire WordPress core will be loaded each time someone accesses your forums.
A better alternative is to work hard on your bbPress template and maybe create a bbPress plugin which simulates special behaviours of your WordPress blog.