how to use WordPress with a forum?

[shimon]

Hi,

I am planning on running a business forum with a blog and need your opinions on how to go about doing this. I’m thinking about making the forum the homepage and making the weblog a menu item. I really want the forum to be the focus.

1) what do you think about that structure? should the blog be the homepage instead?

2) how do I accomplish making the forum the homepage? Where do I install wordpress and where do I install the forum?

3) should the forum be integrated with the blog in terms of design or do you think it’s ok if it has similar colors though not the same design?

I’m looking forward to getting some great advice from my wp friends ??

[peiqinglong]

1) The blog should be the homepage so you could make announcements and what not.

2) You could use .htaccess redirects to redirect to the forum on visit.

3) IMO, it should be integrated. Check out BBPress, WordPress’s forum program.

[t0v3]

Definitely have a look at https://bbpress.org for adding a forum to your wordpress blog

IMO integrating the forum with the site is a must. No one wants to register twice to comment and to post on forums.

[shimon]

Thanks to both of you for the advice.

1) I see what you’re saying…are there cons to having blog on front page. I really want the forum to be the real focus of the site. I’m planning for a high traffic business forum.

2) I don’t know what a redirect does or how it works (i’m only semi tech-savy). Can you please explain in detail? How would the installations work? Would the forum be installed inside wordpress, or separate, or some other way?

3)Registration I agree should be integrated. My question was about the design. Should the design be identical with the forum and blog?

4) Why bbpress, besides it was created by wordpress people? Other boards have more options (phpBB, Vanilla, myBB, smf). Is bbpress suitable for a board that doesn’t have too many features but is also not bare bones?

link for forum software comparison:
https://www.forummatrix.org/compare/bbPress+MyBB+phpBB+SMF+Vanilla

[shimon]

can anyone help me out? sorry for the bump ??

[Samuel Wood (Otto)]

4) Why bbpress, besides it was created by wordpress people?

Because it can integrate more or less completely with the WordPress code, sharing users and logins and such.

Is bbpress suitable for a board that doesn’t have too many features but is also not bare bones?

Yes. But try it and see for yourself.

[shimon]

@ Otto42

Thanks for the input! Will take it into consideration.
Anyone wish to discuss my first 3 questions?

[t0v3]

If you want the forum to be the main focus of the site, then in my opinion you may be better off going for phpbb and then adding a phpbb portal hack to that to get a blog as an added feature. I’ve built a fully integrated content management system out of the phpbb forum. It does pretty much anything you want and there are hundreds of hacks for it.

bbpress does lack many features the big forums have, it’s very lightweight, but that works fine if you are just wanting the forum as an addon to the main focus of the site (the blog)

At the moment bbpress doesn’t have a huge support community either, their forums aren’t very active. If it were me starting a large business site, i’d more than likely go for phpbb or vbulletin where i know there is always hundreds of people ready to help with your questions. But as it stands, i am only wanting a personal blog with a small discussion forum for a small group of visitors, so bbpress works well.

[silverfirefly]

IMO if you are serious about creating a professional business site, / forum I would use vBulletin. It has far more features than phpBB and you don’t have to do much hacking if any. The last time I used phpBB, I had to do quite a lot of coding to get the features I wanted, whereas vBulletin has many of these features built in as standard. If you need to add more functionality to vBulletin, most of it is done by using the plugin system which is far easier. I believe there is an integration script for vBulletin / WordPress too. The only thing is that phpBB is free, but vBulletin is not. Just my thoughts.

As for whether the blog should be the homepage… I use WordPress and vBulletin for my Vanguard guild website. I have not used an integration script but, if you aren’t planning on allowing people to comment on your WP articles then I would just have the blog as the homepage and have a link to the forums. Or, you could have the forums as the homepage, and have the blog as a link. I would go with the first option if you are planning on posting news and announcements on the blog as that will be the first thing people will see. If it’s the other way around then people aren’t as likely to see your news and announcements or other important articles. If you are allowing people to post comments on your WP articles then I would use an integration script.

[shimon]

@ t0v3 and SilverFirefly

Thanks for your well thought out comments! I would like to go with a free solution. I’ve been looking at phpbb, smf, and bbpress as some options. I’ve been leaning toward smf.

I know there is an integration method for the registration, but what about design? I’m sure some wordpress members have already figured out how to integrate the external forum software into their design. I think many people would benefit from such a tutorial or post here.

I’m looking forward to getting some more great advice ??

[shimon]

Anyone…? integrating the design?

[jonimueller]

Simple Machines Forum is a little less unfriendly to use than PHPBB IMHO. https://www.smf.org

Also, check out this forum program:
https://www.fahlstad.se/wp-plugins/wp-forum/

I haven’t used it but a friend of mine has and she seems to like it quite a bit.

Good luck.

[shimon]

@ jonimueller

Thank you for your advice. Wp-forum doesnt suit my needs. I need something like smf. But how to I wrap it into my site’s design? I want the forum to fit within a wordpress page so that it looks like the rest of my site.

Keep the advice coming!

[shimon]

One last friendly bump ;-). Anyone can help me with the design issue?

[drmike]

Best bet would be to look at smf’s documentation and see how it does themes. You’re probably going to have to port the design over.

wp-forums has some small issues and I believe the developer has stopped work on it.

[circuit]

i have successfully integrated a vanilla forum, both in terms of the database and design. there are guides which will help you, google for them. vanilla is lighter, smaller and prettier than vbulletin and bbpress.