[thetbasket]

By the way, Travis, after implementing the code the way you said it rather than the way I read it it worked for what it was intended, so thank you.

This still does not solve the sidebar issue I have been having, but it does solve an issue I would have had to acknowledge afterword, so it’s a great help.

I still need to work on getting this 100% with the sidebars, and it will certainly require some alterations of the theme. Well, I may be back to ask some more questions, but thank you for clearing up how I completely misread your original post on this.

BTW, where in the bbpress code does it refer to the page template it is using to make it’s decisions? Right now with the buddypress install I cannot work with within the WP framework to use an alternate template. My theme creator – Artisteer – does not create a full page option, but I could create it. The problem is that I do not see where to point to, say, page-full.php within the bbpress code.

I’m a bit of a hack-beginner at this. As previously stated, I am a content creator more than a programmer, so perhaps it’s a stupid question. But I cannot figure it out.

Best,

James

[thetbasket]

Hi Travis,

Thanks for the response. My theme was different, as you had suggested, and I am working on it. Although I’m now in a little bit more of a complicated predicament because I am trying to use bbpress through buddypress, and on the buddypress install the forums options is not pointing the indicated page to the bbpress forums.

Anyway, I did misread or misunderstand your first suggestion – sorry about that. As far as creating a full-width template, I am nearly positive I did so (I created a template specifically for that page to be full width), but nevertheless I will double check next time.

I don’t want to get too deeply into this, but the fact that we use the word “blog” and “forum” already indicates that they are different even though they are both CMS’s. The issue is not that one is a CMS and the other is not, it is a matter of how the content is managed and it’s purpose.

A blog is a blog because, generally, one user is contributing the content that a multiplicity of users is commenting on. So a standard blog Write-and-Respond system works nicely, and works nicely even in a narrow space because it usually contains one article with comments on the article.

A forum, on the other hand, is a multiplicity of users creating multiple threads all scaffolded by an overarching structure of the forum and subforums. The way forums have been built thus far has been usually in a wide content format so users can see 1) The Thread title 2) The amount of replies 3) The last user that replied etc. etc. In other words, it is build upon a more horizontal management format, whereas the blog can get away with a more vertical format.

Of course now and into the future there will be all sorts of variations on this. But for the end user, I want a forum that is a forum, not a forum that is a blog. In other words, wide-formatted with the expected information that forums have traditionally contained up to this point.

The strong point of bbpress is its integration and especially it’s style integration. Anyone who has attempted to create themes for phpBB knows what a nightmare it can be. However, if you try to smush a phpBB forum in-between two or even besides one sidebar, see what happens. Not only that, but those sidebars from the blog are almost inherently irrelevant to the function of the forum. In other words — useless screen real estate being taken from what otherwise would be a smoothly functioning, articulated forum.

And I can understand that WordPress vanilla functions fine, and being opensource one could reprogram it into Duke-Nukem 3D, almost. As a user of wordpress, the most frustrating thing consistently is that I feel like I am hacking CSS and PHP files more than I am creating content, and perhaps this is because I am a bit persnickety and want a particular look, but a full width forum from a forum plugin? To me things like this (and there are enough) are just plain flaws in development. I shouldn’t need to hack anything to get a forum to operate in full width because that is how forums best operate according to contemporary standards. Perhaps you should need to hack to get something to operate somehow unique and fascinating, but hacking code to get something to perform as you would expect it to – from your hours and hours and hours of forum experience? To me this is on the development teams shoulders.

Again, thank you so much for taking the time to reply. I may be back after I have a chance to try what you had suggested.

By the way, after installing buddypress all of the groups, member pages, activity pages, etc. were ALL operating on full width. The only part of the entire install that persists in operating between my sidebars is bbpress, and it is the only one I am dissatisfied with. So now I have to go through hours of who knows what to get something working the way it always has worked.

Again, bravo for bbpress, it’s a great project with a great future, and there is a lot to be said for it. But that doesn’t excuse it from what needs work, and for those of us who want to deliver content, we would much rather spend our time on managing the delivery of content than on managing the content management system.

I’d rather be spending this time developing the forum, not on developing the forum development software.

[thetbasket]

Thank you for the information.

I just tried the solution you had posted for a Full-width forum, but the sidebars still remained. It seemed to work for the other user, but was a no-go for me.

I removed the div.bbp-breadcrumb in bbpress.css as suggested and replaced it with:

.bbp-forums {

width: 100%;

}

But there was no change.

Any tips would be great. I can understand what you’re saying about how wordpress is built for a certain function, but at the same time the function of a forum does not necessarily adhere to that format or fit appropriately within it.

For me, the benefit of having such a plugin is to have a forum that operates well and lightly as a forum on a wordpress site, not necessarily a forum that works within the confines of a wordpress post or page, which is not how forums have functioned nor probably how they best function – considering the horizontal space they typically need for the post title, user that posted, number of replies, and so on, which take up quite a bit of horizontal real-estate.

And since the typical widget that would be placed on the sidebar of a blog would be unlikely to directly apply to the forum, what you have in the end is an unnecessary utilization of space that would – for the end user – probably be better used to create a forum which is less cramped, more spacious, etc. – especially when they have the option to access the widgets and sidebars by going back to the blog – that which those widgets and sidebars were likely created for in the first place.

[thetbasket]

I’m also considering how this can be done. I have a left and right sidebars with widgets in them that I wish would not even be displayed. As far as the forum is concerned, I would like it to be the full width of the theme without the sidebars/widgets but see no clear way to remove them.

Any assistance on this would be helpful. Also, if I am not completely missing it, it may be a good option to release in the GUI for future users. Most blogs contain these sidebars which – however well they may work for a blog – will almost always make a forum which fits between them too narrow and cumbersome.

The bbpress forum on install had four columns, and my wordpress blog has a 900px width with sidebars on each side. This doesn’t leave much room for the forum to operate within, and it is basically “squished”. I would imagine other users would have similar issues.

As sidebar items such as search, categories, and archives usually are related more to the blog and not necessarily related to the forum at all, or necessary for the forum to operate (especially as the user can simply click “Home” on the menu and see the forum with all of it’s widgets and sidebars”), I would think there would be many cases where users would find keeping the widgets from the blog on the forum unnecessary and clunky.

An option to disable sidebars and widgets from the current wordpress theme would be a fantastic addition to bbpress.

Until that feature is implemented, how can one make the forum the full width as the OP request, disabling the WP widgets and sidebars?

Great job, though, it’s a very promising project.