[tekanji]

I think the idea is not to have BuddyPress permanently alter the WordPress related data.

I’m new to BP and so I’m not familiar with how all the functions work, but what in the original WP data structure would be altered by deprecating fullname in favor of using the WP fields?

…then really BuddyPress should be able to modify ALL of the original WordPress user info exactly like the profile admin panel does…

I would like that, actually. Or at least to have the option to have the profile be able to modify that information.

I want the original WP functionality that allows a user to choose which fields — username, first name, last name, or nickname — to display for them. I thought that was a great addition to WP and I don’t like that installing BP has effectively cut me and my users off from that choice without some serious code modification on my end.

[tekanji]

No problem; I should have been more clear with my question anyway. I don’t have all that much experience with open source, but I can certainly understand being defensive about software that you’re very involved in.

For the record, this is the first time I’ve actually participated in development forums for any software I’ve developed for. Most of the time I just lurk and hope my questions get asked by someone else. It speaks very highly of BP that installing it spurred me to actually make an account here and start posting questions and whatnot.

[tekanji]

Andy keeps telling me that any WP theme can be converted to a member theme.

It can. The member theme is like a normal WP theme but with added functionality. Because of the nature of the themes I run on my site, I decided to customize the member theme rather than trying to convert my WP theme into a member theme, but the principle is the same.

I’m going to check out the the bp_styles() function mentioned in the readme.txt. It seems like as good a place to start as any. Thanks for the tip

Andy keeps insisting that it’s not a big problem.

That what’s not a big problem?

[tekanji]

Ah, I was trying to ask if there is there something about the code that makes it impossible to implement the redirect I was talking about. I am definitely interested trying to code an enhancement, but I’m new to BP (just installed it a few nights ago) and, while I’ve coded a few WP plugins for personal use, there’s a lot about coding plugins/hacks/etc that I don’t yet know.

In other words, I’m trying to figure out 1) if coding a redirect (or other function) is within my current coding capabilities, and 2) if so, where to start.

Sorry for being such a newb

[tekanji]

I’m with DJPaul; I would like to see BP’s proprietary fullname field deprecated and have WP’s native fields be used instead.

Not only would it allow for more customizability/adaptability of BP themes, plugins, etc but it would also get rid of an extra field that, as far as I can tell anyway, can be handled just as well with WP’s first_name and last_name fields.

I agree that we should put this suggestion into a trac ticket.

[tekanji]

I’m not sure why the member directory and blog directory have to be handled as part of the standard WP theme instead of the members theme?

[tekanji]

Unfortunately, that doesn’t actually make a big difference in my case; the main problem I have is that the header and footer files between the two themes are vastly different. The two main problems are that 1) one of my themes is fixed width at a size smaller than the minimum size for the BuddyPress themes (which breaks the layout) and 2) they don’t have the header with “Home”, “Blog”, etc. which I don’t want on my main site, but *do* want on the members directory and blogs directory.

I was thinking about it, though; the member-theme actually has plugin-template.php although it doesn’t appear to be used. Is there some particular reason why if a blog theme doesn’t have that file it puts up an error message instead of redirecting to the member-theme file?

[tekanji]

Well, personally I consider the member and blog directories to belong to the same “type” of page as the profile and other pages that use the member theme.

But, more to the point, the problem I’m having is that plugin-template.php relies heavily on proprietary BuddyPress functions which makes it hard to integrate into themes with layouts that are different than the basic BuddyPress layout. Since the member theme is designed specifically for BuddyPress I figured it would be easier to have the pages that use the plugin-template.php use that theme rather than writing code that changes the way the blog themes display just for that one page.

I mean, it should be possible to have the “members” and “blogs” directories use the members theme rather than the main theme since “members/username” uses the member theme. I was hoping that there would be an easy way to do it (like bp_get_member_header() or something like that). Oh well.