I am proud to present a new Dev4Press plugin for WordPress and bbPress: GD Power Search Pro for bbPress! Version 1.0 was released today, and it is already in use on Dev4Press support forums.
GD Power Search Pro for bbPress is an easy to use plugin for adding the advanced search form to bbPress powered forums. Plugin required bbPress 2.5 or newer, and it is tested with upcoming bbPress 2.6. The plugin adds mobile first responsive form with query, filters and results control blocks, and each one with elements that you can control from plugin settings panel.
Each filter can be disabled or enabled for logged in users only and hidden from users that are not logged in. Some fields have additional settings and some fields even have different field variants you can use. Filters included right now are: content types, forums, authors/users, topic tags, topic prefixes, date period with additional fields for changing results sort order, and changing where the search for keywords is done.
New plugin doesn’t require any coding changes to the bbPress, but it can be additionally configured through templates modification if needed, and it uses own set of filters and actions, similar to how bbPress templates work. The plugin is tested with various themes, and it works fine with all themes that use unmodified bbPress templates, or have templates that are modified but still with all the hooks bbPress uses.
I plan to expand the plugin with new filters in the future, and you can expect one or two major new versions for this plugin by the end of this year. If you decide to buy it, or you have already used it, let me know about any problems.
You can try out the new advanced search on the Dev4Press own support forum here. And, you can request a demo website to test it out. Let me know what you think about the new plugin, and if you have any questions, ask them in comments.
Special offer
All Dev4Press users will valid and active license for GD bbPress Toolbox Pro, GD Topic Prefix Pro or GD Topic Polls Pro can take advantage of the special 30% discount for GD Power Search Pro for bbPress. This offer is valid until September 17, 2018, and to get the discount, log in with your Dev4Press account, and visit the Buy GD Power Search Pro page, and you will see the discounted offer.
All users with Dev4Press Plugins Club license already have access to this new plugin.
Does this support exclusion of search ability based on roles or, perhaps, bbp Private Groups plugin settings?
Hello Anthony, some filters might not be viable at this point due to the awful database schema bbPress has (ie, it has none, it relies on meta tables), and some complex queries required for roles are simply too slow.
But, I will be expanding list of available filters in the future versions, starting with few filters related to my GD bbPress Toolbox Pro plugin and some of its features that can help to search for posts in the forum. And, I will see what else can be cached to speed up some more complex filters.
And, in the next version, the plugin will allow for coding custom filters for other developers to use.