BuddyPress.org

To be a bit clearer, here’s the info from the style.css file on making a child theme:
Instead, please read this codex page on how to build a BuddyPress child theme:

https://codex.buddypress.org/how-to-guides/building-a-buddypress-child-theme/

And if you decide not to make a child theme, make sure you put any modified styling info after these lines:

/***
* The default theme styles.
*/
@import url( _inc/css/default.css );

/***
* The admin bar default styles
*/
@import url( _inc/css/adminbar.css );

Actually, I believe this is the more relevant code:
ul#nav {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
position: absolute;
right: 15px;
list-style: none;
bottom: 0;
max-width: 65%;
}
ul#nav li {
float: left;
margin: 0 5px 0 0;
}
ul#nav li a {
display: block;
color: #fff;
text-decoration: none;
padding: 5px 15px;
background: url( ../images/60pc_black.png );
-moz-border-radius-topleft: 3px;
-webkit-border-top-left-radius: 3px;
-moz-border-radius-topright: 3px;
-webkit-border-top-right-radius: 3px;
}
ul#nav li.selected a, ul#nav li.current_page_item a {
background: #f5f5f5;
color: #555;
}
ul#nav a:focus { outline: none; }

Are you just using the default theme?
If you’re going to mod very much at all, you should technically create a child theme and work from there, although it’s easy enough to save your CSS as you go.
(Hey, smart forum members, is there already a skeleton theme somewhere? I could probably post one, if not.)

Anyway, assuming you’re working from the default theme, find the folder “bp-default” in the “bp-themes” folder in the buddypress plugin folder. Then open style.css and, working from the above, after the existing lines in the style.css file, add only the parts that pertain to color (e.g., ul#nav li:hover > a{background-color:#330033; color:#9900FF;}
). That way, as long as you remember to backup this file regularly, you’ll know exactly what you’ve modified from the original.

If you want a menu with dropdowns, we’ll need to add some other code. Can pretty easily modify it to use WP3’s new custom menus. You can also remove (some or all of) the buddypress bits from that top menu if you want less clutter.

Looks like you have two separate divs with id of “container.” You only want to use an id once per page….use classes for multiple similar instances within a given page. I’m not sure if that’s THE problem, but I doubt it’s helping your code.

Adding the “!important” worked just fine for me. When I tried adding the function to my child theme it corrected the background, but also made my wp dashboard disappear.

I’d remove the group feed function so I could create my own group feed loop.

What you’d want to do is remove the existing one by adding this to your theme’s functions.php:
remove_action( 'wp', 'groups_action_group_feed', 3 );

Then I’d basically duplicate the groups_action_group_feed() function (located in /buddypress/bp-groups.php), rename the function, throw it in my theme’s functions.php file and change the pointer of the following file:

bp-activity/feeds/bp-activity-group-feed.php

to a custom file I would also create in my theme’s directory.

Lastly, I would open up this duplicate of bp-activity-group-feed.php and modify the activity loop so it shows updates only from the group admin.

“Okay I figured it out” nothing to figure out.. If you right click with firebug, it tells you which file the rule is located in, never mind the line number. Also in firebug you can edit the css via the browser for a temporary view of what the rule will do before having to dig into your files and playing around with rules.

It really is a necessary tool if you plan on playing around with themes.. Good luck

Like Boone I went through the process of moving a bp-sn theme to BP 1.2 install and used the backwards compatibility plugin, while I succeeded more or less I had an uneasy feeling that it wasn’t the best or most rebust approach and felt there would be issues awaiting around the corner so I eventually took the decision to build afresh for that layout based on BP-Default, although it cost time I wasn’t planning on spending at that moment especially having allocated and used time working with the backwards compatibility plugin in the long run it was the best choice.

@nit3watch is right that Firebug is your friend

The reason why the admin bar doesn’t obey your content width is because it’s not technically in your content. If you view the source of your page, you’ll see that the markup for the admin bar is actually in your footer. Your best bet is to do what @nit3watch suggested and apply styles directly to #wp-admin-bar.

@alcina22 I went through this myself not too long ago (moving from a bp-sn-default based theme to BP 1.2) and I ended up rebuilding the child theme to be dependent on bp-default. It was an annoying and somewhat difficult process, but in the end I think it’s better to be dependent on bp-default (which is guaranteed to get developer attention, and which is just generally much easier to work with than bp-sn-parent).

in style.css
line 378
change:width:960px; to the desired width.

If you dont have firefox and firebug, GET IT! All you would have to do is right click the element and you can see what is applied to it.

@crashutah, do you know if that Welcome Pack force acceptance trick (define( 'WELCOME_PACK_AUTOACCEPT_INVITATIONS', true );) has to be done in wp-config, or would it work in a (child) theme’s functions.php?

Wish I could easily auto-force the group but not the friends. Hm. More to think on….

there are a few Q&A themes that exist already that you could use. Add BP plugin. Create a frontend form that submits questions as Posts with the member poster assigned as author and the comments for the post(?) are your answers. The community layer is the community layer just allow only members to submit questions and answers. Add plugins like ratings and page views and you’re set.

you could go with groups or forums but they are limiting when you consider what can be done with a full blog. So if you are on MU, just create another blog just for QA. that way you keep them separate from the blog and other things. I think post types are great…but at the end of the day you begin filling up your main site admin with tons of stuff. I like spreading the post type and plugin weight across different blogs(or sections)…but if the site is only going to be QA (no blog, no nothing else) just do the same thing but on the main site.

on your bp language change the “wrote a new post” to “added the question: ” or whatever and you’re set again!

Search for a plugin and then you will need to replace the navigation links in your header.php file with the code to call the plugins drop down menu. You can also add support for wp menus and then do the css or javascript coding to make it drop down.

http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-themes/how-to-add-custom-navigation-menus-in-wordpress-3-0-themes/

To remove FB avatars from the FB plugin, add the following to your theme’s functions.php:
remove_filter( 'bp_core_fetch_avatar', 'jfb_get_facebook_avatar', 10, 4 );

To have an option between either the BP avatar and the FB avatar, some custom code would be needed to display an admin option in the user’s settings page.

You want to edit the index.php that’s IN your theme folder

If you relied a lot on the BP 1.0 or 1.1 theme structure, then you’d need to install the BP Backwards Compatibility plugin:
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-backwards-compatibility/

I should note I have no experience using this plugin whatsoever.

hnla is right; if your theme isn’t too custom, I would recommend building a new child theme of the bp-default.

If you’re logged in, you can create a group from the Group directory page:
example.com/groups

There should be a button that says “Create a Group”.

If you don’t see this button, there is a problem with your theme. nit3watch eludes to the following file – /groups/index.php – in your theme’s folder.