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, sorry if my response to you was kinda abrupt. I get ‘tech support cranky’ some times. Ask me ‘how’ and I might be able to help. Ask me ‘why’ and I get defensive even though I didn’t write this software.
The plugin-template.php file does exist in the member theme. I don’t know of anyone who has tried such a thing. The member theme has a header and footer file. Andy keeps telling me that any WP theme can be converted to a member theme. There may be some guidelines that you might find useful in the /wp-content/member-themes/member-themes-readme.txt.
Andy keeps insisting that it’s not a big problem. I keep saying ‘uh huh’ and ignoring him. Andy is usually right.
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 
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.
You are asking in a support forum why design decisions were made and why, considering the evolutionary nature of software, bp ended up as it did. As an end user of bp I have absolutely no idea how to answer either of those questions.
The real answer is that things don’t have to be like they are if you don’t want them to be. Come up with an enhancement and share it with us. That’s the beauty of open source under a GPL license.
Code is Freedom.
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?
The member theme is not a standard WP theme it can’t be used as such. It puts up the error message because it’s required.
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?
Small mistake on my side… The member-theme folder was empty.
Nope. Sorry. The directories all have their own css you can skin. bp has a site-wide.css file you can drop into your theme in /themes/<your theme>/css/site-wide.css
In bp-core-cssjs.php which fires up the css and js for bp is this fn:
function bp_core_add_css() {
// Enable a sitewide CSS file that will apply styles to both the home blog theme
// and the member theme.
if ( file_exists( WP_CONTENT_DIR . ‘/themes/’ . get_blog_option( 1, ‘stylesheet’ ) . ‘/css/site-wide.css’ ) )
wp_enqueue_style( ‘site-wide-styles’, WP_CONTENT_URL . ‘/themes/’ . get_blog_option( 1, ‘stylesheet’ ) . ‘/css/site-wide.css’ );
wp_print_styles();
}
add_action( ‘wp_head’, ‘bp_core_add_css’ );
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.
OK people this seems to work. This requires modifying the member theme since I didn’t find any actions in bp to hook this into so here goes:
In the member theme the file:
/buddypress-member/blogs/create.php
There is this chunk of code:
<?php if ( bp_blog_signup_enabled() ) : ?>
..(some other stuff here)..
<?php else: ?>
<div id=”message” class=”info”>
<p><?php _e( ‘Blog registration is currently disabled’, ‘buddypress’ ); ?></p>
</div>
<?php endif; ?>
Replace the ..(some other stuff here).. with this:
<?php
global $bp;
$blogs = bp_blogs_get_blogs_for_user($bp->loggedin_user->id);
if (!$blogs)
{
bp_show_blog_signup_form();
}
else
{
?>
<div id=”message” class=”info”>
<p><?php _e( ‘Limit one Blog per member’, ‘buddypress’ ); ?></p>
</div>
<?php
}
?>
This is the entire little create.php file in pastie: http://pastie.org/396083
This was a: “quick ya we should have that and I’ve got to get to the store and get some boxes because I’m moving from Michigan where we have a snow storm today and Virginia where I’m moving to comes to a screeching halt when they get 1″ of snow and I gotta run now” solution.
When I get back from the store I’ll help clean up the damage this might cause. This does work for me in a quick test.
The purpose of that is to allow WP themes to run the bp directories such as member, groups and blogs. It has nothing to do with the member theme at all.
What the themes are for:
https://codex.buddypress.org/getting-started/using-the-buddypress-themes/
Let’s recap this modemlooper. You have running:
– bp 1.0 RC-1
– wpmu 2.7 release version not beta
– You’ve tried using just the distributed home theme and member theme without plugins or other js using enhancements.
– You say the permissions are 755 on that directory and file (bp-core-ajax-handler.php)
What version PHP is on your server. You need PHP 5.x.
Don’t really think so. People will want different levels of ‘integration’ for those two products. This is really a theme related issue. If the theme developer decides to do that then it gets done. I’m doing that on a theme I’m working on for bbpress. I want to have as much bp functionality as possible in bbpress.
You can see the current state of chaos here: http://ourcommoninterest.org/bbpress
login credentials for test user:
username – hellome
password – hellome
The way I have it setup now is that when viewing a thread the user info block for each post has the bp avatar, user full name and underneath the bbpress title. The user full name takes you to the bp profile and the title takes you to the bbpress profile. Just fooling around with some ideas.
From this thread: https://buddypress.org/forums/topic.php?id=1223
– If you upgrade from a previous version and are using your own custom theme, you will need to copy over the functions.php from the latest buddypress-home theme.
Try that Keith. It may be the problem. That is an issue for *all* wp themes that take the place of bp’s home theme.
bp doesn’t really have a blog id in the member theme. So the problem is relative to what? bp references locations relative to the root blog, blog id 1 when it has to. This is to locate bp resources.
From bp-core.php
/* The domain for the root of the site where the main blog resides */
$bp->root_domain = bp_core_get_root_domain();
Whenever I refer to anything in bp I use absolute references. Relative references are just asking for trouble. IMHO.
I can’t give you any help with javascript yet. I’m just moving into that area as I begin learning ajax.
One more thing to try guy. Activate the standard out of the box home theme on your site and see if that makes a difference. Activate that and disable all plugins and bp enhancements. Just run the default home theme with nothing extra added.
I don’t know why I didn’t suggest that earlier. Guess it’s because I’m a programmer and all solutions have to do with code. Hardware, operating systems and web servers are necessary evils that just have to be endured.
Try that.
Do your directories work? Members, Groups, Blogs? Or is this just the widgets?
Is this a WP theme or a BP theme?
Is this the standard out of the box home theme or a modified theme?
Anything in your apache/php logs?
You on a shared host?
What version of BP and what version of WPMU?
Activate the home theme distributed with bp. Disable all other wp plugins and bp enhancements. Try again.
Can you point me to your site?
Let me explain a bit more clear about this…
* Home
* Blog
* Members
* Groups
* Blogs
As you can see those links under BP Home theme. If I create a community.domain.com to run BP Home theme and anyone of us click on individual profile then it takes us to domain.com without community as subdomain. Even it happened to left side menus that took the whole thing back to main domain.com instead any links to be strictly within community.domain.com itself.
Thats why I need to find where to edit the static links to point out on community.domain.com instead fall back to main domain.
Jed
you can do status thing using the main blog as status manager 
like prologue and integrate prologue in the member theme
The folder structure I have is exactly like that.
Should a copy of the member-themes foler still be left in BP folder by any chance?
nicola has tinyMCE running on his site. I don’t remember if he has that as just a part of the theme or if it’s a plugin. Works great. Check it out at:
http://buddypressdev.org/
Can I please ask someone to point me in the right direction with this.
I have implemeted a theme and can get the bbpress profile avatar next to each users post using this code :
<?php if ( $avatar = bb_get_avatar( $user->ID ) ) : ?>
<div id="useravatar"><?php echo $avatar; ?></div>
<?php unset($avatar); endif; ?>
But I can’t get the oci_user_avatar() tag in there without errors. probably I should be putting somewhere else so it qwrites directly in to the “bb_avatar”, but I got no idea.
Anyone want to help an idiot?
