Ours is a large content based portal that uses WordPress as its CMS.

We were planning to give our community some networking abilities and want to install buddypress for that. But when we install a buddypress theme, the whole site loses its portal look. So a couple of questions:

1. Can we keep a separate theme for buddypress pages, like a child theme for buddypress section only? or some other option.

2. If that is not possible, can we run two wordpress installations – one without buddypress for cms and one with buddypress – and share their users+login somehow.

Thanks for your help.

[@mercime Participant 13 years, 6 months ago]

You can keep your WordPress theme and just install the BP Template Pack plugin to make your WP theme compatible with BP. No need for a separate installation at all and worrying about sharing users.

https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bp-template-pack/
https://codex.buddypress.org/theme-development/wordpress-to-buddypress-theme/
https://codex.buddypress.org/theme-development/bp-template-pack-walkthrough-level-easy-2/