GD bbPress Tools

by Milan Petrovic

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Description

Adds various expansions and tools to the bbPress plugin implemented forums. Currently, included features:

Quote Reply or Topic
Change allowed HTML tags and attributes
User signature with BBCode and HTML support
Signature field in BuddyPress profile edit
Toolbar menu integration
BBCode shortcodes with 30 BBCodes
Limit bbPress admin side access
Tweak: Disable bbPress breadcrumbs
Tweak: Topic tags field in reply form for author only
Tweak: Show lead topic
Tweak: Show search form for all forums and topics
Tweak: Disable ‘private’ title prefix
Topics View: Topics with most replies
Topics View: Latest Topics
Topics View: Topics by freshness

bbPress Plugin Versions

GD bbPress Tools 3.5.3 supports bbPress 2.6.2 or newer. Older bbPress versions are no longer supported!

More free dev4Press.com plugins for bbPress

GD Forum Manager – quick and bulk forums and topics edit
GD Members Directory – show filterable list of all forum members
GD Power Search – add advanced search to the bbPress topics
GD bbPress Attachments – attachments for topics and replies
GD Topic Polls – add polls to the bbPress topics

Upgrade to GD bbPress Toolbox Pro

The Pro version contains many more great features:

Enhanced attachments features
Limit file types attachments upload
Add custom file types for upload
BBCodes editor toolbar
Report topics and replies
Say thanks to forum members
Query Performance Booster
Various SEO features
Various privacy features
Enable TinyMCE editor
Private topics and replies
Auto closing of inactive topics
Notification email control
Show user stats in topics and replies
Track new and unread topics
Mute Forums and Users
Great new responsive admin UI
Setup Wizard
Forum based settings overrides
Improved BuddyPress support
40 BBCodes (including Hide and Spoiler)
19 more Topics Views
9 additional widgets
Many great tweaks
And much, much more

With more features on the roadmap exclusively for Pro version.

More information about GD bbPress Toolbox Pro
More Premium plugins for bbPress bbPress Plugins Club

Installation

General Requirements

PHP: 8.0 or newer

WordPress Requirements

WordPress: 6.2 or newer

bbPress Requirements

bbPress Plugin: 2.6.2 or newer

Basic Installation

Plugin folder in the WordPress plugins folder must be gd-bbpress-tools
Upload folder gd-bbpress-tools to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress

Screenshots

Main settings panel
Tweaks panel
BBCodes panel
Topics Views panel
Toolbar bbPress forums menu
Setting up signature

Faq

Where can I configure the plugin?

Open the Forums menu, and you will see Tools item there. This will open a panel with global plugin settings.

Will this plugin work with old, standalone bbPress (versions 1.x) installation?

No. This plugin requires the plugin versions of bbPress 2.6.2 or higher.

Click on Quote button doesn’t add quoted content?

This happens if the plugin’s JavaScript is not loaded. Make sure that both CSS and JavaScript options are enabled. If that doesn’t help, make sure to enable ‘Always Include’ option too.

Sometimes quoted content when saved appears broken?

The quote itself doesn’t strip HTML, but bbPress does. If the quoted section contains HTML tags or tag attributes that bbPress doesn’t allow, it will strip them when the reply is saved. To solve that, you need to use the option to control allowed HTML tags in topics and replies.

Some features not working with BuddyPress group forums?

This happens if the plugin’s JavaScript is not loaded. Make sure that both CSS and JavaScript options are enabled and ‘Always Include’ option is also enabled.

Does this plugin work with bbPress and BuddyPress groups?

GD bbPress Tools 3.1 is tested with BuddyPress 6.0 using bbPress for Groups forums. Make sure you enable JavaScript and CSS Settings Always Include option in the plugin settings.

Some BuddyPress features break when I use BuddyPress Nuovo templates?

The problem is caused by the Italic BBCode due to the conflict with the Underscore templates system BuddyPress uses. You can disable Italic BBCode, or you can limit BBCodes to the bbPress content only (highly recommended).

When the quote is used on the formatted content, formatting will be gone inside displayed quote?

This happens because quoting can only take rendered HTML as is, and when saved, bbPress will remove some HTML elements based on the user role. GD bbPress Toolbox Pro plugin includes additional features that expand the allowed HTML elements for all roles, and that solves this quote problem.

Reviews

A really useful plugin, but it has serious security problems.

By pavlovscat on April 3, 2026

I really like this plugin, but it has been flagged by WordFence for a serious security problem for nearly one year without getting an update, so it's pretty risky to use it. I hope that the developer updates it. If so, I'll revise my rating to 5 stars.

"The GD bbPress Tools plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting in versions up to, and including, 3.5.3 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with contributor-level access and above, to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page."

Vendor is not responsive.

By Barry (barry@personalcto.net) on July 31, 2025

They changed their licensing policy and said that I needed to buy a new license by 7/31, but the page to do that gives a critical error. I have reported the problem but have not gotten a response.

Update - they actually did respond and fixed the problem so I could renew. Rating changed to account for that.

A lot of issues

By piradopirata on July 26, 2024

This plugin has a lot of issues and incompatibilities.

It easily breaks your forum

Works fine for more than a decade!

By Aurélien Denis (Maigret) on May 15, 2024

Great support by the editor for a long time. Thanks!

Critical bugs and no response from support

By marbs on July 4, 2022

Since May 26, 2022, this plugin has been experiencing issues (which can always happen). Unfortunately, the developer is not responding to my support inquiry. I don't recommend installing this plugin for safety reasons and a developer who doesn't care.

Great plugin for BBPress

By bolhachefe on December 7, 2020

Great plugin for BBPress

Bait and Switch

By racosgrave on September 3, 2016

No point in the free version; just a bait and switch for the paid version.

Excellent

By mth75 on September 3, 2016

Excellent! Would be nice if a quote action jumps to the reply form though!

After installing was locked out of admin account

By Kineta on September 3, 2016

Not sure if this plugin had anything to do with the lock-out (suspect it was a combo of form autofill and bbpress's all in one profile page) but trying to reset the password wasn't possible until I deleted all this plugin's folders. I got a "Could not save password reset key to database." message when trying to retrieve the password.

Ouch.

Highly satisfied with pro version

By mln83 on September 3, 2016

Plugin works well and good support from author when in doubt.

Changelog

4.0 (2026.04.21)

New: system requirements: PHP 8.0 or newer
New: system requirements: WordPress 6.2 or newer
Edit: various security-related updates and improvements
Edit: improvements to the main JavaScript code
Fix: XSS vulnerability related to BBCodes processing
Fix: the issue with Quote object initialization

3.5.3 (2024.08.19)

Edit: updated links to the Dev4Press website
Edit: various PHP code changes and improvements
Fix: fatal error on one of the admin panel tabs

3.5.2 (2024.05.15)

Edit: few more tweaks to the main JavaScript code
Fix: problems with the Quote not working with TinyMCE editor

3.5.1 (2024.05.14)

Edit: few more tweaks to the main JavaScript code
Edit: various small updates to readme file
Fix: missing semicolon in the JavaScript code

3.5 (2024.04.28)

New: directive Requires Plugin added into main plugin file
New: System requirements: PHP 7.4 or newer
New: System requirements: WordPress 5.8 or newer
New: plugin fully tested with WordPress up to 6.5
New: plugin fully tested with PHP 8.3
Updated: code style and translation formatting
Updated: main plugin JavaScript library

Full changelog: GD bbPress Tools Changelog