Get the New Blog Defaults plugin.
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wpmu-new-blog-defaults/
That will set whatever theme you pick as the default for new blogs.
To change the theme that’s already on exisiting blogs, it depends on what theme they have selected already.
thanks for trying, however, it did not work. And on the FAQS of that plugin it says it only works for new blogs and is not designed to affect current blogs.
This seems like a major issue that should affect buddypress. I have been with buddypress from the very beginning, and it seems like this subject would have been addressed? If I were to not have buddypress installed and simply changed the contents of the theme directory, all new blogs would take on the characteristics of the folder contents. However, with buddypress having to rely (call) on the bp-default theme, that relationship appears to keep it from enabling the default theme.
Solutions???
I want to keep this alive, any answers on how to get the child theme to replace my default theme? A fix in 1.2.1?
This is a WPMU issue, not BuddyPress, you need to get WPMU to force the BuddyPress theme as the default.
My code is this (trying to force buddpress default child theme):
/*
THEME NAME: default
THEME URI: http://notimportant.com/
DESCRIPTION: My Blog Page
VERSION: 1.2
AUTHOR: hello
AUTHOR URI:
Template: bp-default
*/
And this is the code of the default:
/*
THEME NAME: default
THEME URI: http://notimportant.com/
DESCRIPTION: My Blog Page
VERSION: 7.1
AUTHOR: hello
AUTHOR URI:
*/
The only thing I can think of that is preventing the forced default from taking place is that I have to reference the template:
Template: bp-default
Does anyone have any idea how I can force the child theme to be the default? Oh and by the way I did name the themes the same in the directory. In other words I used name: default for the directory… It will just not force, something is preventing it from taking place.
I can’t be the only one with this problem?
The only thing I can think of that is preventing the forced default from taking place is that I have to reference the template:
Template: bp-default
Does anyone have any idea how I can force the child theme to be the default? Oh and by the way I did name the themes the same in the directory. In other words I used name: default for the directory… It will just not force, something is preventing it from taking place.
Naming your child theme “default” doesn’t do anything… just name it the way you want to name it.
eg. /wp-content/themes/my-theme/
View Andrea’s post just a few posts above you to set your new child theme as default for new blogs. This only works for new blogs.
If you want to set a new theme for all existing blogs, you’ll need to run a custom script to change every single blog to the new theme.
If I use a new theme and rename it default it will change all the old blogs to the new default. However, all I am concerened with is forcing the buddypress theme as the new default theme. I am not interested in Andrea’s solution for new blogs, but thanks for trying. I am only interested in changing the old blogs all at once to the new buddypress theme using a child template. Or does anyone know a script like @r-a-y has suggested?
What theme is active on all the member blogs now?
This is the stone-knives-and-bearskins approach, but you *could* do it by hand (or use some SQL) by going in to the database and doing it directly.
User blogs for WPMU are in sets of db tables as wp_#_tablename, where # is 1 (the main BP site), 2, 3, 4 and so on for each blog and tablename is the name of the table in question.
Tables called wp_#_options (again, where # is 2, 3, 4 and so on) have a row in the column option_name with the value current_theme, and with the value in the option_value column being the name of the theme used for that blog.
You could either go into each one by hand (very suboptimal with 200+ blogs to fix) and edit that field to be the name of your child theme you want use, or run an SQL update query (which I am underqualified to attempt to write for you) to do it quick-like.
Disclaimer: I may be wrong about this — it might be more complicated than that. But failing a better solution, it might be work a shot.
@Famous,
if you are looking for Group-Blogs all having the same theme as your Child-theme, I do recommend using the BP-Group-Blog-Plugin:
https://buddypress.org/forums/topic/group-blog-for-bp12-is-now-available
@stwc thanks for the caveman approach it actually help me to get a better grasp of what’s what. @andrea the theme that is active is the one that comes with the blogs, otherwise known as the default. @erich73 now I am really confused. I thought this was an all in one solution–BuddyPress. Do we have to use a different theme for registered users? I thought that BuddyPress has it’s own blog theme, or default. Shouldn’t the website look all the same?
The BP default theme is technically not a blog theme.
You should create a child theme of the default and strip out all the BP-related items (in the header.php file mostly) and then you’d have a functional blog theme.
Read more here:
https://buddypress.org/forums/topic/bp-blog-theme-as-default
