I’ve made my first attempt ever at theme-building by trying to port the Navigation theme for WordPress over to bbPress. You can see it in action on my test setup:

http://open-dialogue.com/bbpress

I’m not entirely happy with the way the forum tables display. It looks ok on a 1024×768 resolution, but they mass to the left a bit too much for my liking on higher resolutions (I use 1280×1024). I’m at a bit of a loss, though, to know how to stretch them out enough to fill out the extra white space to the right. I’d be open for suggestions on how to tweak the stylesheet further.

I’m also not real crazy about the login form location, but I’m not sure of a better place to put it.

Everything else seems to look and operate alright. Any suggestions and tips would be greatly appreciated. I’m still figuring out some the latest nuances in stylesheeting (it’s been a few years since I’ve done much site design).

[Trent AdamsMember @trent 6 years, 3 months ago]

Very Nice! Do you have a copy available for download as a theme that others can use?

Trent

[stitzeljParticipant @stitzelj 6 years, 3 months ago]

I haven’t bundled the files together yet, but I will somewhat soonish. I’m still trying to figure out how to force the tables on the front page and the forum page to stretch the width of the bordered field. For some reason, the styles from that part of the sheet don’t seem to be applying and I haven’t really figured out why yet.

[so1oMember @so1o 6 years, 3 months ago]

good one stitzelj..

[stitzeljParticipant @stitzelj 6 years, 3 months ago]

Ok, you can download the template from here:

http://open-dialogue.com/blog/2007/02/13/navigation-for-bbpress/

Please let me know how I can tweak it to make it better.

[NullMember @null 6 years, 3 months ago]

I would remove the Hot Tags part and put it in a side bar (since both of them are missing when viewing the forum). This also gives the forums itself more space (cause the Hot Tags are in the sidebar now).

[stitzeljParticipant @stitzelj 6 years, 3 months ago]

Hm, I’ll see what I can work up. You think a sidebar like what the WordPress version sports would work better than what’s there now?

[NullMember @null 6 years, 3 months ago]

Show me what you mean

Or look at bbportal.org and go to the forum. Thats also in a “new” sidebar

[stitzeljParticipant @stitzelj 6 years, 3 months ago]

Hm, ok, I pushed the Hot Tags section to a sidebar. I actually like that look a lot better. Thanks for the suggestion, Null.

Any other suggestions for improvement?

[NullMember @null 6 years, 3 months ago]

Np dude, you only forgot to outline the forum part now Topic — Add New » part is still small and need to stretch to the max…

Looks good

[stitzeljParticipant @stitzelj 6 years, 3 months ago]

Yeah, that’s the only part I can’t figure out. I’ve been trying everything I can think of to get it to stretch to full width, with no success. Any thoughts on what might be wrong?

[NullMember @null 6 years, 3 months ago]

zip the template so I can dl and watch it and I will see what I can do

[stitzeljParticipant @stitzelj 6 years, 3 months ago]

Ok, you can find it here:

http://open-dialogue.com/navigation1-1.zip

I appreciate any help and insight you can provide.

[NullMember @null 6 years, 3 months ago]

At you style.css file find:

#front-page #discussions {

margin-left: 0;

margin-right: 0;

}

Add:

width: 590px;

590px is just an excample of a size. You can change this.

Think this should fix it

[stitzeljParticipant @stitzelj 6 years, 3 months ago]

It actually doesn’t. It changes the length of the borders for the headers but doesn’t do anything to expand the tables themselves. I think I’ve found an alternate solution, though….

[NullMember @null 6 years, 3 months ago]

http://open-dialogue.com/bbpress/

Looks alright here now, try refresh?

Edit:

Ow you fixed it

[stitzeljParticipant @stitzelj 6 years, 3 months ago]

There. Now I think I’m happy with it. I just had to change tactics to resolve the problem. The download link has been updated on my blog post with the updated version.

Do let me know if there are any other suggestions for improvements.

[stitzeljParticipant @stitzelj 6 years, 3 months ago]

I just posted up the final release of this template for download. I spruced up the stylesheet, tweaked some colors, and fixed a handful of CSS bugs I found along the way. Unless something subtle appears, this template is done. Enjoy!

In hindsight, I realize I probably should have released this as alpha, beta, and final release versions, but live and learn, I guess.

[NullMember @null 6 years, 3 months ago]

I like it!

[chrishajerParticipant @chrishajer 6 years, 3 months ago]

I like it too. I’ve been watching the evolution from the beginning. I think I would fix a few of the XHTML errors so that the theme validates. You can check it here:

http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fopen-dialogue.com%2Fbbpress%2F

Basically, the <br> should all be self-closed

<br />

and all the <p> and <div> tags need to be properly nested and closed.

In the CSS there are just a couple problems. Line 304 & 305 need to have units after the number for the absolute positioning:

	top: 25;

left: 225;

should be

	top: 25px;

left: 225px;

Other than that I think it looks really good. Nice job. Very nice.

[stitzeljParticipant @stitzelj 6 years, 3 months ago]

Thanks for the tips. The XHTML-compliant version is now available.