Before going any further, check out the BP codex theme section as there is now a long list of converted themes courtesy of mercim that may suit and that have had the hard work done for you.
For the record you don’t re-name the BP files you just ensure they are copied over with the same folder/directory structure and then adjust the markup so it matches one of your primary theme files i.e index or page.php, the template pack walkthroughs in the codex do help if you follow them carefully.
Thanks for the help guys, but the stuff in the codex article there is exactly what’s in the instructions for the template pack.
Hugo – Thanks but as my site is a specific type of website the converted themes aren’t really diverse enough to suit it. The instructions are fine except when you get to altering code as I am not au fait with website coding and have very little confidence there.
“For the record you don’t re-name the BP files you just ensure they are copied over “
– well the walkthroughs/codex/instructions suggest you copy the sidebar/header/footer and rename as sidebar-buddypress.php etc so i was just following that.
The trouble I’m having is that I simply don’t know how to ensure the content of the page doesn’t overlap the sidebars, and which bits of code to paste to rectify this – it’s not clear enough in the instructions for a novice like myself I’m afraid! (Maybe that’s the intention but I have to try!)
Take my example here – this is the page.php file for my current theme:
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I don’t understand how this pertains to the other files and what out of this I should replicate and how. Even the walkthrough for the simple 2011 theme it’s not as simple as copying, but rather adding extra code in which I don’t know if I can replicate for my theme.
Any help or advice welcome.
Thanks
There are two ways to make theme compatible with BP template pack – change 16 files (works in all WP themes) OR add foo-buddypress.php files (possible in some themes) – and it will depend on div#container location and other factors.
What theme are you using? I can take a look. Open up header.php, copy all, paste in http://www.pastebin.com, click submit, and post the generated URI here. Do the same for index.php, page.php, sidebar.php and footer.php PLUS loop.php or better yet, loop-page.php if you it.
`“For the record you don’t re-name the BP files you just ensure they are copied over ”
– well the walkthroughs/codex/instructions suggest you copy the sidebar/header/footer and rename as sidebar-buddypress.php etc so i was just following that. `
My bad yes BP added ‘buddypress’ into the get_*() calls to allow child themes to call distinct header,footer,sidebar named files for the purposes of combining BP templates into existing themes.
This process of converting BP to be used in a third party theme is a choice though, yes there is a level of difficulty and you will require some basic – very basic – coding skills if you have decided to go this route and those will need to be learnt. It is never expected that an absolute novice could cope with this process, the novice needs to rise above that baseline.
mercime will guide you through the process though, but do understand that you choose to go down a customised route so need to to have a somewhat extended skill set now.
