Great to see a new theme and it looks very polished and cool! I have no use for a dark theme, but I’m sure there are a lot of people who will! Thanks for sharing this with the community 
Looks great! Happy to see people starting to build child themes.
A couple of things I noticed – you probably didn’t need to copy all of the default theme css into your theme. This will be loaded when you call the @import() call to the default theme CSS. At the moment you are basically loading the CSS twice. You actually only need to override the bits you need. By doing that you will gain CSS updates from the default theme when it updates. So if anything new was added to the default in the future, you would inherit the new styles.
Also, in your instructions you mentioned you needed to move the default theme to the themes folder. You definitely shouldn’t do this, WordPress will automatically detect it is in the BuddyPress folder. If you move the default then you will never get any updates when BuddyPress updates – it sort of defeats the purpose.
Could you add this to the WP theme repository? That will allow you to keep track of stats, let people download from within their BP installation, and allow you to provide automatic updates to your theme.
Nice work!
Thanks Bowe!
@Andy – As I am totally new to theme styling I copied all the default.css template over due to the total rework in that file. Pretty much all the colours have changed. if possible, Could someone (or yourself) please modify it so it doesnt load the css twice yet keeps all the same colours of the theme – essentially, the colours are the main things that have changed.
Yes my instructions do stipulate that as I had many issues with this. When I had the Child Theme linked to Template: bp-default it never registered the bp-default theme in the buddypress plugin area. Then I went to the theme page and it said Stylesheet is missing for the theme. So, then I COPIED the bp-default theme out of the Buddypress plugin area and it automatically worked and registered it. I think its due to the Child theme being in wp-content/themes and the default theme being in plugins/buddypress/bp-themes area.
Please double check but it does not work without me pulling the bp-default theme out.
Also I already posted abut the repository above – (In case anyone asks, I have tried multiple times to submit this to the WordPress Extend Themes Depo but it keeps saying it is not a zip file I have uploaded. I have even downloaded Safari JUST to upload the theme with the same error response. So that is why I am hosting it on my website.)
It wont let me upload the zip file no matter how hard I try and I have tried on firefox, chrome, IE and Safari.
Just to clarify/addon to the above: You want me to remove all the css codes from default.css EXCEPT for the things that have changed – e.g the colour codes?
@diesellaws: Are you running WordPress 2.9? The bp-default theme will only be picked up in 2.9+, I’ve just tested and it worked fine for me.
Mostly what I mean by not copying over the stylesheet is that you should just override the bits you need to change (colors in your case)…
So in bp-default’s css you might have:
body {
background: #fff;
color: #000;
padding: 25px;
margin: 0;
}
Instead of copying that entire declaration, all you need to do in your child theme is:
body {
background: #000;
color: #fff;
}
That way you are not duplicating anything, and only overriding and changing what you need.
Actually there is a bug in your CSS file which is the reason it’s not picking up the bp-default as the parent.
In your child theme’s style.css you have:
@import url( ../../plugins/buddypress/bp-themes/bp-default/style.css );
This should be:
/* Inherit the default theme styles */
@import url( ../../plugins/buddypress/bp-themes/bp-default/_inc/css/default.css );
/* Inherit the admin bar styles */
@import url( ../../plugins/buddypress/bp-themes/bp-default/_inc/css/adminbar.css );
This was totally my fault, and was a mistake in the writeup of how to do it. If you do it this way, you can simply add your style overrides in style.css below those two lines.
Oh god, I feel like a dork. Sorry, I have now updated to WPMU 2.9 – it works.
Ok, everything you said makes so much sense, I will get to changing this right now and get it fixed asap. Thank you for all your help!
Also, i may need someone else to upload it to the WP repository on my behalf if I cant get it to work – once I have finished fixing it of course.
As far as I know, the theme repo doesn’t allow child themes.
I’ll also list it over at freebpthemes.com so more people can find it.
Ok, it should be all fixed now. Thank you for helping me get it it where it needed to be. Also, just as a note Andy (and anyone else), the above codes do not have the CSS folder in them – they should be –
/* Inherit the default theme styles */
@import url( ../../plugins/buddypress/bp-themes/bp-default/_inc/css/default.css );
/* Inherit the admin bar styles */
@import url( ../../plugins/buddypress/bp-themes/bp-default/_inc/css/adminbar.css );
Please re-check this child theme by getting the new version here – http://diesellaws.com/unplugged-a-dark-and-sleek-child-theme-for-buddypress/
Thanks so much Andrea!
Also, just wanted to say that Andy and Andrea, love your work and guidance with heaps of info over time about the Buddypress and WordPress platforms. Your posts have helped me a lot!
Dig the theme. Nice work.
I hope the policy will be changed regarding child themes, since the default theme is bundled with BuddyPress I don’t think there is much of an issue.
Yes really nice work! I just post it on BPinspire.com to spread the word
