Hi,
I’m thinking of switching from SimplePress to bbPress. I’ve basically dumbed down SP so much that its a basic forum. I did a ton of CSS to make it look much better than the standard theme. My forums haven’t totally kicked off yet, but I’m wondering about making the switch to bbPress.
Will bbPress be able to handle a huge forum? I realize this is a vague question. More topics/posts = larger database so caching and a decent server are probably necessary.
I’m interested in switching, even after all the time spent to make SP behave/look how I want it, because bbPress just has that natural light look so it makes me think it’ll be better for the site overall.
Thoughts about speed? Thanks!
Well I come here 1 more time because I really can not do more and I need a little help please.
I am using a child theme called Arras Classical Gamer. I test many times and try a lot of tutorial but is really impossible fix problem with bbpress.
You can see my website here http://www.site.teamcyanide.eu working perfectly with buddypress and pluging like BuddyPress Template Pack. That was my first hard mission but I do it well and everything work good with some change on CSS.
Now the only problem I have is that forum bbpress dont work good. For example I creat a forum called Starcraft 2 and when I clic on view look what happen:
http://site.teamcyanide.eu/board/forum/starcraft-2
I create a category of Starcraft 2 forum and look:
http://site.teamcyanide.eu/board/forum/starcraft-2/protos
So is simple, dont work but I continue looking here on forum and google then I try use Shortcodes from here http://bbpress.org/forums/topic/bbpress-20-shortcodes, and look what happen:
http://site.teamcyanide.eu/example-forum
You can see ok I can fix the CSS to make it look better, but if you clic on forum or category continue with same problem, just test yourself and can see it.
So guys please, some one can tell me please what can I do for implement my forum of bbpress in my website?
I know on internet I have other forums and scripts, but I really love bbpress and all software make it by wordpress, buddypress, etc.
Someone have mercy on me and help me a little? 
Thanks.
I think I solved it! I just put the same code that you gave me in the CSS-file but changed .forum to .topic. Apparently the topic pages have their own class…
I do however have another related problem. As it is now, when you click on the Forum-link in the top menu, you end up at a WP page where I simply put a shortcode to load the forum. This means that you at the first page now see the WP sidebar, which seems not so logical. I would like to end up at this page right away instead: http://demo.agxe.se/forums/forum/forum/ (Btw, does the URL have to be so long and with so many “forum”?)
Any ideas?
Now it works perfectly when I am at the forum page, but it still looks the same on the topic pages http://demo.agxe.se/forums/topic/test-topic/
What do I add to the CSS to fix this side too?
Thank you so much for your help!
I’m not very familiar with CSS, but shall look around the internet and check, thanks for all help 
I can’t tell you exactly what code to use because I don’t know you use case.
As I said each forum has it’s own CSS class, such as bbp-forum-4. You can use this sto style the various areas however you see fit.
Are you familiar with CSS? If not then there really isn’t going to be an easy way, unfortunately.
Every forum, topic, and reply has unique CSS identifiers applied to it. So this should be very easy to do if you are familiar with CSS. Just add the appropriate tweaks to your theme’s primary CSS file.
Try this in your CSS file:
.forum .entry-content{
width:100%;
}
This is mostly related to the way that single post are aesthetically displayed in Twenty Eleven theme. It wipes sidebars and centers content, horizontally filling the entire page.
You can easily address this with CSS:
1) Search for ‘#primary’ (line 84) and add after:
.forum #primary{
width:70%;
}
2) Search for ‘.entry-content’ (line 109) and add after:
.forum .entry-content{
width:100%;
}
3) Tweak it to your tastes.
I didn’t change the whole forum to look like bbprress.org, but instead wanted the first page users see to look like .org. That is, with a forum list on the left, tag cloud below that and on the right a list of recent topic updates. I achieved that with the following page code:
<div style="display: inline; float: left; position: relative; width: 400px;">
<div style="margin: 0; padding: 0; border: 0; outline: 0; font-size: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">
<h2>Forums</h2>
[bbp-forum-index]
</div>
<div style="margin: 0; padding: 0; border: 0; outline: 0; font-size: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">
<h2>Hot Tags</h2>
[bbp-topic-tags]
</div>
</div>
<div style="display: inline; float: left; position: relative; width: 400px; margin-left: 25px;">
<h2>Topics<span><a title="New Forum Topic" href="http://your-url-here/?page_id=232" style="font-weight: normal;"> — Start New</a></span></h2>[bbp-topic-index]</div>
I also made some CSS changes to change formatting and remove some text.
Jon
Hi all
I just add bbPress to my website running Deadline theme and with small tweaks all looks great! Except homepage – I want main area in the middle of the homepage to look like http://bbpress.org/plugins/ – showing new, latest and most viewed posts from my 4 forums. How can I do this?
Pleas note I can not use custom page, but have to add code to the existing homepage. I tried few versions, but didn’t get exactly the same results. All I was able to pull is 4 posts with code: <?php bbp_get_template_part( ‘bbpress/content’, ‘archive-topic’ ); ?>. But that is obviously not what I need. Is there a simple way to get results like on http://bbpress.org/plugins/
I am not coder (obviously), but can do all CSS work without any issue.
I hope this is not repeated questions, but I tried to find solution and no luck.
Cheers & Thanks
Dean
Jim,
What I mainly wanted was a web page where the layout was similar to the bbpress.org forum and I wasn’t looking for the colours, etc, to look the same. I have found that a new theme isn’t required and instead I did the following:
1. Create a new page in wordpress
2. Create a layout using <DIV> tags and use bbPress shortcodes to specify where the forum components should sit
3. I then added CSS to the style.css of my WordPress child theme to control how the forum looked. For example, I didn’t want the forum navigation text or the text saying how many posts there are, etc, so I turned them off via CSS.
I’m not sure if that’s the best way to do what I wanted but once I “discovered” shortcodes this was all very simple and didn’t require a new theme or PHP changes, etc, so was fairly easy.
Let me know if you want any more details about what I did and I post them here.
Jon
Thanks for that. I assumed a theme just covers the look and feel of a site but does it change the layout, etc, too?
For example, on the https://bbpress.org/forums page the layout is totally different to the default – there is a list of forums on the left, a search box and list of tags below that and on the right is a list of recent topics. The columns included in the topic and forums list are different to normal too and above the topics list there is a “start new” link. Those are the sort of changes I want to make. I know CSS but can’t see how I change all that through CSS or will a new theme do more than change CSS?
Sorry for asking such basic questions but while BBPress seems great it is a bit impenetrable for the newbie!
Thanks,
Jon
Okay, this is insane. I am able to change the text color of the “Freshness” table, but I’m not able to change the background.
http://bp.daevas.com/discussion/board/na/
I’m stumped. I’ve even gone back and disabled ALL of the css files from my site and I’m still getting the same background colors for the table. I enabled the css again then I tinkered around with the Freshness table by adding “color: #ff0000” to it. That changed the color or the text.
.bbp-topic-freshness,
.bbp-forum-freshness {
text-align: center;
width: 25%;
color: #ff0000;
}
But, if I add “background-color: #ff0000;” it doesn’t change the background color.
I don’t know what’s going on here. Disabling the CSS leaves the same background and editing the css doesn’t change it.
Even adding the line “background-color: #ff0000;” to all tables without any background color listed does nothing. The only part that does change is the “This category contains 0 topics and 0 replies.” table.
No problem – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_Style_Sheets
CSS controls the look (styling of the website). Unfortunately without knowing some degree of CSS there is no easy way to tweak the look of things.
Ok, I think I ran into a snag.
My WordPress/BuddyPress site is HEAVILY modded with plugins. I use a RocketTheme theme that runs off of the Gantry Framework along with Gantry-BuddyPress (which allows BuddyPress to be compatible with the RocketTheme and Gantry Framework.)
The bbPress plugin worked, but only partially. The Forum page set up by bbPress is visible but instead of seeing the “directory” of forums it shows:
Home › Forums Forum Topics Posts Freshness General Discussion SO? what now? 1 1 26 mins Admin
It’s all just plain text with no links. But, the forum I made for General Discussion is viewable when I go to the forum page it made.
For reference, here are the demo page links:
http://bp.daevas.com/forums/
http://bp.daevas.com/forums/discussion/na-general-discussion/
I still have to edit the .css to match the theme design, but I wanted to find out what was wrong with the default forums page and why it wasn’t showing up correctly.
Thanks and hope you can help.
Ok
I find something but I don’t know if is good to do like that .
In function.php add this :
add_action(‘wp_enqueue_scripts’, ‘add_my_stylesheet’);
function add_my_stylesheet() {
$myStyleFile = get_theme_root_uri() . ‘/myTheme/mybbpress.css’;
if ( (is_post_type_archive( ‘forum’ )) ) {
wp_enqueue_style( ‘myStyleSheetsi’, $myStyleFile);
}
}
Create a file in your theme mybbpress.css :
div.bbp-breadcrumb, h1.title{
display:none;
}
Just to notice, all changes is for first page forum only(http://mysite.com/forums) if you want to make changes on all your forums pages replace
if ( (is_post_type_archive( ‘forum’ )) ) {
by
if ( (is_post_type_archive( ‘forum’ ) || is_singular( array( ‘forum’, ‘topic’, ‘reply’ ) )) ) {
I tried is_page_template(‘bbpress.php’) or is_page(35) etc… (a lot I tried :p)
but don’t work.
Hi jaredatch, sorry but what is the “CSS” ? 
(such a newbie)
Ok, I think I ran into a snag.
My WordPress/BuddyPress site is HEAVILY modded with plugins. I use a RocketTheme theme that runs off of the Gantry Framework along with Gantry-BuddyPress (which allows BuddyPress to be compatible with the RocketTheme and Gantry Framework.)
The bbPress plugin worked, but only partially. The Forum page set up by bbPress is visible but instead of seeing the “directory” of forums it shows:
Home › Forums Forum Topics Posts Freshness General Discussion SO? what now? 1 1 26 mins Admin
It’s all just plain text with no links. But, the forum I made for General Discussion is viewable when I go to the forum page it made.
For reference, here are the demo page links:
http://bp.daevas.com/forums/
http://bp.daevas.com/forums/discussion/na-general-discussion/
I still have to edit the .css to match the theme design, but I wanted to find out what was wrong with the default forums page and why it wasn’t showing up correctly.
Thanks and hope you can help.
Everything looks OK to me, just need to tweak the CSS as you see fit
I got it working though it is not perfect. After setting up all bbp templates into my new theme and ensuring the bbpress, css, and js subfolders associated with the bbp-twentyten template where in my new theme folder properly it is working with some functionality that I can live with; however,…
The breadcrumb link and my forums menu link are not the same. Now, I use a forums page with the shortcode. Now, when someone drills down into the forums and wished to return to the main forums page via the breadcrumb they go to the default forums-archive page set by bbp. I wish it went to my custom forum page with the shortcodes, but I’m happy it is not sending people to a useless page.
So, there is still an issue, but everything is providing useful functionality at this time. I will leave this unresolved and hope the dev will fix in later versions.
Yes there is, I wrote a quick plugin for it.
Take the code from https://gist.github.com/1902067 and put it in a bbpress-css.php file inside your wp-content/plugins/ directory.
Then go to your plugins page and activate the plugin.
It will use bbpress.css from your theme directory, so my suggestion would be to make a copy of bbPress’s CSS file and move it there as a starting point, then you can edit as needed.
Thanks Jaredatch and carminka,
You are addressing a similar thread which I just posted on. I’m cross-posting this
carminka because it could be useful for you:
Incorporating bbPress theme files, into a pre-existing theme.
jaredatch I haven’t had luck with overriding it in my theme’s css unless I use !important.
To ask the same question that I asked there, is there a way to get bbpress to use a bbpress.css in the theme folder instead of the plugin folder?
Really love bbpress… thanks
If you want to just do minor CSS tweaks then just put the changes at the bottom of your theme’s style.css and it *should* override things.
Is the process that Paul outlined the best option at this time for modifying CSS, or is there some special mojo to get css working in a custom theme folder by copying or creating a bbpress.css etc.?
many thanks for laying the foundation of a nice new lightweight forum!
