bbPress Review - General Features & Requirements

Thu March 19, 2009 14:04 |
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Web Site: http://www.bbpress.org
Download here: Download bbPress
Community Forum: Support
Released under: GPL License.
Current version: 1.0 alpha6 (January 8, 2009).
Sponsored By: Wordpress.
Price: Free.

From bbPress website:

bbPress is forum software with a twist from the creators of WordPress.

Have you ever been frustrated with forum or bulletin board software that was slow, bloated and always got your server hacked?

bbPress is focused on web standards, ease of use, ease of integration, and speed. We’re focused on keeping things as small and light as possible while still allowing for great add on features through our extensive plugin system.

What does all that mean? bbPress is lean, mean and ready to take on any job you throw at it.

So let’s get started. Download, install, and you’re on your way!

Goals

bbPress is plain and simple forum software, plain and simple. It’s easy to use, easy to administrate, fast and clean. But don’t let its simplicity deceive you; underneath the gleam, it’s got some powerful features and is highly customizable.

Philosophy

bbPress is still pretty new, but we’re certain of a few things:

  1. Open Source, always and forever
  2. Less (code) is more
  3. Simplicity is a feature
  4. Speed and security are the foundation of any good user experience
  5. Put the user first

Every line of code is written with these principles in mind, and if that sounds good to you maybe you can help out!

Server & Clients Requirements

Server Requirements
Operating Systems
Systems supporting this software.
  • Linux
  • Windows Server 2003
  • Windows XP
  • Solaris
  • FreeBSD
  • OpenBSD
  • NetBSD
  • Windows Server 2008
  • Mac OS
Web Server Details
Web servers host the forum software.
  • Apache 1.3
  • Apache 2.0/2.2
  • Microsoft IIS
  • Lighttpd
Languages Details
Development language.
  • PHP 5
Databases Details
Systems that store forum datas.
  • MySQL
  • Postgresql
  • SQLite
Browsers & Clients Requirements
Compatible Browsers Details
List of compatible browsers.
  • Mozilla Firefox 3
  • Mozilla Firefox 2
  • Mozilla Firefox 1
  • Opera
  • Safari
  • Konqueror
  • Internet Explorer 7
  • Internet Explorer 6
  • Chrome
  • Mozilla SeaMonkey
Required Plugins/Technologies Details
What the user needs exactly to use this forum correctly.
  • HTML and Javascript
  • HTML and AJAX
Localization Details
Languages supported by bbPress.
No No.

Forum Threads & Posts

Forum Threads
Forum Style
General appearance of the topics.
Flat
Social Networks
Users can share information from their social network account...
No.
Thread Icons
An icon that identifies the type of a topic.
No No
Forum Organization
Organize your forum with categories, sections,...
  • Forum Categories
  • Sub Sections
Sticky Threads
Sticky threads stay at top of a section or a forum.
Yes Yes
Spell Checking
Posts and topics are spelled checked with a dictionary.
Unknown Unknown
Detect Duplicate Threads
Duplicate Threads are detected before creation.
No No
Shadow Topics
Some topics are only accessible to a limited list of users.
Plugin Plugin
Posts
Post Editing Form Details
Details about the manner to post messages.
  • Plain Text
 Emoticons Details No No
Post Editing Format Details
Markup Language (HTML, Wiki, BBCode,...).
  • Plain
  • HTML
 Attachments Details
Attach files (screenshot, archive,...) with a post.
No No
Post Quoting
Quoting a post helps readers understand who answers who.
No No Syntax Highlighting
Posted Source Code is formatted using colors.
Unknown Unknown
Post Rating
Users can rate the quality of other users posts.
No No

Key Features & Additional Tools

Key Features
Bundled Softwares
Softwares that are also available with the forum.
No. Users List Details
List of all user accounts, to helps users searching their friends.
No No
Private Messages Details
Users can communicate using an internal messaging system.
No No Online Users List
List of actually connected users, in the forum home page, a dedicated topic,...
No No
Instant Messaging Details
Users can communicate in the forum like in other IM softwares (Yahoo Messenger, Live Messenger, Google Talk, AIM,...)
No No Quick Reply Box
Write a post directly from the topic page.
Yes Yes
Calendar Details No No Remote Control Details
Remote control from external softwares or websites.
  • XML/RPC
Poll Creation Details No No Friendly URLs
URLs are as short and simple as possible (for better copy/paste and share).
Yes Yes
RSS/Atom Syndication Details
New posts and threads available using aggregators (represented by the Syndicate icon)
RSS 2.0

bbPress is really inspired from the blogging world, and more particularly from Wordpress. A nice feature is for example the tag support for each forum topics.

This is particularly useful to create a kind of cross-forum sections in topic list.

The front "Latest Discussions" module is also really interested to consult the activity of the forum community.

 
 
General Features &
Requirements
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