Embedding bbPress into a WordPress Page

[ZappoMan]

Has anyone ever implemented a solution for embedding a bbPress forum into a WordPress page?

Basically, I want the theme chrome from a wordpress blog, and I want the page content to be the bbPress main area... I'd like it to support all of the subURL structure of bbPress from that page...

I am hacking on a plugin to do this now, but I'm curious if there's something already out there.

[Luke]

Um...   why?

You know you can wrap WP around BBpress, right? Functions and all?

Also, FYI, other than their alpha version, 2.5+ support isn't so much. Maybe it was 2.6, I can't remember.

[ZappoMan]

Luke I don't understand your reply. But I'll try to respond to move the dialog forward.

Why? - Well, I assume you're not asking me why use bbPress, etc... and you're asking, why attempt this specific project. So, let me add more context.

I want to keep the chrome as close to the same as possible, without having to rewrite an entire template... also I want sidebar widgets, etc... so my thinking was to "punch a hole" in the page content area of my wp theme, and show the main bbpress area there.

I'd like all the standard bbPress navigation, url generation, topics, posts, tags, etc... to still work.

With respect to "wrap WP around BBPress"... well... I guess that's what I think I want to do... Is there an example of this somewhere? That's what I'm looking for.

With respect to bbpress/wp compatibility... I've implemented custom authentication that works across the apps, so that doesn't seem to be an issue at this point.

Any feedback is welcome. Thanks.

[Luke]

Wrapping WP around bbPress is a pretty common thing.
It's documented on their site, and quite a few places on the net as well.

[ZappoMan]

Well, the only thing I've found is people who implemented user integration.

I've done that.. that's pretty easy (although many people struggle).

Anyway. I'm hitting the google with "bbpress wordpress integration", but nothing too useful is coming back on... I'm only getting tips on doing user integration.

I found one bbPress plugin that claims to use your wp theme's header and footer...closer.. but not exactly what I want.

I found this on the bbPress forums from a Moderator (1 month ago)... "There's no easy way to embed bbPress into a WordPress page, I don't think. There are forum plugins for WordPress that work inside a WordPress page, but I have no experience with them."

[ZappoMan]

Well, maybe I've been thinking about this backwards...

I was thinking that inside of WP, you should essentially call the bbPress APIs... to render the bbPress pages, and controls...

But the "ThemePress" bbPress template from here: http://www.adityanaik.com/integratepress-part-i/  takes a different approach... it has bbPress running, and calling the wordpress APIs to render wp-themes inside of a bbPress template.

This almost does what I want... but it looks like it will take some modifications to do exactly what I want.

Anyway... more spelunking.

[ZappoMan]

Came up with a great solution.

Basically realized it is easier to call the wp-themes's header, footer, etc, from inside of bbPress... so I guess I was inspired by Luke's "wtf?!" comment to figure out the better way to do this.

Thanks.