hi @kris35,
in brief: no ! 😉
In details, read sub title here:
https://codex.buddypress.org/themes/building-a-buddypress-child-theme/
You can use whatever you want as theme since BP 1.7 Actual version is 2.1 !
And if not satified by the layout, you can modify it manually.
Suggest you visit some existing BP site to get an idea.
Search on this forum:
https://buddypress.org/support/forum/your-buddypress/
or
http://www.bpinspire.com/
Ok thanks danbp. I was thinking the customisation would be built into a BP theme but thats not the case so will stick with what I’ve got I reckon. I’ve looked at loads of BP sites, includng the links above already but I was curious to know if these were BP themed sites, but most are regular WP themes with coding yes?
i would only add that a theme which is designed specifically for buddypress can be better depending on your situation especially if the theme dev took special time to do a better job on those buddypress specific pages.
Hi Ben, yes I thought BP specific themes worked to make the layout easier, although I understand the layout can be done fairly easily with a regular WP theme.
it depends for some theme developers it just means they have tested it out and not found any major issues for others they have taken the time to do custom layouts with buddypress specific features in mind. but yes to reiterate most any theme should at least be basically compatible since buddypress takes care of its own layout automatically.
I found it much easier to build BP with a specific BP theme. All the groups and forums and profiles etc are layed out much much better than the default BP plugin. 🙂
I suggest finding a THEME that fits your goals and have as much features as possible.
I chose my THEME because it had exactly what I needed and more in case I wanted to add on top of the features I didn’t currently use.
You don’t want such a simple theme that you end up building from scratch which takes months to debug. This was my mistake when I first started up.
Another thing is to TEST a theme intensively before going with it. What I mean by this is LOAD UP all your plugins and see if it’s compatible. Test it hardcore for flaws and bugs. If the theme breaks and doesn’t deliver toss it.
Some themes are great at first and end up a bloat.
That’s my bit of advice.
