[chrishajer]

I filed this bug: https://trac.bbpress.org/ticket/740

I guess ex is a valid CSS unit of measure, but I think it’s for height and was not intended here. Maybe a typo combination of em and px. Maybe…

[chrishajer]

I found one problem in the CSS. On line 339 of style.css change this:

padding-left: 2.5ex;

to this:

padding-left: 2.5em;

That will take care of indenting the nested lists. Not sure if that is your problem or not, but it’s something.

Also, for creating your own theme, you might want the copy the files over to a theme folder under “my-templates”. Then you can switch back to stock if there is a problem, and your theme files will not be overwritten by any upgrades.

[chrishajer]

In your theme’s style.css (or the default theme style.css) you want to find this at around line 255:

.num, #forumlist small {

font: 11px Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;

text-align: center;

}

That controls the styling of <td class=”num”>.

I also recommend you use the Firefox web browser with the Web Developer add-on by Chris Pederick for finding things like this.

[fel64]

To delete a topic, you have to open the topic, scroll to the bottom and click [Delete Entire Topic]. You can’t rename the theme as it’s a default, but you can make your own theme (and name it whatever) by creating a my-themes folder in root and creating a style.css file (you can just copy the one from bb-templates/kakumei to start with, as a reference).

[gusext]

Hi all.

(Sorry for my bad english. I tried to be verbose in order to avoid my bad english affect your understanding)

I wrote a plug-in, in order to have the best rewrite rules (in my opinion :p ) in the world.

this plugin achieves two things:

One: I need to show, in the URL, the logical parent-to-child relation between forums and topics, so

http://www.example.com/bbpress/topic/my-sweet-dog

URL has to show the forum that contains the topic, and become

http://www.example.com/bbpress/forum/pets-discussions/topic/my-sweet-dog

when performing the rewrite, the rules totally ignore the forum part, so it’s only a visual thing.

and, more difficult,

Two: I need to shorten the URL and have fewer subdirectories, so

http://www.example.com/bbpress/forum/pets-discussions/topic/my-sweet-dog

has to lose the useless “/forum/” and the useless “/topic/” parts, and become

http://www.example.com/bbpress/pets-discussions/my-sweet-dog

ATTENTION: you cannot do the second thing without the first thing. you must be able, in rewrite rules, to discriminate between a topic and a forum. you then will have that forums have one string (the forum slugged name), while topics have two strings (the forum slugged name and the topic slugged name), so you can do that, and /pets-discussion/my-sweet-dog will belong to “My Sweet Dog” topic in “Pets Discussions” forum

In order to do so, I need to

– modify forum link creation

– modify topic link creation

– modify rewrite rules

– avoid a forum to have a reserved name, as using bbpressfolder/forumname to reach a forum is risky! I have to prevent a forum from having a slugged name like “bb-admin”!!! here’s a list of reserved words:

– all words with a dot. those are files, like style.css and so on. the slugged names never have a dot. I have only to avoid rewrite of dotted words.

– all bbpress subfolders and special folders. these are all that start with

bb-* , my-*

– every other reserved word already used by rewrite engine:

tag, profiles, view, rss

All this is achieved adding a “r-” string in front of the slugged string. so a forum named “My Forum!” will have “r-my-forum” as slugged name. Unfortunately, this filter operates also for topic names and maybe other things. this mean that a topic named “rss” will have “r-rss” as slugged name. Not so bad, in facts.

So these are the operations:

– add a filter to get_forum_link (delete the “/forum” part)

– add a filter to get_topic_link (add the “forum/slug-forum-name” in the link, and eliminate the “/forum” and “/topic” parts)

– modify the rewrite rules (I used IIS isapirewrite, but apache is pretty the same)

– add a filter to bb_slug_sanitize (avoid a forum to have a reserved word as slugged-name, like “rss”, “profiles”, “my-plugins”, etc

And there is the code for these operations:

function my_get_forum_link_filter( $link , $forum_id = 0 ) {

//retrieve the forum object

$forum = get_forum( get_forum_id( $forum_id ));



//check for rewrite

$rewrite = bb_get_option( 'mod_rewrite' );

if ( $rewrite ) {

//what kind of rewrite there is? slug use "forum_slug" column, else the column is "forum_id"

$column = ($rewrite === 'slugs')?('forum_slug')'forum_id');



//	change /forum/pets-discussions in /pets-discussions

//		this work only if the rewrite module is modded!

//		and this work only if the slugged name will NEVER

//		be a reserved word like "rss" or "bb-images"

//		and this is achieved by a filter on bb_slug_sanitize

$link = str_replace('forum/' . $forum->$column , $forum->$column, $link);

}

return $link; // Very important line!

}



add_filter( 'get_forum_link', 'my_get_forum_link_filter' );



function my_get_topic_link_filter( $link, $topic_id = 0) {

//retrieve the topic object

$topic = get_topic( get_topic_id( $topic_id ));



//retrieve the forum object that is the topic container

$forum = get_forum( get_forum_id( $topic->forum_id ));



//check for rewrite

$rewrite = bb_get_option( 'mod_rewrite' );

if ( $rewrite ) {

//what kind of rewrite there is? slug use "forum_slug" column, else the column is "forum_id"

$column = ($rewrite === 'slugs')?('forum_slug')'forum_id');



//create the "forum/pets-discussions" chunk to show the hierarchical relation forum->topic

$forum_nice_uri = "forum/" . $forum->$column . "/";



//attach the hierarchical chunk to the link

$link = str_replace(bb_get_option('uri'), bb_get_option('uri') . $forum_nice_uri, $link);



//	change /forum/pets-discussions/topic/my-sweet-dog in /pets-discussions/my-sweet-dog

//		this work only if the rewrite module is modded!

//		and this work only if the slugged name will NEVER

//		be a reserved word like "rss" or "bb-images"

//		and this is achieved by a filter on bb_slug_sanitize

$link = str_replace('forum/' . $forum->$column , $forum->$column, $link);

$link = str_replace('topic/' . $topic->$column , $topic->$column, $link);

}



return $link; // Very important line!

}



add_filter( 'get_topic_link', 'my_get_topic_link_filter' );



function my_bb_slug_sanitize_filter( $text_slug, $text_original = '', $length = 0 ) {

// add "r-" by regex when the string begins with "bb-" or "my-" or is a reserved word

return preg_replace('/^(my-.*|bb-.*|rss|tags|view|profiles)$/', 'r-$1', $text_slug);

}



add_filter( 'bb_slug_sanitize', 'my_bb_slug_sanitize_filter' );

And there’s the rewrite rules! ATTENTION!!!!! these rules are for IIS isapirewrite, so these are to be modded to work with apache! sorry but I don’t have any apache installation to play with. It’s a simple task, anyway. Every regex guru and regex accolite can do that. Even a regex wannabe can find out googling.

#	first we rewrite the pages for normal slug-rewrite usage



RewriteRule /bbpress/tags/([^/?]+)/page/([0-9]+)(??(.*))? 					/forum2/tags.php?tag=$1&page=$2?3&$3: [I,L]

RewriteRule /bbpress/tags/([^/?]+)/?(??(.*))? 								/forum2/tags.php?tag=$1?2&$2: [I,L]

RewriteRule /bbpress/tags/?(??(.*))? 									/forum2/tags.php(?1?$1:) [I,L]

RewriteRule /bbpress/profile/([^/?]+)/page/([0-9]+)(??(.*))? 				/forum2/profile.php?id=$1&page=$2?3&$3: [I,L]

RewriteRule /bbpress/profile/([^/?]+)/([a-z-]+)(??(.*))? 					/forum2/profile.php?id=$1&tab=$2?3&$3: [I,L]

RewriteRule /bbpress/profile/([^/?]+)/([a-z-]+)/page/([0-9]+)(??(.*))? 	/forum2/profile.php?id=$1&tab=$2&page=$3?4&$4: [I,L]

RewriteRule /bbpress/profile/([^/?]+)/?(??(.*))? 							/forum2/profile.php?id=$1?2&$2: [I,L]

RewriteRule /bbpress/view/([a-z-]+)/page/([0-9]+)(??(.*))? 			/forum2/view.php?view=$1&page=$2?3&$3: [I,L]

RewriteRule /bbpress/view/([a-z-]+)(??(.*))? 							/forum2/view.php?view=$1?2&$2: [I,L]

RewriteRule /bbpress/rss/(??(.*))? 									/forum2/rss.php?1&$1: [I,L]

RewriteRule /bbpress/rss/forum/([0-9]+)(??(.*))? 						/forum2/rss.php?forum=$1?2&$2: [I,L]

RewriteRule /bbpress/rss/topic/([0-9]+)(??(.*))? 						/forum2/rss.php?topic=$1?2&$2: [I,L]

RewriteRule /bbpress/rss/tags/([a-z-]+)(??(.*))? 						/forum2/rss.php?tag=$1?2&$2: [I,L]

RewriteRule /bbpress/rss/profile/([0-9]+)(??(.*))? 					/forum2/rss.php?profile=$1?2&$2: [I,L]



#	then we have a rule for special words, so they are left as they are, and the isapi module does not proceed further



RewriteRule /bbpress/(my-.*|bb-.*|rss|tags|view|profiles)(/.*)?		/forum2/$1$2 [I,L]



#	then we have the forum and topic rules.

#	ATTENTION: we DO NOT rewrite a dottet word, because dotted words can be files like style.css and so on



#	before there are the topic rewrites, that are longer

#	ATTENTION: note that the forum name is totally skipped trough ?: notation. In facts, bbpress doesn't need the forum name when reading a topic

RewriteRule /bbpress/(?:[^./?]+)/([^./?]+)/page/([0-9]+)(??(.*))? 	/forum2/topic.php?id=$1&page=$2?3&$3: [I,L]

RewriteRule /bbpress/(?:[^./?]+)/([^./?]+)/?(??(.*))? 				/forum2/topic.php?id=$1?2&$2: [I,L]



#	and after there are the forum rewrites, that are shorter

RewriteRule /bbpress/([^./?]+)/page/([0-9]+)(??(.*))? 				/forum2/forum.php?id=$1&page=$2?3&$3: [I,L]

RewriteRule /bbpress/([^./?]+)/?(??(.*))? 							/forum2/forum.php?id=$1?2&$2: [I,L]

And that’s all. I hope someone can use this plugin

Gus

email: shiawase at gmail dot com

[ronjroy]

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.

[chrishajer]

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.php and 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 for header without the php, and it returned a ton of files with header in 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.

[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)

[ronjroy]

The set up is simply http://localhost/bp_web/forums/bbpress and the site is up with no style sheet. I have looked through the templates and I have viewed the source and the style sheet is coming-up as error 404 not found. It seems to me that somewhere in the bbpress coding that the style sheet is not linked properly. I’m not very well versed in php but I have a good handle on css and xhtml.

[chrishajer]

I responded in your other thread. Also, you can search the forums for template and CSS talk.

https://bbpress.org/forums/forum/templates

[chrishajer]

Sounds like the path to the site is wrong in the config. Do you have a URL where this is occuring, or any info about your hosting setup.

You have access to the HTML in all the template files and the CSS too. You can make bbPress look like whatever you want.

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/top-100-bbpress-sites

https://bbpress.org/forums/forum/pimp-your-press

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/strut-your-bbpress

[crazybatca]

Hello. I’m always interested when a new forum crops up. Just some comments about what I’ve seen just by having a quick look in regards to a standards-based approach to design. Please don’t take this personal at all. These are just my personal observations.

1. I notice that you’re serving the forum as XHTML 1.1 with a content type of text/html, regardless of the user agent. I thought maybe that you were attempting content negotiation, but I see that’s not the case, unfortunately.

2. Inline styling is used for the “tag cloud” could cause more maintenance down the road. Consider using CSS styles.

3. The table you are using for the listing of topics for a forum can be improved in terms of accessibility. (summary, caption, scope, etc)

4. Anyone with a colour deficiency might have an issue differentiation between the topics. The contrast between the white and the light grey is a bit subtle.

5. Title attributes could be used more than it is now. (Especially in the topic table)

6. For the most part, the HTML and CSS validate, with the exceptions of such things like <br clear=”all” />

That’s just a quick glance. Again, take this with a grain of salt. I’m just genuinely interested in any new forums that come out. Over all, not too bad of a job.

Regards,

crazybat (aka Marco)

[chrishajer]

The forum is located here:

http://claystreet.uparkforfree.com/bbpress/index.php

But the config entry is wrong, because the server thinks the URI for the site is here:

http://claystreet.uparkforfree.com/forum.html/

So, in your config.php, you have this:

$bb->uri = 'http://claystreet.uparkforfree.com/forum.html/';

instead of this:

$bb->uri = 'http://claystreet.uparkforfree.com/bbpress/';

Change that line, and you’ll be good to go. The site looks like that because the path to the style.css file is wrong (among other things). In fact, once the URI is corrected, the site looks like this:

http://www.chrishajer.com/bike/XLF/ClayStreet.png

Good luck.

[fabianzaf]

Hey man.. thanks for your reply. And yes I’ve went extensively through all the hacks. (By the way you made some wicked ones… without your contributions bbpress wouldnt be so awesome)

Vbulletin might have been around for a very long time but its so generic it makes my head hurt. Every vbulletin site you come across looks the same and its pretty hard to customize. Sure you can edit the templates quite heavily but it still heavily depends on tables and executes one massive css file.. even though most of their style attributes is stuck on tables @_@ Sure bbpress uses tables but definitely in a more elegant way.. (frankly I wouldnt want any tables on my page to start with.. will make a theme later thats css only)

I like the idea of having a very small bare bone forum install that can be extended from there.. I’m sure in no time the plugins will be in the core where its just a matter of switching it on in the admin panel. Either way, the plugins are pretty easy to install anyway.

As for my problem.. I made a relatively elegant fix!

add this at the top of your header.php

<?php if ( !bb_is_user_logged_in() ) { ?>

<?php

header("location:http:/......../wp-login.php?redirect_to=%2F");

exit;

?>

<?php } ?>

Got my site almost sorted now.. just need to find a way to make a tickbox in “post-form.php” that sets the thread to go to favourites

As well as perhaps a tickbox next to the comment button

[chrishajer]

Changing the look and feel is all done with the templates and CSS, nothing in the database. If you don’t provide a link to the forum, no one will know about it. Of course, if someone guesses there’s a forum at mydomain.com/forum then it will be visible to them. If you’d like to restrict access to it while you are working on it, you can create an .htaccess and .htpasswd file for the public_html/forum directory on the server.

[chrishajer]

The bbPress forum is not really a part of the blog, it’s sort of next to it. With integration, you get login information shared between WP and bbPress, but you will need to do the CSS customization to a bbPress template to make it look like your blog.

And yes, you can play all you want with the bbPress CSS, it won’t affect your blog at all. They’re totally separate files. I would making a new directory for your new template, so you can always revert to the default template if something goes wrong.

If you search the forums, there are some people who have had a lot of success making their bbPress installation look like their blog.

[ronchicago]

Great! I forgot to mention, I wish all access through the WP blog. Not a problem? The forum is an added bell and whistle to the blog.

also

The files are now sitting on the server. Can I start tweeking the Forum without messing up the WP blog at this point in time? By tweeking I mean css for look and feel plus custom content.

[Null]

Check out the bbMenu plugin, it adds a menu to you bbPress. Don’t think it works with rtl, but perhaps you can convert the normal css (see plugin) to the rtl css

The plugin:

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/bbmenu-12-released?replies=6

And to add a tab:

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/plugin-addmenutab-10?replies=1

If any changes are needed in the rtl css and you make it work, let me know

[talgalili]

Hi.

This is probably a very simple question, but I couldn’t find an easy straight answer.

What code should I add (to the header.php and the style.css), in order to get a nice manu for the forum ?

(I am using the style-rtl.css)

( I just wish people to be able to navigate back to my blog, and to the search page).

Thanks,

Tal.

[Andrew]

Thanks for responding.. there was one problem I fixed here…

Noobish CSS Question

If you have few posts (and a lot of tags) the tag list would run off the page. While this is rare, it is common in cases where all but one of the forums would be private- new users would see the ugly tag overflow.

Thanks for a great theme… much appreciated.

[chrishajer]

Dawn, there is a great add-on for Firefox called “Colour Contrast Analyser” from JuicyStudio.

http://juicystudio.com/article/colour-contrast-analyser-firefox-extension.php

Here is the output of that tool for your site.

http://www.chrishajer.com/bike/XLF/cca-dawnsbrain.png

Things look good overall, and you need to read the report and say whether or not the combinations listed there can ever occur in the real world or not.

I would also validate the XHTML and CSS at W3C:

http://validator.w3.org/

http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

Still looks good to me, overall. Nice job.

[_ck_]

Like I said, everyone can edit the CSS and impress me.

We can take the top styles and I can allow admin to change the styles from a selection of defaults.

The polls look *completely* different on my own forums, absolutely nothing like the default styles, even my topic metadata area is 100% different.

[mikelothar]

Is there a way to either modify the “Indicate New Posts” plugin, or inspire someone to make a plugin, so that i can add something like this in my theme:

<?php if ($newpost) : ?>

NEW

<?php else : ?>

OLD

<?php endif; ?>

I have looked all over google – and on this site – for a plugin that allowed me to see new posts/topics when i visit my forum, but so far the only one i could find is the “Indicate…”. In all honesty, i can’t use bold marked topics for much.. i need something more CSS like, something not only affecting the topic.

I’ve coded themes for phpBB for years, but i recently found bbPress and i just love how simple and easy it is to code themes here. With a plugin to display new posts/topics (which in my own humble opinion SHOULD be standard in bbPress), i could gladly help spreading the word of a (relatively) new BB, by making some new themes.

If i could decide the function entirely, it should work in such way that both new topics as well as new posts would be affected, and they would continue to show as unread until i actually read them. Also, it should be database driven, so that i could log in to my account on another computer, and still see the posts/topics that would be new for me.

Please don’t make me go back to phpBB…

[outchy]

rock & roll, gentlemen. that was it, bobbyh and yes i was using ie6 on win2k. thank you very much, i really love these forums!

[fel64]

Yeah. So, pick a theme close to what you like and edit it. What else did you want to know?

Open the theme file for the page you want to edit. Look for the bits you want to change. Change them. For example, to get rid of the tags you go to front-page.php and take out the entire div for hot tags. To put the forums above the latest, look for the block of HTML that’s there for the forums and move it above the block there for the latest. For the header you play around with the CSS.

I can’t see that you need a little help. I don’t know what help you need at all. Do you have any specific problems? It’s rather annoying that you’re asking for other people to spend their time explaining how to do these things when you don’t seem to have even tried.