GD bbPress Toolbox

Attachments are one of the most important features all standalone forums have, and it is a very popular feature GD bbPress Toolbox Pro adds to bbPress. The feature started with free GD bbPress Attachments plugin, but in the GD bbPress Toolbox Pro, it is massively expanded and enhanced. Attachments are stored inside the WordPress Media Library, and plugin heavily relies on Media Library to handle uploads and other low-level stuff.

Enhanced Attachment Upload Form

To make the upload experience better for the forum users, and to also minimize issues with uploaded files (too big, wrong file type), the plugin has enhanced upload interface that shows a preview for files before upload, allow inserting the file into content and few more things. And, the control validates file type and size prior to upload. This enhanced interface is optional, and you can disable it for default basic HTML upload controls.

Displaying the Attachments

Attachments are displayed under topic or reply content, and there are many options to control how they are displayed and what extra options are available. Here is how the attachments block can typically look like with the mix of images and other file types:

Attachments Settings

All the attachments settings are available throught the Features panel. You can completly disable this feature if you don’t need to use attachments for your forum.

General Settings

• Basic Settings
  Used to enable attachments and to enable enhanced interface
• Enhanced Interface
  Options to have set caption field for each attachment, automatically add new file slot and insert into the content.
• Default Limits
  Limit the size of files and number of file to upload at once.
• No Uploads Limit
  Select user roles to have no limits upload.

Integration Settings

• Form Position
  Choose where to show attachments upload control inside the topic/reply forms.
• Files List
  Control display of attachments list, including control for guests and few other things.
• Attachments Icons
  Options to show icons for different file types.
• Auto-generate featured image
  Generate thumbnail for topics and replies based on attached images.

Images Settings

• Shows as thumbnails
  Enable display of image attachments using thumbnails.
• Display Control
  Choose thumbnail size, display of caption and inline display.
• Thumbnail attributes
  Set CSS and REL attribute values for thumbnails.

Allowed File Types Settings

• Basic Control
  Options to enable filter files by MIME Type and showing list of allowed file types.
• MIME Types allowed for upload
  List of supported file type and options to allow any or all of them.

Advanced Settings

• Errors Logging
  Log errors generated during upload, and options to control who can see them on the frontend.
• Attachments List
  Option to hide attachments that are inserted into content via attachments shortcode.
• Upload Directory
  Control the directory inside the Media Library Uploads where to store attachments.
• Bulk Download
  Option to enable button for bulk download of all attachments for each topic/reply.
• Media Library
  Option to hide attachments from the Media Library.

Deletion Settings

• Attachments deletion
  Control how the attachments can be deleted from the frontend.
• Deletion of Topics and Replies
  What to do with attachments after topic or reply get deleted.
• Deletion of Attachments
  Control who can delete attachments via the forums frontend.

Extra MIME Types

• Additional MIME Types
  Interface to add one or more new MIME types with extensions.

Admin side Attachments List panel

To manage all attachments, the plugin has Attachments List panel on the admin side where you can see all attachments with a lot of additional information about the files, including basic controls related to topics/replies and forums the attachments belong too, and options to remove attachments.

And, there is also an Errors Log panel showing all logged upload errors.