I also am having the same issue and I’m very curious to fix this. thanks.
when a new user signs up they will get the “default” them, /wp-content/themes/default
replace that with whatever theme you want them to get, in this case, the buddypress theme
i may have just figured that out….not sure if thats what youre saying……
here’s what i did:
1. deleted all themes in my theme folder except the one i wanted to use, then renamed it “default”
2. i then went to the member themes folder, deleted all the themes i wasn’t using except the one i wanted to use, and renamed it “default”
and presto!
Here’s a WPMU plugin that allows admin to set new blog defaults, including the default theme.
http://wpmudev.org/project/New-Blog-Defaults
Thanks all i’ll try both suggestions (including the plugin when i get home from work if moving the BP theme into “Default” doesn’t work.)
The first suggestion worked, now one other question (I swear) LOL. Is there a way to make the sidebar widgets & etc all the same? For instance if I create another blog, I can then put my own widgets on the blog.
I see I’m not the only one thinking in this direction. Basically a uniform default pre-widgeted blog layout for new users to use, that matches the existing site, creating a “facebook” like experience for lack of a better term, where everything fits nicely in its box.
I think the next step would be once you’ve got that done, to remove the “Appearance” area from the user admin entirely, that way they don’t go breaking it, or seeing a menu that they can’t use.
I’ve thought about making a default theme that wasn’t widgetized, with a hard coded sidebar.php; that would work, but it’s more of a work-around than a resolution.
Does anyone know what would be the best way to get this level of integration of blogs and buddy press?
https://apeatling.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/blog.jpg
I found that screenshot here: http://apeatling.wordpress.com/2008/06/12/new-buddypress-theme/
Thanks,
Sebastian
@John James Jacoby: You could use the new blog defaults idea to set the widgets for all new blogs. Disabling the menus is pretty easy via a plugin. If you wanted to be secure you’d probably also need a quick check in the wp-admin interface to ensure that users don’t stumble upon the theme / widgets pages. You could easily redirect them if they did.
That would provide a pretty consistent experience without having to re-code the sidebar.
Ooh, or even simpler, oh yes, this is genius. Hook into the pre get option call and replace the sidebar-widgets option with the sidebar widgets from another blog. So you could either use the sidebar widgets from your primary blog (ie blog id 1) or another blog that you could maintain for just that purpose. Then you have one central place to manage the widgets, and they’re automatically modified across all your blogs. Nice. 
Let me know (PM, I probably won’t see replies on this thread) if you need any pointers with the code. I could probably whip something up or at least give you the core function calls to investigate.
Ironically enough, that’s pretty much exactly what I ended up doing. Spent a little time getting close and comfortable with a few hooks and filters and checked out some of the existing WPMU default settings blogs.
