BuddyPress.org

First off FINDING instructions is in itself a bit confusing. There are multiple
“official” sources which compounds the confusion. End users keep wondering is there a separation between Buddy Press and bbPress? Have they merged, they’re separate? It seems the intend is to merge bbPress into BuddyPress. Curious that bbPress only appears under plug-ins and once installed appears under Forums on the Dashboard.

One finds the bbPress help under a green banner https://codex.bbpress.org/getting-started-with-bbpress/ and what you wrote: https://codex.buddypress.org/user/setting-up-a-new-installation/installing-group-and-sitewide-forums/ has a red heading background.

This begins the confusion. One installing bbpess then running into a problem is likely to use a major search engine then search for bbpress, after all THAT is the plug-in many have problems with as I did.

Note YOUR install instructions are labeled under BuddyPress, not bbPress. Why is that? This in itself will leave many to wonder if they ended up on the right help page. This endless back and forth trying to decide am I dealing with BuddyPress or bbPress is unnecessary and really a clumsy design decision on part of the developers because all it does is create needless confusion. That gets compounded when BuddyPress and bbPress offer overlapping features and it never really becomes clear which one you are dealing with as confirmed by having two how-to sets of instructions.

Can’t you guys work together and CONSOLIDATE the how-to in ONE place?

Can’t you guys make up your mind if you’re BuddyPress or bbPress or are you really still both?

Now specifically to your instructions: https://codex.buddypress.org/user/setting-up-a-new-installation/installing-group-and-sitewide-forums/

Please accept as offered, constructive critique from a newbie’s point of view.

First What I tried to do: Create site wide Forum, keeping my already working Buddy Press Groups.
I scrolled down the page until I found

A. Set Up Sitewide Forums only

The first step is obvious. The 2nd which takes one away from YOUR instructions to the bbPress page is needlessly confusing. Again you leave the end user to wonder what the hell am I working with bbPress or BuddyPress? The endless back and forth to a newbie is MADING.

The main content of the bbpress page you reference does nothing but define what various settings do. This will cause the typical newbie to skim the list and wonder WHY was I told to go here, now what? While useful, the page you reference to does NOT offer anything to do with installing, the TASK AT HAND. This will like for me, cause a newbie to leave that page quickly, since it seems to be something one might want to review AFTER bbPress is actually installed and running correctly.

So I like I’m guessing most would return to YOUR instructions page. Continuing on with your instructions you say:

`”•If you kept the default “forums” slug in Settings > Forums, you can create a new Page via Pages > Add New. Add Title “Forums” and insert the forums index shortcode and/or other bbPress shortcode you’ll find in the bbPress Codex then publish the new page. `

Oh no, you redirect to yet another page? This is really getting frustrating. Why? Because you first redirected to a page that had nothing to do with installation. Many will either ignore your suggestion or if they visit the page, again get confused.

Also if I was writing the instructions I would FIRST define all the terms you use. Many writing instructions are guilty of this omission which is the root cause of much confusion to newbies!
Slug? Shortcode? Index? What the heck are those in the context used?

You instruct if a page already exists called “forums” to make a new one where the only change is to capitalize the word forums to Forums, again I bet you confused many why they should bother and I bet they will skip doing it. I know why, others won’t and its a poor choice for a name when you could pick anything else.

If I wrote the instructions:

Under Prelude I would have made a warning that unlike Buddy Press that simply accepts a blank page for Groups and that alone generates a listing of all groups, if a page named Groups exists, setting up Forums in bbPress requires the addition of a shortcode. A blank page named “forums” or something else does nothing. You should not send people wandering off to other pages. YOU should specifically mention this CRITICAL fact in YOUR instructions. Something like:

Warning If you already have an earlier version of bbPress or Buddy Press installed, go to Dashboard
Pages and look for any page named forums. Send this page to the trash. Empty trash.

. Install and activate bbPress.
. If you want to have a page that lists all your forums, make a new page with a more descriptive
name for Forums such as all-forums.
. Add the shortcode `[bbp-forum-index]` to this new page, publish.
. From Dashboard go to Appearances, Menu. Locate the page you just created and add to your
menu.
. Create one or more forums if you haven’t already. Test that they all show up when you click on
the page you just added to menu.

I changed my search terms and founded this:

https://buddypress.org/support/topic/how-do-i-delete-item-in-account-menu/

I applied the changes to remove the nodes ‘my-account-forums-favorite-topics’ and ‘my-em-events’. Furthermore, following the complete WP class guide I realized I can change the “href” of the links too…

However, thank you all for the great job you do…

The thread can be considered [solved]…

Saluti

BuddyPress version 1.6.4

Theme is homegrown but my needs wouldn’t change depending upon theme being used.

I’m current looping through the $bp->nav and $bp->bp_option_nav variables to construct the code needed but these variables change whether you’re viewing another users profile or not.

I need to construct the same menu as if you were viewing your own profile but display it on every page, even if viewing another users profile.

@naijaping @mercime
Okay I finally got it. Not certain it is totally right but it looks good in both chrome and firefox. I did have to create a div class in the members-loop.php called user-location surrounding the code from step 3 in the tutorial to be able to style it. The changes I made are in the below css in case anyone wants to try this. I also included a pic at the bottom to show the end result. Thank you both for your help! Cheers!
`
/*
Theme Name: BuddyPress Child
Theme URI: http://example.com/
Description: Child theme for the BuddyPress Default theme
Author: bphelp
Author URI: http://example.com/about/
Template: bp-default
Version: 1.0
Tags: blue, buddypress, custom-background, custom-header, custom-menu, editor-style, featured-image-header, featured-images, fixed-width, light, right-sidebar, rtl-language-support, sticky-post, threaded-comments, translation-ready, two-columns, white
*/
/*————————————————————-
Custom CSS
————————————————————–*/
@import url(“../responsive/style.css”);

/* Custom member loop avatar styling */
#members-dir-list img.avatar {
-webkit-border-radius: 50%;
-moz-border-radius: 50%;
-ms-border-radius: 50%;
-o-border-radius: 50%;
border-radius: 50%;
-webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 0 #fff;
-moz-box-shadow: 0 1px 0 #fff;
box-shadow: 0 1px 0 #fff;
}

#members-dir-list a:hover img.avatar {
-webkit-filter: grayscale(100%);
-moz-filter: grayscale(100%);
filter: grayscale(100%);
-webkit-transition: -webkit-filter 0.2s ease-in-out;
-moz-transition: -moz-filter 0.2s ease-in-out;
transition: filter 0.2s ease-in-out;
}

#members-list li {
overflow: auto;
list-style: none;
float: left;
width: 30%;
margin: 20px 20px 28px 0;
border: 0;
}

#members-dir-list ul.item-list li div.item-title, #members-dir-list ul.item-list li h4, #members-dir-list ul.item-list li div.item-meta
{
width: 62%;
text-align: center;
}
.user-location {
width: 62%;
text-align: center;
}

#members-dir-list ul.item-list li div.item-title {
font-size: 110%;
}

#members-dir-list ul.item-list li div.item-meta {
text-transform: uppercase;
font-size: 80%;
}

#members-dir-list ul.item-list li img.avatar {
margin-bottom: 8px;
}

#members-dir-list a.friendship-button.add {
-webkit-border-radius: 50%;
-moz-border-radius: 50%;
-ms-border-radius: 50%;
-o-border-radius: 50%;
border-radius: 50%;
border: 5px solid #89ac48;
font-size: 26px;
font-weight: bold;
background: #a5d156;
color: #ffffff;
line-height: 50px;
margin: 18px 102px 0 0;
}

#members-dir-list a.friendship-button.is_friend.remove {
-webkit-border-radius: 50%;
-moz-border-radius: 50%;
-ms-border-radius: 50%;
-o-border-radius: 50%;
border-radius: 50%;
border: 5px solid #CC0000;
font-size: 26px;
font-weight: bold;
background: #FF5050;
color: #ffffff;
line-height: 50px;
margin: 18px 102px 0 0;
}

ul#members-list.item-list li div.action {
text-align: center;
overflow-y: hidden;
top: 18px;
right: 6px;
}

#member-dir-count-bottom {
display: none;
}
/* End Custom member loop avatar styling */
`

@naijaping @mercime
I removed #buddypress from the css and here is what my style.css looks like:
`
/*
Theme Name: BuddyPress Child
Theme URI: http://example.com/
Description: Child theme for the BuddyPress Default theme
Author: bphelp
Author URI: http://example.com/about/
Template: bp-default
Version: 1.0
Tags: blue, buddypress, custom-background, custom-header, custom-menu, editor-style, featured-image-header, featured-images, fixed-width, light, right-sidebar, rtl-language-support, sticky-post, threaded-comments, translation-ready, two-columns, white
*/
/*————————————————————-
Custom CSS
————————————————————–*/
@import url(“../responsive/style.css”);

/* Custom member loop avatar styling */
#members-dir-list img.avatar {
-webkit-border-radius: 50%;
-moz-border-radius: 50%;
-ms-border-radius: 50%;
-o-border-radius: 50%;
border-radius: 50%;
-webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 0 #fff;
-moz-box-shadow: 0 1px 0 #fff;
box-shadow: 0 1px 0 #fff;
}

#members-dir-list a:hover img.avatar {
-webkit-filter: grayscale(100%);
-moz-filter: grayscale(100%);
filter: grayscale(100%);
-webkit-transition: -webkit-filter 0.2s ease-in-out;
-moz-transition: -moz-filter 0.2s ease-in-out;
transition: filter 0.2s ease-in-out;
}

#members-list li {
overflow: auto;
list-style: none;
float: left;
width: 30%;
margin: 20px 20px 28px 0;
border: 0;
}

#members-dir-list ul.item-list li div.item-title, #members-dir-list ul.item-list li h4, #members-dir-list ul.item-list li div.item-meta
{
width: 100%;
text-align: center;
}

#members-dir-list ul.item-list li div.item-title {
font-size: 110%;
}

#members-dir-list ul.item-list li div.item-meta {
text-transform: uppercase;
font-size: 80%;
}

#members-dir-list ul.item-list li img.avatar {
margin-bottom: 8px;
}

#members-dir-list a.friendship-button.add {
-webkit-border-radius: 50%;
-moz-border-radius: 50%;
-ms-border-radius: 50%;
-o-border-radius: 50%;
border-radius: 50%;
border: 5px solid #89ac48;
font-size: 26px;
font-weight: bold;
background: #a5d156;
color: #ffffff;
line-height: 50px;
}

#members-dir-list a.friendship-button.is_friend.remove {
-webkit-border-radius: 50%;
-moz-border-radius: 50%;
-ms-border-radius: 50%;
-o-border-radius: 50%;
border-radius: 50%;
border: 5px solid #CC0000;
font-size: 26px;
font-weight: bold;
background: #FF5050;
color: #ffffff;
line-height: 50px;

}

ul#members-list.item-list li div.action {
text-align: center;
overflow-y: hidden;
top: 18px;
right: 6px;
}
/* End Custom member loop avatar styling */
`
Here is another pic to see the changes but it still needs some adjusting.

Hope you guys can help! I appreciate the help you have given so far! Thanks!

Still haven’t gotten anywhere. This was on a fresh install with no plugins.

I tried going into Settings -> Buddypress -> Forums and enabling the “Site wide forums” feature – what ever that does. No difference, still can’t view the forum, and it doesn’t show up in the menu.

I also tried creating a new forum from Forum -> New forum. No difference. Even tried going into Settings -> Forums and selecting the newly created forum as “Group forums parent”, which didn’t change anything either, so i’m unsure as to what it does as well.

I’ve tried using the default Buddypress theme as well as a custom one.

I’m running PHP 3.5.1.

Ideas?