Title: Forum Plugin Compatibility
Last modified: September 21, 2026

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# Forum Plugin Compatibility

 *  Resolved [codings](https://wordpress.org/support/users/codings/)
 * (@codings)
 * [1 week, 2 days ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/forum-plugin-compatibility/)
 * This looks like an excellent improvement for WordPress search!
 * Would it also be able to serve search results from forum plugins like wpForo?
   For example, could it search other content types (such as wpForo forum threads)
   at the same time?
 * I need a solution to be able to pull the search term from the main WP search 
   box and return results from other places on the site. Ideally, it would return
   a tabbed search results page similar to some Buddypress/Buddyboss themes (with
   blog and forums results in their own respective tabs for easier control over 
   the display).

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

 *  Plugin Author [Per Søderlind](https://wordpress.org/support/users/pers/)
 * (@pers)
 * [1 week, 1 day ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/forum-plugin-compatibility/#post-19025808)
 * Great question. The short answer is that it depends on how the forum plugin stores
   its content.
 * **How Loupe Search decides what it can search**
 * Loupe Search indexes WordPress **post types**. It reacts to `save_post` and reads
   normal WordPress post objects, and the searchable set is whatever you pick in
   Settings (or add via a filter). So the rule is simple:
    - If the forum content is a WordPress custom post type, it works.
    - If it lives in the plugin’s own database tables, it can’t be indexed out of
      the box.
 * **The two common forum plugins differ here**
    - **bbPress** stores forums, topics, and replies as custom post types (`forum`,`
      topic`, `reply`). These work with Loupe Search natively: add those post types
      in Settings, reindex, and they’ll be searched alongside your blog posts.
    - **wpForo** stores its forums, topics, and posts in its **own custom tables**,
      not in the WordPress posts table. Because there are no WordPress post objects
      to hook into, Loupe Search can’t index or return wpForo threads without custom
      bridging code. This isn’t something the plugin does today.
 * **Searching multiple content types at the same time: yes**
 * For anything stored as post types, this is core behavior. Loupe Search intercepts
   the main WordPress search box and returns all indexed post types together in 
   one result set, and every result carries its post type. So blog posts plus bbPress
   forum content come back in the same search automatically once those post types
   are indexed.
 * **The tabbed results page (Blog / Forums tabs)**
 * Loupe Search doesn’t ship a tabbed results UI, but it exposes a REST API that
   makes one straightforward to build, which is exactly the kind of custom results
   page it’s meant for. A theme (or child theme) template can call the search endpoint
   and either:
    - request all types at once and group the results into tabs by post type, or
    - make one request per tab (for example, posts in one tab, forum content in 
      another) so each tab paginates independently, which is closer to the BuddyPress/
      BuddyBoss feel.
 * Facet counts are available too, if you want a number next to each tab.
 * **So, practically:**
    - Using **bbPress**: everything above works today. Selecting the forum post 
      types and building a small REST-driven tabbed template gets you the BuddyBoss-
      style page.
    - Using **wpForo**: the threads can’t be searched as-is. The options are to 
      move to bbPress, or to have some custom development sync wpForo content into
      WordPress (for example into a shadow post type Loupe can index).
 * Opus 4.8 made an [example tabbed result search page](https://gist.github.com/soderlind/fb8f9a54cbe95bbdc4de8809114ee96c).

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

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 * 1 reply
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Per Søderlind](https://wordpress.org/support/users/pers/)
 * Last activity: [1 week, 1 day ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/forum-plugin-compatibility/#post-19025808)
 * Status: resolved