BuddyPress.org

Forgive me for not having dug through the code as much as I should before commenting. I will do that before I go much further. However, one of the things that Ptah Dunbar and Justin Tadlock have made me think hard about is separation of appearance from functionality.

The goal would be for Hybrid to handle all the WP functionality in a theme “framework” (which I consider ‘less’ than a parent theme). Of course, he would bundle some templates as a starting point, but the core would be in the “functionality” files. For the developer, what is key is the knowing the custom functions, hooks and css rules built into the framework.

OK, now BP comes along. It is adding “functionality” that will hopefully “appear” somewhere. Because Hybrid is the parent, I’d want to put the BP files in the child. Again, BP would ideally be a separation of function from appearance (Andy above suggests that separation is not that good, but I’ll dig through at some point). BP functionality would be placed in the child (e.g. functions.php, .js, etc). Where those functions didn’t conflict with Hybrid, they would just be additional functionality.

Now, the BP templates would go in the child too. They would be hacked into oblivion, but as long as the functions are the same, omitted or supplemented by my own, it shouldn’t matter. When BP is upgraded, I’d have add the new functions/js, but that shouldn’t break my site unless they conflict with existing ones. The painstaking part would be looking through the templates and understanding how the new functions are used and porting what I want and leaving behind what I don’t.

Hybrid would be automatically upgradeable and the functionality part of BP would almost be automatically upgradeable. The painstaking part would be adding the functionality to my existing – custom child theme.

What am I missing?