will buddypress automatically compress the buddypress.css file to the buddypress.min.css format if i edit the buddypress.css file?
just went to make changes in buddypress.min.css
@barchiola Please do not modify the CSS file in the BP plugin. Any changes you make will be overwritten the next time you upgrade BuddyPress. Recommend that you upgrade to the latest BP version 2.1.1 https://buddypress.org/download/ and create a child theme of your preferred theme. Add the style changes to your child theme’s stylesheet.
Hi,
I’m up on doing a child theme but not on editing a .min.css file. When I went to the theme editor I saw everything but the .css files. Was that a bug in the old version?
Any advice on editing a .min.css file would be appreciated.
THanks,
Bart
so the answer is that BuddyPress will generate the .min.css file from my styles.css file? or is it this from another link?
Since version 2.1, BuddyPress minified stylesheet is used if SCRIPT_DEBUG is not set. This was preventing themes to override the stylesheet using a file named buddypress.css. This patch make sure that if a buddypress.css file is located in one of the allowed css subfolder it will override the one provided by BuddyPress.
and isn’t it a downgrade in performance if the .min.css file is being lost to a custom .css file? Isn’t the point of the .min.css file to speed things up?
If you do nothing but activate BP then BP uses it’s version of buddypress styles from the minified file in BP’s core template directory, however if you overload that with your own copy of buddypress.css in the correct matching directory in your theme or child theme then BP will see that and use it instead (a normal non minified file). Don’t worry too much about script_debug it was/is a means of geting around an issue on development installs.
and isn’t it a downgrade in performance if the .min.css file is being lost to a custom .css file? Isn’t the point of the .min.css file to speed things up?
Yeah, essentially however the practise has never been one that was a mandatory one or even approved of by many older hands, css is a cached file, thus once downloaded the local cached copy is used, CSS is a text based declarative language and is intended to be human readable, removing white space renders a file uneditable/readable a possible issue if needing that file to edit and unminified version not available. Part of the experience and skill set of a good frontend coder working with CSS is knowing how to write rulesets correctly in a manner that doesn’t result in massive file bloat commonly seen nowadays with 50k+file sizes.
In answer, the speed increase is negligible but most will think that any saving is worth it *shrug*
ok, thanks for the explanation.
Bart
in looking at the documentation and the variety of .ccs files in the BP subfolder, do I copy the buddypress.css file to my child theme folder and then rename it style.css?
No! Essentially the principle in overloading (copying templates) is one of replicating the name of the core file and ensuring the file is located in a directory that matches to the core one.
So we create a directory named either ‘buddypress’, or ‘community’ in our theme or child theme then anything that lives within the bp core directory /bp-legacy/’ we replicate over creating sub directories of same name, we copy over only the files we want to edit so buddypress.css gets copied over to /buddypress/css/.
bp-legacy directory is the only name we change transposing that name to ‘buddypress/ or ‘community’ thereafter follow what ever structure you see under bp-legacy in your theme.
First of all, thanks for the informative replies Hugo.
I’m following the directions here
https://codex.buddypress.org/themes/building-a-buddypress-child-theme/
I made a new directory in wp-content/themes/ and called it BuddyPress_Child_GSN
into that directory I copied buddypress.css and entered the information at the top of the file as directed but changed it for our site (www.giantscalenews.com….
/*
Theme Name: BuddyPress_GSN
Theme URI: http://www.giantscalenews.com/wp-content/themes/BuddyPress_Child_GSN/
Description: GSN Compatible theme for BuddyPress.
Version: 1.0
Author: Bart
Author URI: http://www.giantscalenews.com/
Template: bp-default
Tags: buddypress, GSN
*/
changed it back to buddypress.css and i’ll keep reading the directions to get things pointed in the right direction.
this whole thing is confusing. if BuddyPress is trying to get rid of the default theme why am i trying to make a child version of it? also, what are my options going forward if ClassiPress doesn’t do the compatibility thing that BP is working towards?
here’s a question, we already have a them and we’re also running an additional forum plugin. so right off the bat we have ClassiPress and SimplePress. It appears that what I’m following here is to make BuddyPress the site’s overall theme which isn’t the case. I just want to be able to edit the .css elelments that BuddyPress is calling on for forms and windows that are exclusive to buddypress on the site.
I’ve fixed a couple of things so far, I’ve made the style.css file from a blank document following the directions more closely. I’ve also copied all of the contents of the default BP theme into my child theme folder.
WordPress is recognizing the child theme in my Appearance>>Themes window of the WP Dashboard but it’s attempting to override the ClassiPress Child Theme that we have.
Is any of this understandable? I feel like I”m getting close, any help would be appreciated to make this plugin work correctly for us.
Thanks,
Bart
Your child theme should simply be the required stylesheet naming the main theme as template: the themes name’ picking up your themes styles if necessary – hopefully they are enqueued so will load up via the themes function.php file.
Now if you want to change any buddypress styles create a folder in child theme top level ‘buddypress/ in that a folder named /css/ so we have ‘buddypress/css/ in that css folder copy buddypress.css; now you have a full copy of the bp styles and BP will automagically find that file and use it instead of it’s original copy, you can now edit anything you care to in that file.
got the answer in another thread.
we have a theme and buddypress is an add-on to that theme so there wasn’t a need to have buddypress as our theme or to create a buddypress child theme.
what we needed to do was to make changes to the css elements that controlled the elements of buddypress that were active in our theme.
it was pointed out to me to simply copy the css lines from buddypress.min.css (as displayed in View Element, a firefox feature) into the Style.CSS file in our existing child theme style.css file.
after a few tries to get the syntax correct I’m now making changes to the buddypress elements that we have active with our existing wordpress theme.
thanks for the help Hugo.
