How to install and configure a bbPress forum on WordPress

This article describes how to install and configure a bbPress forum on a WordPress site. With the bbPress plugin for WordPress, you can quickly and easily add forum capabilities to any WordPress site.

Installing the bbPress plugin

To install bbPress on WordPress, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your WordPress site as the administrator.
2. In the left-hand pane, click Plugins.
3. Click Add New.
4. In the Search text box, type bbpress, and then click Search Plugins.
5. In the Name column, locate bbPress, and then click Install Now.
6. Click OK to confirm the installation.
7. After WordPress finishes installing the plugin, click Activate Plugin.

Configuring the bbPress plugin

After you install the bbPress plugin, you can create a forum and configure it. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your WordPress site as the administrator.
2. In the left-hand pane, click Forums, and then click New Forum.
3. Under Create New Forum, type a name for the forum in the text box. WordPress displays the permalink URL to the forum.
4. In the large text box, type a description for the forum.
5. Under Forum Attributes, specify the forum settings that you want.
6. To publish the forum, click Publish.
   To view the forum's appearance before you publish, click Preview.
7. To change additional forum settings, in the left-hand pane, click Settings, and then click Forums.

More Information

How bbPress got its start

Around the time when WordPress launched, they were using the solution miniBB to power their support forums. While miniBB had worked well for them up until that point, they were looking for additional functionality and ultimately to create a lighter weight forum for its community. In December 2004, Matt Mullenweg began working on that solution. Soon after he began development, bbPress was launched. It featured faster performance and the functionality that they were previously missing in their community. Together with Michael Adams, Sam Bauers and John James Jacoby, the team of developers was able to turn bbPress into a WordPress plugin available to all of its users.

bbPress features

As you would expect, bbPress is loaded with powerful, user-friendly features. Just some of the bbPress features you'll appreciate include its easily customizable themes, spam prevention support and the fact you can create multisite forums.

• Easy To Use Control Panel – As a user interested in bbPress, it's likely that you are familiar with WordPress. As a WordPress user, you know that it is a very easy to use solution. After all, bbPress is designed by the same minds behind WordPress so you know you'll have a user-friendly experience. You'll also have the added advantage of not having to learn a different forum solution that you may not be so familiar with.
• Extensible – With WordPress being such a highly extensible CMS, you would expect its leading forum solution to be very customizable. And it is! bbPress has a powerful plugin solution with 100's of available addons to choose from. From avatars to breadcrumbs to social sharing, you're bound to be able to add the forum functionality you're looking for to your bbPress install.
• Customizable Themes – Whether you are just planning to run a bbPress forum or looking to match the look of your forum to your existing site, you can easily customize your bbPress' appearance. That's because bbPress has integrated theme support complete with front end editing ability. That means you can depend on all theme functionality to work even for non-bbPress templates, even for those themes that do not contain any bbPress code.
• Forum Spam Protection – Once you build your community powered by bbPress, you want to make protect it against spammers and spam posts. There's not much that can kill an online community quite like spammy forum posts. That's why our bbPress install features comprehensive Akismet support for full spam protection.
• High Speed Solution – Just as your web hosting account from A2 Hosting will be high performing, you can expect similar performance from your bbPress install. The developers of bbPress has focused on providing its users with a lightweight solution that isn't bloated with features. Your community of users will appreciate the quick page loads that your forum has to offer.
• RSS Feed Compatible - With RSS feeds, both you and your visitors will easily be able to stay up to date on the latest posts and content found on your site. Just use your favorite RSS feed reader to get this content.