WordPress 3.0 is out and WP-United v0.9 is not yet ready.

I will push out an interim of WP-United soon that will work better with WordPress 3.0. However, if you have already upgraded your WordPress, you will receive errors about make_clickable due to a few formatting changes in WordPress files (or a blank page).

To fix these, go to your phpBB root folder and open wp-united/wp-integration-class.php.

Go to line 341. It should look like this:

$cSet = str_replace('require (ABSPATH . WPINC . ' . "'/$fName","$cFor // ",$cSet);


Replace that line with the following code:

$finds = array(
'require (ABSPATH . WPINC . ' . "'/$fName",
'require( ABSPATH . WPINC . ' . "'/$fName"
);
$cSet = str_replace($finds,"$cFor // ",$cSet);


Then clear your cache (phpBB ACP -> Purge Cache).

This will fix your errors and allow you to use or install WP-United v0.8.5 with WordPress 3.0.

phpBB inside WordPress 3

However, please note:

• I haven’t done detailed testing yet with the new default theme (although it seems to integrate fine for me with CSS Magic on.)
• The new WordPresss multi-user blog features won’t work with WP-United yet
• Unlikely, but some other features may be broken — if you find them, please let me know

I’m making some more progress with WP-United v0.9… the brand new settings panel is now operational, and can transfer its settings out to phpBB. This is much simpler to use, and complerely replaces the “Setup Wizard” on the phpBB side.

This marks a major shift in the way WP-United works conceptually. Prior to v0.9 we have always been a “phpBB mod”. The Setup Wizard was quite innovative for phpBB — certainly more so than most other phpBB mods. However, the phpBB ACP hasn’t served us well. It still requires some actions to be taken by the user to see the WP-United Setup Wizard, and in general, the rest of the ACP is a bit of a mess with too many options buried under menus.

Leveraging WordPress’ plugin system better

We’ve always used WordPress’ plugin system in WP-United, but most of the core code sat outside that, under your forum directory.

v0.9 will change that. Now that the panel is working, my plan is to move most, if not all, of the WP-United files (that currently sit under your-forum/wp-united) to a plugin folder in phpBB. I’d like users to be able to automatically download and install the plugin using the WordPress plugin browser — this will hopefully go a long way to achieving that.

However, we still have one snag: phpBB still requires some code edits. Over the last few versions, we’ve cut down the number of edits required significantly, but there are still plenty. In the interest of releasing v0.9 sometime this century, I will start off simply, by including instructions in the WordPress plugins panel with a link to the XML file containing instructions on editing phpBB.

While this should be fairly clear, it’s not a great solution in the long run. Every time a user has to manually edit files, things can go wrong (no arrogance here — I make mistakes installing it myself very frequently). I’d be interested in hearing people’s thoughts on how this should work for v1.0.

Likely way forward for v1.0

I’ve done a bit of thinking, and right now, I think the following would work best:

• Distribute a customized version of the AutoMod engine with WP-United.
• After the user fills in the WP-United basic settings in WordPress, we inspect the phpBB installation. If AutoMod is already installed there, we give a link to a zip file and ask the user to install it using their pre-existing AutoMod (likely they are already comfortable using it)
• If they don’t, we give them a choice: install manually or automatically. An automatic installation would back up phpBB files and apply changes the bast way we can. The inner-workings of AutoMod would be hidden from the user. A manual installation would be the same as planned for v0.9.

Alternative: A pre-mod option

The idea of a pre-mod option is for WordPress users who haven’t already installed phpBB. They could go to the plugin browser, and in a couple of clicks, install a fully integrated, WP-United phpBB. The phpBB install could even be completely managed — hidden in a plugin subfolder and exposing forum pages via permalinks.

This would undoubtedly be cool, and would bring in tons of new users while reducing support requests — but I can see that maintenance would be a big problem. With each release of phpBB I would have a lot more work to do, and that would take time away from what’s important: Maintaining the WP-United core. In addition, users who installed this way would get a nasty shock when it came to installing new phpBB themes: they’d still have to learn how to do mod edits then.

The only way I think this would work is having a user-contributed repository of pre-edited themes at WP-United.com so that phpBB turns into an end-to-end point-and-click install for WordPress users. Maybe this is something we can consider for v2.0. (However, hopefully by that time, phpBB will already be sporting a decent plugin system).

Due to the above, I’ve discounted this option for now, but I am excited about the possibility for a future version.

Your thoughts?

I’d be interested in hearing from users with a WordPress (rather than a phpBB) background as to how the install should work in an ideal world.

Thinking from a WordPress administrator’s perspective, is a completely managed phpBB install desirable? Or would you rather have a separate install which requires some management (and the inevitable bugs that accompany it)?

If we, in the long run, opted for the former, would you be interested in contributing to the community by helping to maintain one-click-install repositories of modified phpBB code and themes?

Over the next few hours there will be sporadic downtime — I’m upgrading the server operating system.

It is safe to create new posts — the database will not be rolled back. However, you will have access problems from time to time.

I’ve been travelling the last few weeks, with limited Internet access, so while I have been very bad at responding to e-mails and messages on the forums, I have managed to make a lot of progress with the next big version of WP-United:

• blog.php is gone: WP-United will no longer need it, making installation for new users much simpler.
• The way WordPress is called has changed: it will now be compatible with nearly all plugins, without needing most plugin fixes.
• The installation process is in the process of being changed. The Wizard / Setup Page is being moved from phpBB to WordPress, and will be much easier to use. Below is a sneak preview. Highlights include an interactive filelist for setting paths, tabbed/sliding menus, much more clarity in options, and (hopefully) no more “Step 5″ blues.

New Control Panel 1

New Control Panel 2

While you are welcome to check out and test v0.9, it is still in the process of undergoing open heart surgery. Many portions of code are temporary and subject to change, and the new control panel is not yet finished.

I envisage that things will start to crystallize in 2 weeks or so, and then hopefully testing will be easier and more people can follow along — watch this space!

I will be back on a regular schedule from the end of next week too.

You will have noticed that I haven’t been around much in the last two weeks. I have some leave at work coming up, and as such, have been trying to clear my desk before I go, meaning I haven’t had much time to myself.

I normally manage to check off forum posts at lunch times and in the evenings, that that just hasn’t been possible recently. Thank you to everyone who has been helping out on the forums — especially DeaconFrost, Vertical, and all the other regulars.

I am still tight for time before I go, but have managed to clear the Installation Support forum today, and hope to do the same for the Bug Report forum too.

Once I’m on holiday, I should get a bit more time to catch up — including a long haul flight or two to spend a bit of time working on v0.9 . It is essential that I proceed on v0.9 as WordPress 3 is looming ever-closer.

If you have e-mailed with a support request, I am sorry for the tardy response — but my priority is finishing off existing requests and catching up with the forum. I will be accepting more requests when things quieten down a bit. Meanwhile, the offer still stands for experienced members here to subcontract on support requests– if you are interested, please let me know.

John

I’m delighted to announce the release of WP-United v0.8.5. This release is a snapshot of the changes that have taken place in WP-United over the past few weeks: There are a few new features and options, and plenty of bug fixes. I wanted to release these changes beore focusing on the bigger changes coming in v0.9.

Visit the download page to get the latest version. Upgrade instructions are included.

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Hi everyone. Continuing the topic of “how you can help”, if you are unable to donate, but have a little bit of free time, please feel free to download and update a bit of the WP-United user manual.

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If you have a bit of time to spare, and would like to help support WP-United, translation is a great way to do it!

At various times, WP-United has been translated into German, French, Italian and Swedish. However, they are all out of date — some more than others.

If you would like to help translate, here’s how:

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This site will be redesigned soon — at that point I will give in to the Web 2.0 bandwagon, and spray some social networking buttons onto the site.

However, in the meantime, to stay up-to-date with WP-United developments and releases, follow us on twitter: #wpunited .

You can also find WP-United on Facebook: Search for WP-United and become a fan!

v0.8.4 is here, and brings a few bug fixes and improvements.

Get it from the downloads page. To upgrade from v0.8.x, simply copy over all the new files in /root, and then purge your phpBB cache. For upgrading from older versions, or installing fresh, please see the README included.

• NEW: auto-installer replaces the manual wpu-installer.php
• Fixed comments closed for global announcements when they shouldn’t be.
• Fixed unreliable display of comment date/time
• Added better error catching for when WP-United isn’t installed properly
• Fixed timezone of cross-posts
• Improved BBCode & magic URL checking in cross posts
• Fixed errors with user blogs list, and improved login_userinfo template tag
• Fixed username incorrect when editing cross-posted posts
• Fixed integration error message after updating password or username under some circumstances
• .. and a few other bug fixes too dull to list here.

Happy blogging!