Using Wordpress as a Forum
I was recently asked to set up a basic forum system for a client. They were using Simple Machines Forums, but it wasn’t working smoothly. Rather than trying to address the issue, I opted to try out the bbPress forum software based on Wordpress. The two main reasons were: (1) its simplicity (2) the fact that it is based on Wordpress, which my client’s are already familiar with. So I installed it and liked the simplicity and elegance of the system. However, one problem with bbPress relative to my client’s needs, was that there is no way to upload images and insert them into posts.
Now, knowing that Wordpress has a nice little WYSIWYG editor with an associated image uploading and insertion feature, my first thought was to try and hack bbPress by migrating in the Wordpress editor. I spent a small amount of time trying to achieve this with little apparent success. Instead of continuing down this path, I started to think about the possibility of making a few modifications to Wordpress to get it to act more like a forum. Fortunately, a quick Google search later and I found that someone had already created a theme and plugin combination for Wordpress which does this very thing.
The theme (TDO Forum Wordpress Theme) can be found at http://thedeadone.net/software/tdo-forum-wordpress-theme/ and the plugin (TDO Mini Forms Wordpress Plugin) can be found at http://thedeadone.net/software/tdo-mini-forms-wordpress-plugin/.
Tags: Forum, Wordpress, Wordpress Plugin