[chrishajer]

> 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)