Right now, most of the plugins and themes pages are done with, well, Pages. But, maintaining that is not that easy anymore, so, I have decided to introduce 2 more post types (3 in use now) for plugins and themes. This will allow for more compact data storing and much better display of the relevant plugins and themes information.

Current support forum is powered by old bbPress 1.0 standalone. Now is a good time to replace it with new bbPress 2.0 plugin version, and this will be done as a part of update. Unfortunately, due to incompatibility, old attachments will be lost from the new forum. All files will be saved, but they will not be available for download. On case to case basis, I can import old attachments using new system if needed. In most cases this will not be necessary, since most uploads were for bug reports, and these bugs are likely fixed by now.

Website conversion will be done over the following weekend (16 to 19 September 2011). I expect at least several hours of downtime during direct server work to convert data, update files and test everything.

bbPress

bbPress plugin version is quite different than normal bbPress, now it uses post types for forums, topics and replies and adds topic tags as taxonomy for topics. One of the features finished plugin will have is to convert data from old bbPress into new format so that the switch will be done easier to a new plugin based version.

Current version of bbPress plugin uses default TwentyTen theme to add extra templates and rendering elements. I am using same approach for xScape, and framework will contain bbPress elements that will be shared across all themes, and will have a module that will add templates and control other settings as needed. If you use bbPress, this module will add extra templates needed by bbPress and allow for same level of customization as with normal WP based templates. Biggest issue is to create template elements that will use CSS BluePrint layout that will be save regardless of the theme and theme specific BluePrint settings. Also, theme will include styling for bbPress added widgets. Another great thing about this is that upcoming GD Star Rating 2.0 will support bbPress plugin also.

Theme R8 will be used for first integration tests and I will release development snapshot for testing next Monday, but it will take some time to sort it out, and also bbPress plugin is not yet done, so changes will be added along the way. xScape Roadmap is updated, and the integration should be fully done for final release of xScape Theme Framework 1.7.