A huge limitation of BP at the moment (and WordPress in general) is the lack of front-end posting and moderation. I’ve had to hack this into my current site by using conditional user level statements to present a restyled admin screen to users – one which looks identical in terms of header, footer and CSS to the front-end – and unsets or removes redundant menu items. The way around this would be to modularise certain admin functions (posting, comment management) so that theme designers have flexibility in the way they are presented and integrated on the page with other functions. This could be achieved with shortcodes or even widgets. I can see no functional reason why users should be sent to an un-themed back end to post new blogs and I’m sure it’s holding BP back as the choice for many sites.
Unfortunately I can’t offer to help apart from documenting my hack as an interim solution.
In terms of the multiple CSS suggested by @bowromir, I’ve spent the last year working with Zend Scaffold as used within Webligo’s SocialEngine 4 and it was a PITA. Scaffold caches an aggregated version of all stylesheets used in the theme into a single CSS, which sounds logical but makes it very time consuming to debug or alter the base stylesheets since tools such as Firebug cannot tell where styles originate from.
@JamieWade I am putting a new version of CB in next 3-4 days which will support the activity reply. If you have other feature suggestion please do let me know here or on the cosmic buddy’s blog page. sorry for the delayed reply.
The only reason to split up CSS is to separate layout from design and since BP only has one design I don’t see the purpose and it adds requests. The single most thing that bp.org needs is to drop the activity stream. Push everything into forums and hopefully get some of JJJ’s bbpress into it with more forum features.
This site does need a better look to entice users. Needs a showcase section and How-to’s. I have no problem with bp-default other than the fact that it should not be required to get features into a WordPress theme. This should be the goal, creating a new design does not accomplish that. Focus on the problems not cover it up with fancy design. Base theme should be clean and simple not overly designed. You could even have a few child themes to show what’s capable with simple CSS/ javascript tweaks.
@John James Jacoby
I need to check into that.I believe I am.
what about default theme?? can some of us start developing some examples then you guys can pick the best one
@bowromir Have you checked out flattr.com as a donation platform? If all BP plugin/theme devs standardise on one donation platform it would make things simpler, no? With flattr you can also do monthly micro-donations where you choose how much you want to donate per month and it is spread out between the different plugins you have flattred. @boone already has an account there and also @jeffsayre has(had?) one.
At least to me, flattr would be easier to contribute smaller amounts monthly to various plugin devs.
I’ll try to help a little….
1. Buddypress by default sends an email to user for activation. Your theme may not be pulling the “ and all the code thereafter. Check to see if switching to buddypress default fixes that.
2. Yes you can create your own login page. The easiest was is using a plugin like Theme My Login, though you could always do your own custom stuff.
@JJJ: Yeah I thought about the performance implications. Although I must say that the opinions about this are vastly different. a few http requests might make it slower, but these days that might not a big deal if theme development would be a lot easier. Actually combining adminbar.css, reset.css and using style.css for the base layout would solve this problem
Shortcodes: Nice! I’ll look into that.. well I’ll ask @imath. Can’t program
Supporter: Yeah it needs work and a lot of effort and planning.. sounds like a challenge
CSS
Decoupling the CSS into smaller pieces seems like it would go against the cardinal rule of minimizing HTTP requests to speed up page load times. Having everything turned on would load up 10 separate CSS files, just for the theme itself. They’d naturally be enqueued hierarchically so they cascade correct, so if one of them hangs for some reason, you end up with theme spaghetti.
I’d suggest giving this a shot and comparing the speed differences with BP trunk on your average web host account to see what the real-world impact would be. If it’s negligible or we can minimize the impact, I’m for it. Would be nice to separate it into structure, colors, etc… too.
Shortcodes
check out how the bbPress plugin is incorporating shortcodes, and how it’s theme compatibility works to get a head start on what will get ported into BuddyPress core in the near future (after 1.3) – I’m filtering the_content() and loading template parts in an output buffer, to inject bbPress forums into *any* existing WordPress theme with a page.php template file (with appropriate measures taken to minimize conflicts, etc…)
Supporter
The Supporter idea is neat, but doesn’t sound so much directly related to BuddyPress core. In the past, these kinds of donation based tasks don’t usually raise enough money for the hours of development that are involved in making something happen. Plus, who holds the money in escrow, who handles taxes and payouts, etc… It all gets really complicated, so you have your work cut out for you there.
1. Decisions over options – and you’ll want to pair up with Maz and anyone else that’s interested in a new theme
2. How does privacy prevent spam?
3. I would suggest making this as a plugin to start. Having a proof of concept here is key.
4. Forums are already mine.
I’m interested in working on the bp-default theme. Some ideas:
– Splitting up the bp-default.css file into smaller CSS files on a per component basis. Then in turn load these stylesheets conditionally using the BP conditionals..
Ideally you would end up with:
Base.css (all the layout, typography and regular WP styling for posts and pages)
Activity.css (only activity stream css)
Member-Group.css
Forums.css (BBPress stuff)
In turn this means that theme development would be a little bit easier, since modifying the base theme would open up much more flexibility. In turn this means that the ajax functionality need to be refactored to apply the same concept as well. Splitting up the CSS and JS into “modules” and making them global and not tied to the core template layout would mean a huge step forward.
Besides that I’d like to work with @imath on extending the BuddyPress Shortcodes plugin. When this is handled properly it would allow you to display all kinds of BP content anywhere in a regular theme. It would not be a fully featured BuddyPress site, but it can be a powerful solution.
Finally I’d like to discuss the possibility of setting up a BuddyPress Supporter project powered by the community. The basic idea is so make one giant tip jar for (recurring) donations and using this money to fund cool BuddyPress related projects (chose and voted upon by the community). I understand that this might be hard to do on BP.org, but I’m willing to set up a special domain for that.
Without template files to display content, there is no BuddyPress. Having just gone through this with the bbPress plugin, it’s impossible to create custom WordPress components without theme files to back them up.
Are you saying you want to make a non-ajax default theme that is easier to extend?
1.better looking default theme( I’m willing to contribute a minimalist theme with an awesome option panel )
2.privacy settings( may help prevent spam )
3.activity stream on profile pages should have better order like (if I’m looking at my profile first thing I should see is my friends activity) also re-share on activity and post to wall as fb would be cool
4.forums not attached to groups
I just think its wrong that a plugin takes over the entire WordPress theme. When you do that its not WordPress anymore its BuddyPress. It adds an additional layer of complexity that is not necessary. Additionally, keeping the theme inside of BuddyPress makes it too easy to couple the functionality of BP to its theme. This cohesion is what makes it so infuriating that your theme has to be “perfect” or it breaks all of the advanced BP functionality achieved with javascript. Separating the two would force BuddyPress to play nicer with WP.
I’m a little confused by that too Maz. Any plugin can register a theme directory anywhere they want, and where the files sit doesn’t change any of the functionality. What specifically are you proposing?
I feel very strongly that a big part of what makes BP difficult to theme is the fact that the default theme is located under the plugins/ folder. I would be interested in helping to move it back to themes/
Please check out http://www.buddyboss.com. Our theme has a built in Facebook wall out of the box. It’s the real deal, much more Facebook-like than even buddypress.org.
I know this is an older topic but in case someone is still looking for answers; the unwritten fix for this seems to be to simply create pages within your theme and name them “groups”, “forums”, “activity”, “members” and “register”. The “Register” link only works when you are not logged in but does not return any error (it just brings you to the root url). Also, I had to re-install forums using the Suffusion BP pack after I created the pages. Hope this helps someone save time…
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