I have a new site we are working on and I have a CSS related question for you all. I do have a web developer who is much more experienced with CSS, however, I was hoping you all could at least point me in the right direction so I may have something to show him when we start the design process...

On our main bbPress page, which lists out the active forums, we have a column called "freshness" with either "No Topics" if no one has posted or it has the number of days since the last post and the last author. The problem is that it's pretty visually ugly to see the spacing between "No Topic" and then the spacing between the column which has an actual post with the number of days of freshness and the author.

What I am trying to do is if there is "No Topics" to increase the column size via CSS to make it the same size as the columns who have actual posts with a freshness date and author pic.

I am attaching a screenshot of what I am trying to do. I ran firebug and I see the CSS but I am pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to modify it.

Thanks!

Alex

I copied the bbp-twentyten theme and personnalized it.

Did you move the copy to bbp-themes or to the wp-content/themes?

Then I redefined it as the default bbpress theme

Do you mean changes in both functions.php or making changes in core?

%FUNCTIONS_PHP_OF_MY_BBPRESS_THEME%

What is that? Should I change it to path to functions.php and should this path to be absolute?

Thanks!

Theme's typically call and register sidebar's differently, which is why it is easier to fix this on a theme level and not a plugin.

Find out how your theme is handling sidebars, write mini plugin or block in your functions.php that addresses the issue.

We've been down this road already :P

@martin_style: Not quite sure what you mean by "once time load slow, but not loading multiple times"

@jaredatch: How do I nuke the sidebar?

I lied. I am not using

.bbp-forum #primary {
   display: none;
}

I am using a plugin that replaces primary sidebar with a bbpress specific sidebar.

But I have 2 sidebars, and I am hiding the 2nd sidebar with CSS

.bbp-forum #secondary {
   display: none;
}

So this is the one that I need to remove.

I am guessing that instead of fiddling with the Theme, it might be easier to patch the plugin. Here's what it does at the moment:

function vp_sidebars_widgets($data)
		{
			// if bbpress enabled and main sidebar requested
			if ($this->is_bbp && $this->is_main_sidebar)
			{
				// switch sidebar if bbrepss sidebar has some widgets in it
				if (!empty($data[$this->sidebar_id]))
				{
					if (isset($data['sidebar-1']))
					{
						// uses sidebar-1 as main sidebar in most themes
						// set forum sidebar as main sidebar
						$main_sidebar_key = 'sidebar-1';
					}
					else
					{
						// get first sidebar which should be main in most themes
						foreach ($data as $k => $v)
						{
							if (strpos($k,'inactive')===false)
							{
								$main_sidebar_key = $k;
								break;
							}
						}
					}

					// replace main sidebar with bbpress sidebar
					if (isset($main_sidebar_key))
					{
						$data[$main_sidebar_key] = $data[$this->sidebar_id];
					}
				}

				// reset main sidebar request
				$this->is_main_sidebar = false;
			}

			// return modified widgets array
			return $data;
		}

On the bbPress pages, I am using CSS to hide sidebar...something like

.bbp-forum #primary {
   display: none;
}

My question is: Is the sidebar is still loaded (on server, in browser) and just not displayed, or do I by simply styling it out of view also save some time on page loading?

Thanks again,
Natalie

I am currently integrating BBPress with my custom theme. All going well so far, i've edited all the template files so they fit with my blog but i can't seem to find the file that controls the user profile page. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks,
Natalie

Avatars are through http://en.gravatar.com/ :)

in bbpress.css (Line 109)

#content th.bbp-topic-author,
#content th.bbp-reply-author {
text-align: center;
width: 110px;
}

Sets the size of the container holding all the author info. Which the forum content aligns to. Mine was set too small it works now. With a little tweaks back and forth to adjust for cross browser continuity. hmmm

Do you know what effects the update to 2.1 will have?

btw you rock as a moderator !!! thanks

and how the hell do i change my avatar on bbpress.org ? haha

It's worth noting that bbPress 2.1 actually has switched to a tableless layout :)

i did this...

" Easiest thing to do would be to set a width for (instead of relying on auto)
#content td.bbp-topic-author "

it did nothing across platforms, but thank you very much for a quick reply.

here is the code i used and is still in place on the live site.

#content td.bbp-topic-author,
#content td.bbp-reply-author {
padding: 15px;
text-align: center;
vertical-align: top;
width: 100px;

I also tried width values of % and pt

I also attacked the column next to it, but i think the issue is in the author column.... Any other ideas?

#content tbody .bbp-topic-content,
#content tbody .bbp-reply-content {
vertical-align: top;
padding: 5px 10px 0px 0px;
overflow: auto;

Here is a good exaple of whats going on:

http://www.soundhampton.com/?topic=apples-siri-not-as-smart-as-she-looks-lawsuit-charges

open in firefox or ie, then open in safari or chrome the difference is clear.

I downloaded it. And maybe I'm stupid. But how do I use it to identify the CSS of the tables in one of the many many many CSS files Buddypress & bbpress use?

I read the beginning of the topic cause I am very interested in building compatibility between my theme (a child theme of buddypress) and bbpress (indeed I installed the buddypress plugin and the bbpress one).

I don't know if this has already be given as a solution (or even if it actually one :). I copied the bbp-twentyten theme and personnalized it. Then I redefined it as the default bbpress theme, in order it is the one used instead of bbp-twentyten.

What I wrote in the functions.php of my theme:

if ( class_exists('bbPress') && file_exists(%FUNCTIONS_PHP_OF_MY_BBPRESS_THEME%) ) {
    require_once %FUNCTIONS_PHP_OF_MY_BBPRESS_THEME%;
} else {
    add_action('admin_notices', 'message_if_my_bbpress_theme_is_absent');
}

In the functions file of my bbpress theme I have:

$bbp->theme_compat->theme = new MY_BBP_THEME();

And thus I have my child theme from buddypress safe and my second theme for bbpress used instead of bbp-twentyten.

Hope this is a good solution and it can be helpful!

Now I can't find which CSS file handles the colour scheme. I'm using a dark WordPress theme so I need to adapt the background colours to it.

Can anyone point me towards the appropriate CSS file please?

add_filter( 'bbp_show_lead_topic', '__return_true' );

...to a custom plugin or your themes' functions.php will separate the lead topic out from its replies.

As far as styling goes, opening up Firebug/Inspector and using the classes in the templates should be enough to get you by. Some extra classes were added in the development version of bbPress, which will hopefully be out in a few weeks.

Where could I add a different class for the actual question and also for the bbp-reply-header?

Make sure when you copy files from /bbpress/bbp-themes/bbp-twentyten that you maintain the subfolder structure as well (e.g. css, js, bbpress). I was copying all files into the root of my custom wordpress theme (wp-content/themes/mytheme) without maintaining the directory structure and I was getting some strange behavior.

Hope this helps someone who might be having trouble!