How about a theme focused on…
-Groups
-Forums
-Blogs
-etc
Basically, make the theme really expose certain BP functions. Like in my case, I’ve modified it to be VERY Group centric.
I’m referring to ideas for types of networks. Like a sports site, then I’d code the groups to be teams instead of groups. I already have this theme in the works. Wanted to get an idea of what people need.
Abit of topic but just some input.
One thing I find really useful in my current theme is indevidual sidebars for the different pages. Like sidebar-members and sidebar-members-single, on the members one you can display stuff about the entire network and when on members-single, you can display stuff related to the member, such as friend, points ( cubepoints ) and so on.
Ive done this with groups, blogs, members.. just about all my ‘sections’ have their own sidebar which shows related data.
One thing I hate though is when ppl go overboard with a themes options, trying to dig into messy code isn’t fun so I would say keep it simple and clean.
A mobile theme would be nice 
How is the http://buddiphone.com/ progressing?
A mobile theme would be great. The coding is done in PHP, so I know it would be easy to create sliding thumbnails, etc. It would be similar to youtube. My pages seem too stagnant and inactive.
Good suggestions. Keep them coming.
@nit3watch
More sidebars huh? That’s easy, could do an if is statement and cycle through what page your on and then output that sidebar.
@modemlooper contextual sidebars a definite must when working towards the perfect bp theme, as mentioned by nit3watch. I hate having to create them and loading up the sidebar.php with if statements to know what page you are on. Also a blog network focused theme combining the groups/blog components to work together. as mentioned here. https://buddypress.org/community/groups/requests-feedback/forum/topic/why-couldnt-the-groups-component-structure-work-for-blogs/
Custom field and post tags,cats, recognition by the activity stream with index file that can be manipulated to function like a site wide tags replacement.
Tagging and categorization for blogs. widgets and page templates for each.
Bring more individual blog info out front(posts, comment_counts, ) so that member blogs content can be categorized, highlighted and maneuvered more easily.
Pull in user blog info into their profiles, posts count, draft counts, quick links to their blog admin, widgets. Blog management options or panel.
Include follow blog streams feature, similar to follow people, but instead it pulls in new_blog_post activity into Blogs I follow activity tab.
The perfect blog network bptheme, basically.
@nahummadrid Interesting. I’m finding two paths for BuddyPress sites people are creating. Blogging Networks and Social Networks. These are two entirely separate theme requirements.
@modemlooper i’ve been starting working with a blog-as-forum theme, basically a QA theme. That could be something you could do. a Forum theme. I’m getting ready to leave the bb forums all together, because I’m not seeing a benefit in forums over a modified community QA theme blog.
@nahummadrid bb forums are leaving BuddyPress to become a WordPress plugin. This might open more opportunities to customize it. What QA theme are you using or is it from scratch?
@modemlooper it’s just from scratch, canvas theme, but as I’m modifying…i’m seeing less and less need for the forums even as a plugin…since the QA theme would just be one big plugin anyway that’s much easier to manipulate and add other plugins to like voting, popularity, etc. It would be tough to get that with a plugin I would think. (in multisite of course..would need the plugin for single I guess.)
Buddypress theme as social bookmarking.
I am interested in the concept of the pressmark theme. I try to modify to make it as a child theme on BuddyPress, But so far not been successful 
. It would be great if anyone can do it. Maybe you, @modemlooper, . Not necessarily adopt the Pressmark theme . The point is to make a Buddypress theme for social bookmarking.
I actually think that a (child-) theme should just be generic and not network specific. That should be the job of one or maybe even more plugins. If those plugins all use the normal BP default theme markup, you can use any kind of plugin to create exactly the kind of community you want with exactly the kind of look you want. A theme should stay away from adding functionality as far as possible. The only exception I can think of is a mobile theme.
I agree 100% with @Travel-Junkie. Functionality should be a added via plugins however the default theme is a kitchen sink and some networks need to weed out some of the functionality built in.
“The only exception I can think of is a mobile theme.”
So true learning this the hard way with my mobile theme. The default theme just doesn’t work well on a mobile screen. It’s got too much functionality. Had to start from scratch and only pull out the content needed. Had to strip all the add actions otherwise any plugin not designed to work with it would break it.
