June 19, 2024

Simple:Press Forum Plugin

The most versatile and feature-rich forum plugin for WordPress. Create unlimited forums with awesome features directly in your WordPress site.

Simple:Press is an all-in-one, feature-rich forum plugin designed to seamlessly integrate with your WordPress site.
With a focus on performance and user experience, it offers an extensive range of free and premium features to meet all your forum needs.

The plugin has undergone rigorous testing and offers complete support for PHP 7.4 up to PHP 8.2.

Key Features

Enterprise-grade performance, scalable for thousands of users
Seamless integration with WordPress user and security models, featuring a robust user group and permission system
SEO optimized for enhanced search engine visibility
Highly customizable and extendable for a tailored experience
Data import compatibility with other forum platforms, such as bbPress and Asgaros
Multi-level forum structures with subforum support
Options for both private and public forums
Fully theme and template driven for easy customization
Selection of adaptable themes with customizable colors and font sizes to match your brand identity
Extensive administration options and settings for streamlined management

Simple:Press Pro

Take your forum to the next level by adding Simple:Press Pro, a bundle of add-ons that bring over 100 additional features to your forum.

Some of the included add-ons are:

Analytics: Engaging charts displaying forum data
Ads: An advanced advertising engine integrated within the forum
Private messaging system: Enables users to exchange private messages
Push Notifications: Supports SMS, Pushover, PushBullet, and Slack
Reputation System
Polls
Admin Bar: Front-end management tool for admins and moderators, eliminating the need for wp-admin access
Image, media, and file uploader: Allows designated users to upload files and media to topics and posts
Multiple post editors, including TinyMCE
Who’s Online

View all add-ons and pricing.

Compatibility

Simple:Press supports standard and multi-site versions of WordPress and was built to be
compatible with most themes, both free and commercial.

Languages

Simple:Press is available in a variety of languages and volunteers and customers are always adding more! Portions of the plugin have been translated into 20+ languages by our users and volunteers. These include German, Portuguese(BR), Arabic, Chinese, French, Italian, Persian, Polish, Spanish, Swedish and more!
View our translation site

Latest Updates

6.10.9 – June 2024

Added new WYSIWYG editor fields to enable better HTML editing features

6.10.8 – February 2024

Added setting to allow admins to hide firstname, lastname and email from user profile

6.10.7 – December 2023

Fixed issue with checkbox for custom messages that did not save correctly
Fixed issue with user pagination when no group is selected

6.10.6 – November 2023

Improved the pagination handler to handle large amounts of pages better
Improved the user group handling allowing admins to search for specific users
Increased the number of shown users per page in the user group admin
Added indicator showing current page in pagination links
Added hover in the user group admin to show user ID to easier find the correct user
Improved the spinner/loading image positioning
Fixed warning when installing forum without sample data

6.10.5 – November 2023

Fixed compatibility issue with WordPress 6.4

6.10.4 – October 2023

Fixed issue with installations on multisites
Only stow Forum link in WP admin bar for Admins
Improve usability when hovering icons and showing cursor pointer instead
Minor CSS-improvements to admin
Fixed warnings

6.10.3 – July 2023

Fixed issue with member search failing when no results were returned

6.10.2 – July 2023

Fixed issue with checkbox data that was not saved

6.10.1 – July 2023

Fixed a bug that made “Manage Groups And Forums” return an error when editing a forum
Solve issue with automatic updates for free themes

6.10.0 – July 2023

Full PHP8.2 support, this ensures that all features and functionalities provided by the plugin work smoothly and efficiently in PHP 8.2 environments
New and improved admin interface with less clutter
Manage Groups and Forums has been refactored to better visualise forum structure and make administration more intuitive
Addons that have their own menu get grouped at the bottom to make it easier to find specific settings for installed addons
Error messages, caution notices and information notices are visually separated to better aid users to know what and what not to change
Permission view has been made more compact to improve readability and permission overview
Storage location administration has been restructured to simplify folder management and give the user a better overview
A multitude of PHP-warnings have been silenced
Plugin administration has been improved and made more compact to give a better overview of installed and activated plugins and their options
Activating and handling themes has been improved and simplified
Licensing UI redesign to better aid users in understanding the licensing process
Admin stylesheet has been updated and obsolete CSS-syntax’s has been removed
Modern theme have had an update to help partially hidden search inputs on mobile view

6.9.1 – June 2023

Reverted: Only allow Simple:Press to run queries on Simple:Press pages

6.9.0 – June 2023

Resolve PHP8.2 issues
Fix avatar options not saved
Fixed installation warnings when activating and installing Simple:Press for a more seamless installation
Only allow Simple:Press to run queries on Simple:Press pages
Minor admin cleanup, remove buttons, missing font-fix
Added progress indicator when uploading theme or add-ons to help users better understand what is happening
Indicator added when activating/deactivating add-ons, aiming to assist administrators
Fix backend and frontend issue with disabled forums to avoid confusion
Fixed SQL-error on install

6.8.10 – March 2023

Added new optional constant to allow sp-resources to live in uploads folder
Fixed CSS font issue in admin to improve readability and user experience

6.8.9 – March 2023

Fixes issue in spa-admin-notice.php that causes upgrades to fail

6.8.8 – February 2023

Added correct version number

6.8.7 – February 2023

Fixed alignment issue in modern theme

6.8.6 – February 2023

Added missing version number for WP.org

6.8.5 – February 2023

Fix issue with upgrading

6.8.4 – February 2023

Fixed issues with TinyMCE editor not working properly

6.8.3 – January 2023

Special rank badges were not displaying in admin or front-end.

6.8.2 – December 2022

A couple of PHP 8.1 compatibility fixes.

6.8.1

Various security related fixes.

6.8.0

Compatibility with PHP 8.x. If using premium add-ons, new versions will be required.
Show error code when there’s an error with the license process.

6.7.0

Add option to sort by the membership column in the FORUM->USERS->MEMBER INFORMATION list.
Tools popup on desktop makes better use of horizontal space.
G00121: Fix an issue with deleting subsites rendering all user posts as guests in any other site that has the forum in use.
G00116: When sorting the user list under FORUM->USERS->MEMBER INFORMATION, the list would be unstyled.
G00117: Custom icons not rendering in drop-down properly.
G00123: Large custom icon images need to be resized when viewing the forum list in admin.
G00098: Fix admin screen issue where the Bulk Actions Arrow in MEMBER INFORMATION is too close to text.
G00022: Deleting a topic from the FORUM TOOLS popup did not refresh the screen.
G00100: Moving users not belonging to any user group did not refresh the section after the users were moved.
G00000: Multiple issues with caching icon files when a filename is reused. Added cache-busting querystrings in the admin area to force cdns and page caches to re-request the file.
G00000: Multiple issues with caching featured images files when a filename is reused. Added cache-busting querystrings in the admin area to force cdns and page caches to re-request the file.
G00000: Multiple tweaks related to extra line breaks showing up in SP themes when the WP 59 FSE theme was in use.

6.6.6

G00000: Fix a drag-n-drop issue introduced by WP 5.9.

6.6.5

G00000: Add support for FSE themes introduced in WP 5.9.

6.6.4

G00000: Check to make sure a YOAST class is callable before attempting to use it. Compatibility fix for Yoast 17.8.0
G00000: Add a filter in sp-api-class-spcauths.php to support future functionality.

6.6.3

G00000: Add a new overlay to the default 2020 theme to match the WP 2021 theme. The new overlay is the default on all new installs.
G00110: Could not reorder profile tabs and menus in admin screen.

6.6.2

G00000: Page number overlap on certain admin screens when the page numbers get to 3 digits.
G00000: When deleting users and choosing the option to delete the user, they now get deleted instead of being set to “guest”.

6.6.1

G00000: (Security) Verify a nonce & user capability before allowing certain file-related operations.

6.6.0

G00000: Introduction of a “white label” mode that removes most references to Simple:Press.
G00000: Updated the Modern2020 theme to the latest version.
G00000: Much better support for WordPress Multisite with numerous multi-site related fixes and improvements.
G00000: Fix a compatibility issue with PHP 7.4.0
G00000: Fix a string that needed to be in double-quotes instead of single quotes in order to de-reference an embedded variable.
G00000: Fix an issue in the sp_ColumnEnd function where the class and tag names were not being assigned properly in the generated html for the column.

Installation

Using The WordPress Dashboard

Navigate to the ‘Add New’ in the plugins dashboard
Search for ‘Simple Press’
Click ‘Install Now’ and activate the plugin

Uploading in WordPress Dashboard

Download simplepress.zip from this page
Navigate to the ‘Add New’ in the plugins dashboard
Navigate to the ‘Upload’ area
Select simplepress.zip from your computer
Click ‘Install Now’ and activate the plugin

Using FTP

Download simplepress.zip from this page
Extract the simplepress directory to your computer
Upload the simplepress directory to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory and activate the plugin

Setup

After you activated the plugin through the plugins dashboard, you need to run the installer. Click the INSTALL button at the top of the admin pages or go to Forum->Install.
This creates the tables and default data that the plugin requires.

Getting Started

Now that you have installed your forums read our getting started pages.

Screenshots

Example of front-end forum screen.
Main permissions definition screen
An example of an admin screen
Housekeeping and maintenance screen
View of left menu with some add-ons enabled
Main front-end screen using the old REBOOT theme - a more traditional compressed forum format
A list of topics in a forum
Customize colors in the theme - easily make the forum match your brand.
Main front-end forum screen with many elements in a different color as set by the theme customizer.
Main front-end forum screen on a mobile device in a different color
View a post on a mobile device
The statistics area at the bottom of the forum screen
The front-end admin options for a post

FAQ

I’ve installed the plugin – now what?

Now that you have installed your forums read our getting started pages.

I don’t receive e-mail notifications

There are several factors that can influence e-mail notifications delivery. The best thing you can do to diagnose email delivery issues is to install a plugin that shows you an email log. We recommend MAILGUN or SMTP POST. The logs will let you know if emails are being generated and not delivered or just not being generated at all.

I cannot seem to create a new forum. When I select a FORUM GROUP in which to create the forum, nothing happens.

Use your CTRL-F5 key to refresh your browser cache for that page. Sometimes old CSS and JS scripts just needs to be cleared out and CTRL-F5 does that.

Can I import data from my old forum?

Yes! You can import data into our forum from other forums including bbPress, Asgaros and others. Get the importer here;

With a bit of development skill you can even build your own importer for something we don’t already have!

Or contact us to build one for you or to use our flat-fee import data service.

I am a WordPress admin, but I can’t see Forum menu items

When a new WordPress administrator is created by another WordPress admin, the new WP Admin is NOT automatically granted rights to the forum. Instead, an existing forum admin needs to explicitly grant the new WP ADMIN forum privileges under the FORUM->ADMINS menu option.

One of the nice consequences of this division of security is that you can make a user a Forum Admin without making them a WordPress admin.

Upon installation, existing WP admins are made Forum admins; so this issue will only present itself when a new WP admin is created after the forum is installed.

What shortcodes are available?

Simple:Press does not use short-codes. Instead, it outputs the entire forum directly into the content area of the WordPress page you specify. By default that page is called FORUM but you can easily switch it to a different page in FORUM->INTEGRATION->PAGE AND PERMALLINKS.

Why is the forum so narrow?

Many themes use a sidebar on their default WordPress pages. This reduces the content area that the forum is allowed to use.

Additionally, themes might designate a content are of only x% of the width of the screen.

These two practices are the primary reasons why the forum might not look the way it should.

However, the good news is that many of the higher quality themes provide a “full width” page template or allow you to change the default content area width of pages. Contact your theme developer to find out if they have either of these two options.

Can I charge for forum access?

All the other reputable membership plugins use WordPress ROLES to control their membership. Simple:Press forums does too. So you can use ROLES to integrate with most other membership plugins if you like. Just contact us if you need more help understanding what this means.

Can I upload files to posts?

The free version of the plugin does not allow file uploads. But the premium version does. The premium version also allow users to list, view and delete their prior file uploads.

The free version of the plugin can still display images that are stored elsewhere – just paste the link to the image into the post editor.

The editor looks simple – is there a better one?

The editor in the free version is a pure text editor. However, Simple:Press Pro comes with a full wysiwyg editor – the same one that WordPress uses – TinyMCE.