codejp3

@cj74 – finally got a chance to check it out. Looks 100% good-to-go as far as I can tell. I wish there was a built-in bbPress option for this, but it’s not common enough to justify it I guess.

I’ve considered writing custom code that asks you for the desired slug for the new “fake forum root index” and then automatically does all of the other steps….but it’s a lot of work for something only a handful of people would ever use. Maybe one day….but sticking to things that MOST people would put to use for now.

@robin-w – email sent with multiple emails. Worst case, you should always be able to send emails to [email protected]. It should never bounce/reject any emails. It only filters spammy emails before forwarding on to my email server.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by codejp3. Reason: fixed typos

Alright, I was trying to keep the instructions generic that anyone could apply to their site, but it seems to be a little too generic for you to be successful with them. Here’s step-by-step, with your site as it is right now:

Step 1.) Your new “fake forum root index” slug:
forums

Step 2.) You already have a page setup with the slug “forums” and the bbp shortcode, so you’re good-to-go. Nothing to do for this step.

Step 3.) You need to make sure the “Forum” menu item in the nav menu points to the page from step #2. Link directly to that page. Do not use a generic custom URL.

Step 4.) In /wp-admin/options-general.php?page=bbpress scroll to the “Forum Root Slug” options, and make sure “Prefix all forum content with the Forum Root slug (Recommended)” is NOT checked. 

Also change the slug for “Forum Root” to something different like: “bbpress-forums”. It will no longer be used, but we still want to change it to something distinctly unique to prevent conflicts of any kind and to make it stand out if it ever accidentally shows up in breadcrumbs/URL strings for easy future debugging reasons.

Step 5.) In the “Forum Single Slugs” section just below that, setup the following permalink slugs:

Forum - 	forum
Topic - 	forums/topic
Topic Tag - 	forums/topic-tag
Topic View - 	forums/view
Reply - 	forums/reply
Edit - 		forums/edit
Search - 	forums/search

We’re just adding “forums/” in-front of each slug to override the default bbPress behavior. ONE EXCEPTION – “Forum” is intentionally unmodified and the slug remains “forum” so that we can handle it specifically for breadcrumb/URL reasons (taken care of below in step #8).

Step 6.) Do the same thing in the “Forum User Slugs” section below that. New values:

User Base - 		forums/users
Topics Started - 	forums/topics
Replies Created -	forums/replies
Favorite Topics - 	forums/favorites
Subscriptions - 	forums/engagements

Just add “forums/” in-front of the existing slugs.

Step 7.) Now customize the breadcrumbs using Style Pack. Go to /wp-
admin/options-general.php?page=bbp-style-pack&tab=breadcrumb and scroll down to #2 “Breadcrumb Root” and make sure “Disable Root breadcrumbs” IS CHECKED. We don’t want the default bbPress forum root index within the URL structure anymore, and this will remove it from the breadcrumbs.

Step 8.) Add this (pre-modified for YOUR SITE @cj74 ) code snippet to your site with either the Code Snippets plugin (preferred), or to your proper child theme functions.php file.

// function to handle custom redirection for single forum permalinks
// needed to remove default bbPress forum root index and use custom "fake" forum root index
function custom_single_forum_redirect() {
	
	
		/*
		 * Setup Variables. Should be the only part of this code you need to modify
		 */
		$original_forum_index_slug = 'forums';
		$original_single_forum_slug = 'main-forum';
		$new_slug = 'forums';
		$single_forum_slug_base = bbp_get_forum_slug();
		$redirect_old_forum_root_index = false;
	
	
		/* DO NOT MODIFY ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE UNLESS YOU HAVE A REASON AND KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING! */
	
		// only do this code if on the frontend of the site
		if ( ! is_admin() ) {

				// let's dissect and check the requested URL
				if ( isset( $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] ) && isset( $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] ) ) {
					
						// does the URL request start with the single forum permalink slug and the only single forum slug? 
						// we want to redirect /forum/slug-for-the-one-and-only-single-forum to /forums
						if ( strpos( $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], '/' . $single_forum_slug_base . '/' . $original_single_forum_slug ) === 0 ) {
								// set redirect flag to true so we do a redirect
								$redirect = true;
								// build out new URL to redirect to
								$redirect_url = is_ssl() ? 'https://' : 'http://';
								$redirect_url .= $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];
								$redirect_url .= str_replace( '/' . $single_forum_slug_base . '/' . $original_single_forum_slug, '/' . $new_slug, $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] );
								wp_redirect( $redirect_url, 301 );
								exit();
						}
					
						// does the URL request start with the old forum index slug and single forum permalink slug and the only single forum slug? 
						// we want to redirect old /forums/forum/slug-for-the-one-and-only-single-forum to /forums
						if ( strpos( $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], '/' . $original_forum_index_slug . '/' . $single_forum_slug_base . '/' . $original_single_forum_slug ) === 0 ) {
								// set redirect flag to true so we do a redirect
								$redirect = true;
								// build out new URL to redirect to
								$redirect_url = is_ssl() ? 'https://' : 'http://';
								$redirect_url .= $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];
								$redirect_url .= str_replace( '/' . $original_forum_index_slug . '/' . $single_forum_slug_base . '/' . $original_single_forum_slug, '/' . $new_slug, $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] );
								wp_redirect( $redirect_url, 301 );
								exit();
						}
					
						// handle redirects for the old forum root index, but only if flag set to true and the original/new slugs do not match
						if ( ( $redirect_old_forum_root_index === true ) && ( $original_forum_index_slug !== $new_slug ) ) {
								// does the URL request start with the old forum root index slug? 
								// we want to redirect /old-forum-root-index-slug to /forums
								if ( strpos( $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], '/' . $original_forum_index_slug ) === 0 ) {
										// set redirect flag to true so we do a redirect
										$redirect = true;
										// build out new URL to redirect to
										$redirect_url = is_ssl() ? 'https://' : 'http://';
										$redirect_url .= $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];
										$redirect_url .= str_replace( '/' . $original_forum_index_slug, '/' . $new_slug, $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] );
										wp_redirect( $redirect_url, 301 );
										exit();
								}
						}
					
				}
			
		}
}

// hook into init to process redirection before header
add_action( 'init', 'custom_single_forum_redirect' );

Step 9.) For good measure, navigate to /wp-admin/options-permalink.php and click “save” to force a regeneration of permalinks.

DONE!

I am having problems locating the slug. Is it under “settings” of the admin dashboard?

Edit : The only slug being used at this point is “forums” as you have suggested. Should i match that?

No. This is the slug to the actual one-and-only forum you have setup in bbPress.

When I last viewed your site, it had the title “General Forum” and the slug “main-forum”.

If that is still the case, you want to change ‘slug-for-the-one-and-only-single-forum’ to ‘main-forum’.

You can verify this by going to /wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=forum, clicking on the one-and-only forum you have as if you were going to edit it, and view the slug value it shows on that edit page.

The code snippet in that link remains the same.

I included a list of changes to apply, but they don’t seem to be in that post….hmm. Strange.

Here’s the changes to make to that code snippet:

1.) Change that value for “$original_forum_index_slug”to match the actual original slug of the bbPress forum root ( the original slug before it was changed in Step 4 – default value is: forums ).

2.) Change the value for “$original_single_forum_slug” to match the actual slug of the one-and-only single forum you’re setting up to act as the new fake forum root. If you don’t know what that slug is, you can find it at /wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=forum

3.) Change the value for “$new_slug” to match the slug you decided on in step #1 above and have been using throughout all of these steps.

4.) Do not change the value for “$single_forum_slug_base”. It is auto-poluated using a bbPress function.

5.) Leave “$redirect_old_forum_root_index” as false if your forum is private (requires logging in) and is not accessible to search engines. Change “$redirect_old_forum_root_index” to true if your forum is publicly accessible (no login required) and has been indexed by search engines.

Baby steps is the wrong approach. It’s kinda “all or nothing”.

Set it to maintenance mode.

Make a backup of your site as it is.

Apply all of these changes.

Test it thoroughly to make sure it works as expected.

If it works as expected, keep the changes, make another backup with the new changes applied, and take it out of maint. mode to go live with the new changes applied.

If it doesn’t work as expected, take detailed notes about the issue, start a support topic, and then reapply the saved backup prior to the changes so your users don’t experience unnecessary downtime/issues.