Topic: Themeing Best Practices (Question)

Themeing Best Practices (Question)

@foodin65

Participant

15 years ago

Hello My Fello Buddypress Users.

I’ve got a question about buddypress themeing best practices. I’m working on customizing a buddypress site for my wife: http://clothdiaperingmommy.com

The Home Page is Blog ID 1 in a WPMU install. Buddypress is installed on blog id 2, which is http://community.clothdiaperingmommy.com.

What I’d like to do is customize the theme running on community.clothdiaperingmommy.com so that it matches the main site. What I’d really like to do is make it so that the Buddypress log-in is persistant along the top where there is currently a 460×80 Add space widget on the main blog. And I’d like all of the buddpress pages (groups/forums/member/etc.) to show up as subpages under the community tab on the main blog.

So now for the question. Would it be better for me to re-write the main blog theme as a buddypress-sn child theme and apply that theme to both the main blog and the community side or would it be better to just add buddpress functionality to my main sites current theme and apply it to the buddypress site?

Or maybe there’s another option I’m not considering. But basically I want the sites to look alike.

Thanks, Sorry if this is a really dumb question. I’m not really a coder…

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

@takeo

Participant

15 years ago

Is there any reason why you made the buddypress site a subdomain rather than just being installed on the main blog?

@nexia

Participant

15 years ago

technically, simply duplicate the theme, and change the infos in the style.css … so they do not have the same name… tada, you can customize the one for your other part.

@andrea_r

Participant

15 years ago

You just need another theme for BP activated on the BP blog. That’s the terminology you’re looking for.

this thread might help:

https://buddypress.org/forums/topic/intergrating-bp-with-existing-wordpress-theme

https://buddypress.org/forums/topic/extending-wordpress-themes-post-experiences

@mercime

Participant

15 years ago

@foodin65 – You could make your main site’s theme into a BP child theme to make it easier to get the functionalities you want in your site and make it future-proof. Given that Andy has coded the BP Parent Theme with dynamic and multiple body classes as well as other styling hooks within the body content, you could target certain sections of the site with different layouts, it makes a lot of sense.

With child themes, updating BuddyPress is almost seamless. You would only need to add or update some selectors and/or declarations in style.css instead of having to find out almost each and every new BP feature and updating them in your WP-turned-BP theme files plus style.css.

@foodin65

Participant

15 years ago

Okay, So If I understand eveyrone’s posts properly, The “best practice” would be to move all of my original themes styles, php files, and functions into a buddypress child theme. Thus ensuring the future-proofness of my buddypress functions.

I’ll do that… as best I can and Let you all know how it works.

@foodin65

Participant

15 years ago

Okay So, I’ve created a new child theme and moved all of my files from my original theme into this new BP-Child Theme. I merged the css as best I could and when I hit the preview button I’m getting there errors:

Warning: main(/clothdiaperingmommy.com/wp-content/themes/bp-sn-parent/tools/breadcrumbs.php) [function.main]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /clothdiaperingmommy.com/wp-content/themes/bp-cdmmy-child/functions.php on line 30

Warning: main() [function.include]: Failed opening ‘/clothdiaperingmommy.com/wp-content/themes/bp-sn-parent/tools/breadcrumbs.php’ for inclusion (include_path=’.:/usr/local/php-4.4.8-1/share/pear’) in /clothdiaperingmommy.com/wp-content/themes/bp-cdmmy-child/functions.php on line 30

Warning: main(/clothdiaperingmommy.com/wp-content/themes/bp-sn-parent/tools/theme-options.php) [function.main]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in s/clothdiaperingmommy.com/wp-content/themes/bp-cdmmy-child/functions.php on line 33

Warning: main() [function.include]: Failed opening ‘/clothdiaperingmommy.com/wp-content/themes/bp-sn-parent/tools/theme-options.php’ for inclusion (include_path=’.:/usr/local/php-4.4.8-1/share/pear’) in /clothdiaperingmommy.com/wp-content/themes/bp-cdmmy-child/functions.php on line 33

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare bp_dtheme_show_home_blog() (previously declared in clothdiaperingmommy.com/wp-content/themes/bp-cdmmy-child/functions.php:130) in /clothdiaperingmommy.com/wp-content/themes/bp-sn-parent/functions.php on line 52

How do i fix these errors so I can get my new child theme to work with. If I understand correctly, it should have all Buddypress functionality from bp-sn-parent and all the function of my original theme that I’ve copied into this child theme.

Thanks