[Snaphaan]

Hi

I’m working on a custom theme for Buddpress that I would like to extend with a few small features. But my initial excitement quickly toned down after stumbling in the dark with BP for a few weeks. So I decided to put my nose to the grindstone and study up wordpress theming – reasonably sensible since the basic implementation is reasonably similar, right? Hell I didn’t even know how to work with functions or what a loop is!

Anywayz, I haven’t touch BP theming yet but I have some ideas in the back of my mind that I would like to realize. But first some general questions:

1) This one should probably be available as a plug-in. I need a way to let users be able to upload a custom header-like image, like Facebook’s “cover image”.

2) Before I get going with BP’s theming are there any recommended tutorials for beginner BP themers? I’ve found a lot of good stuff for WP but BP seems to be a bit lacking. In-depth stuff would also be welcomed

3) How active is BP still? I’ve heard some rumors that it’s taken a bit of a nose-dive. I still see some regular updates so I guess BP is still here for a long time? Whatever the situation, I still believe I made the right choice with BP!

I have a number of other questions but these are for starts.

Thanks for your time!

[Toby Cryns (@themightymo)]

1) Do you need functionality beyond the avatar upload that comes with BuddyPress?
2) Start with a child theme of the default theme – don’t build one from scratch.
3) Very active.

[Snaphaan]

Short and sweet. Thanks Toby

About the custom header image. Well, yes. The Avatar image is actually something different from what I want to do. This header image will function roughly like the cover image on a Facebook Fan page. It will be about 700px wide and no more than 500px high and should be changeable whenever the users wants to. It’s only cosmetic really and might be good for some personalization of their page

I am REALLY glad to hear that BP is still going strong. Was probably a stupid question but it’s nice to put a annoying thought behind.

[modemlooper]

I don’t want to discourage anyone from creating BuddyPress themes but version 1.7 is very close and you don’t need to go through special hoops to create a theme for BuddyPress. BP 1.7 will work with any theme. The template files in 1.7 are minimally designed to fit inside existing WP themes. You can then add a few more styles to your WP theme to make the BP template files look even better with your theme.

You can test out the new way BuddyPress theming will work: https://github.com/paulgibbs/turtleshell

[Toby Cryns (@themightymo)]

@modemlooper – Good point.

@Snaphaan – Whether or not you wait for BP 1.7, the process for adding this functionality will be similar. I found some promising links by doing a google search for “buddypress xprofile image upload”.

Good luck!

[modemlooper]

Cover image has been such a requested feature. I will write a plugin that themes can use to display images. It will only be for BP 1.7.

[Snaphaan]

Toby Cryns
Thanks for the “search” suggestion! First time I found exactly what I am looking for!!

@modemlooper
Great stuff about the plug-in!!!
Also, the integration between BP and WP in 1.7 sounds really amazing. The only hassle is keeping a reign on all the plug-ins and features I want to utilize between the two. Speaking of which:

Is there any BP framework (commercial or otherwise) anyone can recommend that can be customized as much as you want and with a lot of nifty features (through shortcodes or whatever). If I can find a great backbone it would save me lot of time.

Thanks for the help so-far

[modemlooper]

http://infinity.presscrew.com/intro/buddypress/

[charlietech]

When do you guys think 1.7 will be release?