[mzimmers]

Kevin –

Good call on doing it in my theme — that’s actually what I did.

Regarding my method of implementation, my goals were 1) efficacy and 2) minimal coding intrusion. I’m sure there are more elegant alternatives, but I just wanted to fix a problem, and I did.

[mzimmers]

Heh…”messed up” is my middle name.

I was trying to figure out why the “height” attribute is so important in the header division. Somehow, some of the elements are getting floated to places I don’t expect them, so I have to keep it in, I guess.

I was also playing with whether the sidebox should go within the wrapper or the main division. There’s some regrettable use of fixed widths in the kakumei template which makes moving things around a bit dicey.

But…I think the validation issue is fixed. Thanks…

[mzimmers]

Ah, OK, I get it. I didn’t realize that the window.open stuff was a javascript method (I told you I’m a novice!). Thanks for the clarification.

I think I also found another way to get the target=”_blank” code to validate (sort of): I noticed that my main site (www.scopedin.com) doesn’t return errors on that same sidebar code. I think it’s because the DOCTYPE at the top of the page is 1.0 transitional. I suppose I could use this in my bbpress header as well?

Thanks again for the help.

[mzimmers]

Is Sam’s code in the plug-in library, or do I just copy it and insert it into my right sidebar file?

Also, does this code modify *all* links in a given page?

Thanks.

[mzimmers]

Thanks for the reply, Chris. I’d be only too happy to disregard validation errors, except for two factors:

1. I’m still relatively new to all this html/css/php stuff, so I do learn from reading the validation reports.

2. I lean heavily on support from a variety of forums, some of which don’t share your casual attitude toward validation. I try to keep my code “clean” to appease them.

I looked at the second link you posted above. Does this plugin actually reside in the plugin library? I did a couple of searches and couldn’t find it. Or, do I just cut the code and put it in a file, and upload it as a plugin?

Thanks again.

[mzimmers]

Now, for something really cool…is there some magic php code that will let us test for whether we’re executing bbpress or wordpress, and make this function call conditional? Like:

if (we’re under the wordpress directory)

get_bloginfo(etc)

else if (we’re under the bbpress directory)

bb_get_option(etc)

end if

This would be extremely helpful in developing robust modules that are used by both wp and bbpress.

Thanks!

[mzimmers]

OK, thanks, Keith.

[mzimmers]

OK, I had found that, but that seems to be mostly options. I don’t see anything in there that actually lets me enable/disable signatures. Perhaps that’s implicitly done by activating the plugin itself?

Thanks.

[mzimmers]

That was it! Thanks a ton, John. Marked resolved.

mz

[mzimmers]

I’m forcing all registrations through my blog; will this plugin work in WP?

[mzimmers]

CK –

My template already has a wrapper to main, and I’m using it. I had moved my sidebar within main (at an above recommendation), and I’ve now moved it out. I’m satisfied that there are plenty of classes/idents to get the job done.

My problem is: for compatibility purposes, I want a wrapper width of 970 and a sidebar width of 220. Therefore, I’d like to squeeze main down a little, but, as I pointed out above, it doesn’t seem to take to being squeezed. Specifically:

#front-page #discussions (line 305)

{

margin-left: 160px;

width: 590px;

}

The width directive here doesn’t seem to work. I’ve plugged in smaller numbers, but the width seems to stay the same.

I imagine I can jury-rig this (already have) by squeezing the hot tags section instead, but I’m going for a clean kill here, and I don’t know what problems this approach might cause down the road. This is why I asked what I was doing wrong with changing the width directive for the discussions section.

[mzimmers]

OK, then…perhaps I should consider a different template. Does anyone want to recommend one that’s a bit more flexible than the kakumei?

Thanks…

[mzimmers]

Any suggestions, anyone?

[mzimmers]

Yes, and the other pages are too wide, too. I’m hoping there’s a semi-common root to this. I do see some CSS properties via web developer that I can’t find in the stylesheet, too (for the tables).

[mzimmers]

Anyway, since I finally seem to have the sidebar displaying well enough to move on…

…my first attempt to get the discussion and sidebar to fit side-by-side was to shorten the width definition on line 306 of style.css. This sort of worked, but not really. I thought that making a similar change on line 635 would help, but it didn’t seem to do anything.

Why isn’t the #forumlist id “honoring” the 550px directive?

Thanks.

[mzimmers]

Thanks, chris…I sort of just discovered that myself. So, what did I learn here: that CSS definitions have to “agree” with the nesting of divisions in the HTML? And…why didn’t I need a #front-page in front of the #main?

Thanks.

[mzimmers]

OK, I’m almost ready to deal with compressing the middle of the page. First, I want to track down the final glitch in my sidebar presentation. I’m attempting to add some padding to the text “ScopedIn’s Sponsors” at the top, which is formatted as h2. (I do this on line 822 of my style sheet.)

For some reason, though, line 822 seems to be being overridden by some code *earlier* in the stylesheet (on line 315), that undoes my padding. I thought css interpreted from top to bottom; what am I missing here?

Thanks.

[mzimmers]

So, I can’t compress the middle, eh? Unfortunate, but OK…any instructions on how to move the hot-tags?

[mzimmers]

Here’s a first approximation of a right sidebar.

http://scopedin.com/bbpress/

As you can see, I need just a little more room on the right than I’m getting with the current defaults for the theme. I tried altering the width parameters in style.css, but that quickly became a rat’s nest. I concluded I wasn’t approaching it correctly.

It’s really preferable (from my perspective) to shrink the width of the tags and/or discussions sections, so the right sidebar can fit. That way, the right sidebar can remain consistent between the forums and the blog.

Chris: I was unaware of the wealth of other themes available; thanks for the link. Do you have any idea whether some of those might be more flexible?

[mzimmers]

Well…I’m running into some difficulties with this. It seems that the default theme (kakumei) doesn’t like to be compressed into any less (horizontal) space than it currently uses.

Any opinions on whether my right sidebar should be typed under main or outside of it? If I do it within, I need to chase down some width definitions, both explicit and otherwise.

[mzimmers]

Bump this topic. Are there any tools for migrating from, say, MSN Groups into BBpress, and preserving the old content?

[mzimmers]

OK, thanks, CK. I’m not sure what people mean by “wordpress functionality,” but all I’m intending to put there is a list of images with external links. Nothing particularly WP-specific.

[mzimmers]

The only thing in my right sidebar is links to outside the blog. I don’t think I need any WP calls for that.

Now, having said that…how does one make WP functions available to BB? Is it just a matter of including paths to the WP files in the BB files’ headers?

[mzimmers]

Wow…there is just so much I don’t know about this stuff. I feel like an entry-level technician working on a jumbo jet.

But…with your suggested changes, it works! I know when to stop screwing with prosperity. Thanks to everyone who helped.

[mzimmers]

Well, I tried…it validated, but it doesn’t seem to be doing anything. The file in question is:

http://www.scopedin.com/.htaccess

the contents are:

# Use PHP5CGI as default

AddHandler fcgid-script .php

Redirect 301 /bbpress/my-templates/my-kakumei/register.php /wordpress/wp-login.php?action=register

Do I need an absolute pathname for the last parameter? Both of these are relative off of my public_html directory.