Some general questions!
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Hello,
A few silly questions:
Changing or adding hot tags. Whats the procedure?
Looked through dashboard and can’t seem to find how to change or add new topics. Forums can be added but don’t know about topics.
Last query: Again I ask about the changes made to structure in the html. I looked through all files and found nothing. Many scripts I have used in the past have one file called index or something that can be access to the html. Just creating or changing the style sheet does not allow for the changes I want to make. I like the default but some changes to reflect my website is key.
Excuse the lengthy text, but I find looking through the documentation much like chasing my own tail. Thanks to those who have replied to earlier queries. I have made some changes and it looks good so far.
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> A few silly questions:
> Changing or adding hot tags. Whats the procedure?
When a topic is added, the user can add tags upon creation. I think each user can also delete tags they have added themselves. As admin, you can add or delete tags on any topic when viewing the topic. So, you can delete or add a tag. Was there something else you needed to do?
> Looked through dashboard and can’t seem to find how
> to change or add new topics. Forums can be added but
> don’t know about topics.
To create a new topic, just create one as a user or as the admin user. There’s no specific place in the admin panel to do it. It’s just done in the forum.
> Last query: Again I ask about the changes made to
> structure in the html. I looked through all files and found
> nothing. Many scripts I have used in the past have one
> file called index or something that can be access to the
> html. Just creating or changing the style sheet does not
> allow for the changes I want to make. I like the default
> but some changes to reflect my website is key.
I guess it depends what you are looking to do. I know from other posts you have seen what other people have done to change the look of their forum. So, anything is possible. You want to avoid changing core bbPress files so that when you upgrade those changes aren’t lost.
You start by changing the template files. Default template files are found in bb-templates/kakumei/. To create your own template, create a directory called /my-templates/ (on the same level in the filesystem as bb-templates). Then, in there, create a folder which will be the name for your template, so maybe something like ronjroy. Your directory structure would look like /my-templates/ronjroy/ .
In that folder, put a copy of whatever file you want to modify, or put a copy of all the files from the default theme. I think at a minimum you need to have a style.css in this folder. IMPORTANT: modify the name of the theme by changing it at the top of the style.css file. Maybe you want to call it “Ron J Roy”. Change this line (at least) at the top of style.css:
Theme Name: Ron J Roy(I copied all the files over from the default theme, but I know now that’s redundant. If you are not making a change to a file, you don’t need a copy of it. You need style.css and then any file you want to modified. The file present in my-templates/{whatever} override the stock files. If a file is not present in your theme, the stock one is used.)
Now, select your new theme in your admin panel (Presentation > Themes, or navigate to bb-admin/themes.php). If it’s not showing up in the admin panel, then something is wrong in the files you copied over. Maybe you made a mistake in editing the style.css.
Now, you should see your new theme there by name anyway. Select it. Now, because your theme is just a copy of the stock theme with a new name, the screenshot is identical (you just copied over screenshot.png), and when you use your new theme, the forum will look exactly the same as the stock theme. That’s OK. The files in the my-templates/ronjroy/ are being used to display the template, but they’re unchanged from stock, so they look the same. At least you’re using your new theme. Now the fun begins.
Pick a file, any file, in my-template/ronjroy. Make a change to the HTML in a PHP file or to the CSS in style.css. Save it. Now refresh your forum. It should look different. If you broke something, fix it in your theme, or just change the theme back to stock and go back to stock, then figure out what you broke.
These are not official docs by any means. It’s stuff I figured out from using the software in the past year. Some of it may have changed in new versions since I started. One thing I have learned about installing forum software though: if you find that you can’t understand the software enough to modify it, move on to another project. I don’t mean that in a bad way. I mean, if you’re not able to do the things you want, the way you want them, then why bang your head against the wall? Just install something else. It’s not worth the hassle. The hassles I was having with other software is why I ended up with bbPress. I grok it, I like it, and we get along fine.
(haha – longer reply to a long question)
I guess after re-reading, you are not sure what files to modify. Each of the php files in the template folder are used to display SOMETHING. When I first started out, I had no idea what file was used to display each page, or view, or whatever. So, I usually found a page I didn’t like the look of, just by looking at it in the browser, then I found a word on that page that seemed distinct enough that I could grep through all the template files for that word. In a lot of cases, I would find one file or maybe 3 files where that word occurred. That’s how I knew what page to modify. I’m sure someone with more knowledge could tell you that forum.php is used to display a single forum, or that topic.php is used to display a single topic.
One thing I did right off the bat to see which php pages were actually displayed and not called from other php files was to look in the template folder for something called header.php. There’s always a header.php and a footer.php, it seems. So, there is indeed a header.php. Now, since that is the header for each page, that has to be called from any page that is displayed in the browser. So, I grepped through all the php files in the template folder for
header.phpand found there are no files called header.php. I know they have to call header.php somehow, maybe it’s a function. So, I grepped through all the files forheaderwithout the php, and it returned a ton of files withheaderin them.shell:~/forum/my-templates/mytheme > grep -i header *php
edit-post.php:<?php bb_get_header(); ?>
favorites.php:<?php bb_get_header(); ?>
forum.php:<?php bb_get_header(); ?>
front-page.php:<?php bb_get_header(); ?>
header.php: <div id="header">
login.php:<?php bb_get_header(); ?>
memberlist.php:<?php bb_get_header(); ?>
password-reset.php:<?php bb_get_header(); ?>
profile-base.php:<?php bb_get_header(); ?>
profile-edit.php:<?php bb_get_header(); ?>
profile.php:<?php bb_get_header(); ?>
register-success.php:<?php bb_get_header(); ?>
register.php:<?php bb_get_header(); ?>
rss2.php:<?php header('Content-type: text/xml'); ?>
search-stock.php:<?php bb_get_header(); ?>
search.php:<?php bb_get_header(); ?>
stats.php:<?php bb_get_header(); ?>
tag-single.php:<?php bb_get_header(); ?>
tags.php:<?php bb_get_header(); ?>
topic.php:<?php bb_get_header(); ?>
view.php:<?php bb_get_header(); ?>OK, so they call the header with a function called
bb_get_header. I grepped again for that, to eliminate the other places the word header appears (div id=”header” for example.)Now, I have a list of every page, I think, that’s used to display some content to the user in a browser. If you are trying to change the structure of a certain page, it’s going to be one of those php files listed there.
If you’re just trying to modify the look (not the actual structure) you might just be able to make a change to the style.css. Find the id or class of the element you want to change (view source in your browser to see what’s being used currently) then change that element in the style.css.
One thing I did right off the bat was styled the blockquote. By default (when I installed a year ago) there were no styling rules for blockquote. No indent, no different font, no border, no color change, nothing. So, I added a definition to the style.css for blockquote.
In some cases you’ll be modifying existing rules, in others you’ll be created new ones for things that might be unstyled.
I find Chris Pederick’s Web Developer Toolbar add on for Firefox invaluable for modifying CSS.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60
You can make a change while viewing the page and see the effect right away. Then, you can make the change permanent by modifying the style.css. The changes made in with the web developer toolbar are local only, they’re not saved. Play all you want there, you won’t break anything. Make a change you like, then make it permanent in the style.css.
Thanks for the great explanation. Now I have things in place but the screen shot is not showing up in the current theme display. I saved a copy to the css folder and one to an images folder in the css folder. Don’t know if this is the problem. My images are not showing up either on my forum. This was more work than I bargained for.
Do you have a file called
/my-templates/ronjroy/screenshot.png? AFAIK, it needs to be a png, it needs to be called screenshot.png and it needs to be in that directory. If it is, then I’m not sure what the problem is. That works for me. Mine is 300×225 also, not sure what happens when it’s smaller or larger than that.Absolutely brilliant!
Your assistance has been perfect. I have things changed and my site is ready to publish. I will leave it to you to critique!
Thanks RJ…
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