[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.

[slambert1971]

Not quite what I want. I want to be able to SPECIFY, in the admin tool, what graphic, not icon, to display in place of the text name of the forum, not topic. I will have different people managing different forums and they won’t know how to edit PHP or CSS – they want a point and click interface. It doesn’t appear that bbPress will work at it’s current stage, but I might just hack it.

As for the “detailed information” field – I have changed the theme so that there are three levels:

ParentForum: Displayed on the home page 4 across the page with the title at the top – has no parent

Group Forum: With the “Parent Forum” as the parent, which users never really see.

Child Forum: With the “Group Forum” as the parent, landing page where users post topics and replies.

Nobody is able to create topics or make replies in the Parent or Group forums. They are used to build a drill down effect similar to the system IBM used for their Innovation Jam forums. What I need the extra description field for is simple – When a person gets to the “Child Forum” or landing page, there is a short description displayed above the topics. I want to add a “more” link that will replace the short description with a more detailed descriptio using AJAX.

I know, complicated, but it’s what the client wants. I am working on a plugin that will replace the Forum Manager and give me the tools I need to do this. I wish I could show you the site, but it’s for a private Intranet.

[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?

[chrishajer]

Can you post a link to your forum please? I’m sure someone can come up with a solution for you if they can see the markup and the CSS.

[eclipsenow]

I don’t know php, or plan to learn it in the foreseeable future.

I’m trying to learn XHTML, CSS, Dreamweaver, and WordPress and finally bbpress.

Is there ANY way to make this whole thing easier? Even just an easy way to change the header image and a few colours?

I seriously thought I could just use SMF for my forum. It has all the features already built in, it looks easy enough to manage. I’m at the end of my rope here… I just need a quick solution and to get on with using it. If I find the right “overall” theme, is it easy enough to just change the header say?

[chrishajer]

WordPress functionality means being able to use WordPress functions, in bbPress. There are WordPress functions called get_header():, get_footer();, get_sidebar(); that exist in WordPress. Some people would like to use call these functions in their bbPress templates so they can get the exact same footer, header and sidebar in their forum as they have in the WordPress site. To do that, you need to do “full integration” which is what _ck_ is recommending against.

To just put a list of images with links in your sidebar, you need only modify your template files. You need to create space in the template where you want the sidebar (maybe forum.php in your template folder) by creating an additional div, maybe call it #rightsidebar. Now, you need to edit your style.css to make the other divs smaller (less wide, and then make the rightsidebar wider to fill the space you created. If they theme you’re using doesn’t have enough space for all that, you might need to increase the width of the whole layout.

I think the first step is to make the space on the page where you want it, get that working. Then, get the list of images and links in there. That’s how I would go about it. It doesn’t sound like you need access to specific WordPress functions.

[eclipsenow]

So can I move certain “modules” or “plug-ins” around without php? EG: Can I move the log-in bar to the top or the bottom or the side of the page by a “point and click” interface a bit like Joomla, or do I have to know php to just move something around?

Are there any “core” enhancements coming in the new bbpress that will enable easier customisation?

Lastly, if I have a stunning new wordpress theme that I’ve styled up in Dreamweaver, how do I make bbpress “sit” inside the header-wrapper of WordPress?

I’m almost on the brink of making a big commitment here. This could help me decide to shift not only to bbpress, but to WordPress. (I’m leaning away from Joomla and towards WordPress because of the Dreamweaver compatibility as well!) So while in some ways I’m a newbie, please understand that I’ve finally caught the “web-design” bug (although am kind of doing it part time), have upgraded to Adobe CS4, my wife and I work in a design studio, I’ve spent about 20 hours so far running through Lynda.com tutorials on XHTML and CSS and now I’m working through Dreamweaver, and I just need to make a choice about which CMS and forum to “get into” for clients.

[eclipsenow]

Anyone know if Lynda.com is about to do the latest WordPress, (let alone bbpress?) They covered using WordPress.com 2.6, but not 2.7 yet, and have about 3 courses on Joomla.

I’m there to learn Adobe CS4, and have ambitions of learning Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Indesign, etc and delusions of grandeur that I might one day understand my mac almost as well as my wife. (Who’s a VERY professional graphic designer, but a web-illiterate like I currently am). So I paid up for a year at Lynda.com (and will claim that on tax), and sat through 10 hours of CSS training and 3 hours of XHTML and am now starting on Dreamweaver. All this slowed down by Christmas, kids home for 6 weeks in the Australian summer break, and my messing about with Joomla! (There are some things I like about Joomla, but some bad experiences with trying to modify their templates left me a bit blech…. as well!

Yet I hear there is a state of the art Dreamweaver integration pack for $60 that will let me style up WordPress themes in DW! Woah! That almost won me over and gave me delusions of grandeur about one day donating a few state-of-the-art templates to the WordPress world as advertising for my own WordPress theme’s business.

And then the kids came in demanding ice-cream, and reality slapped me across my fantasising, drooling, delusional face.

So… in this vulnerable state of mind, I need a hug. Cult like it is, this “choosing software before you know software” business and frame of mind!

As a bit of an activist with other causes (and having had a little exposure to marketing, not a lot but enough) can I just comment that I think it would be better “press” if bbpress had some more features turned on in this forum? I personally really rely on email notification that someone has replied to a forum, and only check my RSS about once a day. (It’s all inconvenient). Instead of just clicking “Send post” I have to then click RSS, and then click Google Reader when that comes up, and then remember to check my RSS. I think the vast majority of bulletin board users like email notification of a reply. Is there a reason bbpress decided not to showcase some of their best plug-ins on their leading forum?

Anyway, so tired I’m nearly hallucinating. Night night, and no offence meant by any of the above.

[chrishajer]

When you say “copy” do you mean “have the wordpress sidebar in bbPress” so it will be dynamic, just like it is in WordPress? Or, will you just copy and paste the code for a static sidebar into bbPress and it will never change?

If you want the former, you need integration, and you need to include WordPress inside bbPress so you have access to WordPress functions, like get_sidebar();.

If you want the latter, you just need to modify your template files to include the sidebar where you want it, and then modify the CSS to allow the space to exist in your forum.

[eclipsenow]

The “quick guide” to installation does not have a video on how to use Cpanel or phpmyadmin or whatever on how to set up the database.

It just says the following, but where’s the advice on how to run all the back-end server stuff? I’ve never done server tutorials in my life. Getting instructions that SOUND easy but then turn out to be a nightmare really stresses me.

With Joomla’s Agora, this is what you do. 1. Fantastico does quick 40 second install of Joomla. 2. Upload Agora forum into Joomla’s extensions… no database stuff at all. Done. Begin CSS and template modification.

1. Download bbPress from the download page

2. Upload the uncompressed files your server

3. Optionally upload language files to bb-includes/languages/ – You will have to create this directory

4. Visit the intended URL of the bbPress site

5. You will be greeted with the bbPress installer

6. Follow the instructions in the installer

7. Visit “Settings” in the admin area to customise your installation

8. If you have any questions, ask in the forums

[kirpiit]

I humbly suggest that a search field and its css couterpart is included in the default theme for future releases.

It is far easier for many to comment out a few lines as opposed to figure out how and where to place new pieces of code.

Thanks.

[eclipsenow]

Hi,

I am using phpbb3 for now, but I’m not really good at database stuff and admin stuff. I love all open source projects, especially phpbb3, bbpress, wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, etc… even though I’m not very “Geeky” yet and am only just beginning to learn the basics of CSS (let alone php etc).

So… I am speaking from the perspective of a non-technical forum administrator frustrated by various interactions of various software. I don’t mind doing the grunt work of setting things up IN the software, but don’t know the code to work ON software. EG: Once phpbb3 is installed, I can easily set up forums, permissions, etc. It’s just easy point and click stuff. But messing around in mysql and database stuff still terrifies me, I’m afraid of breaking something. It’s all too big. I just want to install it and have it work.

I appreciate that there are various philosophies behind each style of software, but here goes…

MY ULTIMATE WISH LIST

1. Nothing to do with you guys, but number 1 on my list is to have Fantastico (or something equivalent) that can make installation of WordPress / Joomla / Whatever EASY! (My client is a volunteer campaigning group that just happened to choose Brinkster which don’t use Cpanel, let alone have Fantastico).

2. After EASY fantastico installation, I install WordPress.

3. Then within WordPress I browse across to the various add-ons pages in the WordPress Control Panel (A VERY cool new feature of WordPress that Drupal and Joomla should add to their systems!) and then click “INSTALL FORUM?” and WordPress suddenly installs a completely compatible forum, just like that, with all the power of phpbb3 built-in.

4. I then choose 1 of say 20 or 30 “looks” (templates, themes, whatever) that are already pre-configured to allow sign-in of users on all pages, especially the forum page. If I want to change the colour of a background element or use a new image in the header, I just point and click to template editing and do it ala Blogger. (No CSS required).

This sort of software is on the way. Joomla now has “Agora” which is already fairly advanced. Once Joomla is installed through the 50 second Fantastico installation, Agora only takes about 50 seconds to install as well. EVEN I CAN DO IT! But the Joomla / Agora combination does not yet have Step 4, which is killing me… I have to muck around with all sorts of plug-ins and extra bits to get a horizontal log-in menu I can put up just under my header (so it’s in the same place no matter what template I’m in).

I saw the video of how to integrate WP and BBpress, and ran a mile screaming! It just looked very intimidating.

So anyway, the Joomla / Agora combination is hardly perfect, but as you know these things keep on developing and Hazzaa over at Agora is MANIC in the rate he’s developing his product. Version 3 is nearly out, and it’s only been 10 months.

Just thought I should give you guys the heads up. The competition is great, because it forces us all to evolve.

EG: I LOVE the sound of WordPress’s new one click upgrade function, and hope Joomla gets that soon! (It’s just me and database stuff again… eeerrgh!) Combine that with easy forum upgrades, backups, etc, and software that’s Mac-like in that it “just works”, and I’m a happy camper.

PS: I forgot to check this thread in case there were replies, because I automatically get an email from every other forum I belong to. Old habits die hard. Agora has an automatic emailing function built in, it’s not a plug in.

[Malice]

I integrated it in my site by editing the bbpress template.

Looks like this now http://www.holysh1t.net/forum

Requires some basic css/html knowledge or puzzling skills though…

No idea if I could actually integrate the sidebars as well, but thats not really important to me.

[adam613]

Tiago S, I signed up for your forum because I really like your design, want to know how it works, and am a little new at CSS…hope you don’t mind

[chrishajer]

Where do you see “Hot Topics”? I see Hot Tags and Latest Discussions. Which one do you want to hide?

Yes, it’s possible. You need to find the section in your template that displays them, then just remove that section. For Latest Discussions, it’s in the template file front-page.php. Removing that whole section won’t hurt anything.

If you remove Hot Tags, you will have a big white space over there. After removing that from the template file, you might want to adjust the CSS to make the other part of the page wider so it uses the space where the tags used to be.

Basically, it’s all done in your template files. If you’re using the stock template, you should make a copy of that, then make your modifications there.

https://bbpress.org/documentation/themes/

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/what-did-i-do-now-login-form#post-13935

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/template-for-post-form-label#post-11385

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/a-little-rant-about-bbpress-followed-by-some-questions#post-16722

[Anonymous User 1502623]

Yeah I keep meaning to look at them. I just assumed that because I’m using bbpress as the forum on my site, with the bbpress latest discussions plugin, it would’ve had something to do with bbpress. Oh well.

[chrishajer]

What is the actual code you are using to get an image into your post? Post it here in backticks (upper left of most keyboards, beneath the ESC key.) Does it look like this?

<img src="http://www.cssnz.org/flower.jpg" />

Or, how about a link to your forum so someone can try it out.

[Trent Adams]

This site has the forums run on bbPress and the Blog run with WordPress. The navigation and “look and feel” really is just done through the template that you decide to go with. Best part about bbPress is the templates generally are created with CSS so you can do whatever you want to do. bbPress and WordPress do integrate logins and cookies which is nice, but the design really is not that bad as well.

[salemw]

yes, i did went to that topic earlier, I searched the whole forum but I just don’t get how i should use it I tried : global $topic_id, $forum_id; include(‘../nav/’.$forum_id.’.php’);

it works fine but only on forum pages. not on topics. The same with an earlier post asking for different stylesheets:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php if ($forum_id == 1) bb_stylesheet_uri(); elseif ($forum_id == 2) echo '/my-templates/kakumei-blue/style.css'; ?>" type="text/css" />

It”s ok on forum but not on topics.

So in my header if I do the routine:

global $topic; echo “$topic->topic_title”; I get the topic title ok but nothing with

global $bb_post; echo “$bb_post->forum_id”;

[hotforwords]

Sorry.. had to repost this as my last one broke and closed the post automatically as a result…

I like the topic_page_links() that exists in the kakumei theme, but when the number of posts gets too large it stretches out the page.

Are there any arguments for this tag to limit the number of pages it shows?

Here is an example on my forum: http://www.hotforwords.com/forums/

Or is there a way to use CSS to have them line break?

The navigation topic_pages() does a cool thing by breaking up the pages with the … but I can’t get that tag to work properly on the home page.

Thanks!

Marina

[hotforwords]

I like the topic_page_links() that exists in the kakumei theme, but when the number of posts gets too large it stretches out the page.

Are there any arguments for this tag to limit the number of pages it shows?

Here is an example on my forum: http://www.hotforwords.com/forums/

Or is there a way to use CSS to have them line break?

The navigation topic_pages()<s/trong> does a cool thing by breaking up the pages with the … but I can’t get that tag to work properly on the home page.

Thanks!

Marina

[_ck_]

You might want to create a static page outside of your bbPress installation that still uses the matching header and footer you have in bbPress. Well it’s very easy.

Make yourself a directory above bbPress with any name you’d like, let’s say “/about/”

In “/about/” make an index.php with this content:

<?php

require('../forums/bb-load.php');    // change /forums/ to your actual forum path

add_action('bb_head','about_css');

include(bb_get_active_theme_uri()."header.php");



function about_css() {   //  put any custom CSS you want in here

echo '<style>

img {border:0;}

</style>';

}

?>



<h3 class="bbcrumb"><a href="<?php bb_option('uri'); ?>"><?php bb_option('name'); ?></a> &raquo; About</h3>



<h2>About</h2>



Your "about" text goes here!



<?php  include(bb_get_active_theme_uri()."/footer.php"); ?>

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

It looks like the ‘loop’ for your posts is missing.

In your source, you mention http://www.theacerguy.com/forum/bb-templates/theAcerGuyForum/forumStyle.css which doesn’t exist, and really should be in my-templates

It’s really like your topic.php is missing all the stuff from <?php do_action('under_title'); ?> down to the if open then reply_ok.

Do you have deep integration going on? You seem to be pulling WP header stuff down.

[lolos]

davidbaldwin,

How did you change the font size and color of the bbpress in your wordpress theme? are you using two separate css style sheets or only one?

Can you give me some instructions on how did you make bbpress work within wordpress theme? i.e. when you click on forum it opens bbpress forum in the same page under word press header??

Please some one help me.. I spent over 4 days trying to understand how do just that!!

[reclaimyourskin]

Sorry guys, I thought my problem was resolved but it looks like i’ve spoke to soon.

The code _CK_ suggested below, worked wonders to add a new “on” class on my forum links:

<li<?php if ($current_forum_id=get_forum_id()) {echo " class='on'";} ?>>

Problem!

The trouble is that the unique “on” class is being displayed on every forum link, when I need it to only display when i’m viewing forum 2 for example. Basically, i need a unique css class and current forum marker so the user knows which forum they are currently viewing.

Below is the souce code for all of forum.php (if anyone has time to have a quick look i’d really appreciate it).

<?php bb_get_header(); ?>

<h3><?php forum_name(); ?> Forum</h3>

<ul id=”forumnav”>

<li<?php if ($current_forum_id=get_forum_id()) {echo ” class=’on'”;} ?>>” title=”Latest homepage”><span>Latest<img src=”images/white-arrow.gif” style=”padding: 0 0 3px 5px” width=”10″ height=”5″ border=”0″ /></span>

<li<?php if ($current_forum_id=get_forum_id()) {echo ” class=’on'”;} ?>>forum/forum2″ title=”Forum 2″><span>Forum 2</span>

<li<?php if ($current_forum_id=get_forum_id()) {echo ” class=’on'”;} ?>>forum/forum3″ title=”Forum 3″><span>Forum 3</span>

<li class=”<?php echo $class;?>”>forum/forum3″ title=”Forum 3″><span>Forum 3</span>

<?php if ( $topics || $stickies ) : ?>

<table id=”latest”>

<tr>

<th><?php _e(‘Topic’); ?> — <?php bb_new_topic_link(); ?></th>

<th><?php _e(‘Posts’); ?></th>

<th><?php _e(‘Last Poster’); ?></th>

<th><?php _e(‘Freshness’); ?></th>

</tr>

<?php if ( $stickies ) : foreach ( $stickies as $topic ) : ?>

<tr<?php topic_class(); ?>>

<td><?php bb_topic_labels(); ?> <big>“><?php topic_title(); ?></big></td>

<td class=”num”><?php topic_posts(); ?></td>

<td class=”num”><?php topic_last_poster(); ?></td>

<td class=”num”>“><?php topic_time(); ?></td>

</tr>

<?php endforeach; endif; ?>

<?php if ( $topics ) : foreach ( $topics as $topic ) : ?>

<tr<?php topic_class(); ?>>

<td><?php bb_topic_labels(); ?> “><?php topic_title(); ?><?php topic_page_links(); ?></td>

<td class=”num”><?php topic_posts(); ?></td>

<td class=”num”><?php topic_last_poster(); ?></td>

<td class=”num”>“><?php topic_time(); ?></td>

</tr>

<?php endforeach; endif; ?>

</table>

<div id=”viewdiv”>

<ul id=”views”>

<li class=”view”>” class=”rss-link”><?php _e(‘<abbr title=”Really Simple Syndication”>RSS</abbr> feed for this forum’); ?>

</div>

<div class=”nav”>

<?php forum_pages(); ?>

</div>

<?php endif; ?>

<?php if ( bb_forums( $forum_id ) ) : ?>

<h2><?php _e(‘Subforums’); ?></h2>

<table id=”forumlist”>

<tr>

<th><?php _e(‘Main Theme’); ?></th>

<th><?php _e(‘Topics’); ?></th>

<th><?php _e(‘Posts’); ?></th>

</tr>

<?php while ( bb_forum() ) : ?>

<?php if (bb_get_forum_is_category()) : ?>

<tr<?php bb_forum_class(‘bb-category’); ?>>

<td colspan=”3″><?php bb_forum_pad( ‘<div class=”nest”>’ ); ?>“><?php forum_name(); ?><small><?php forum_description(); ?></small><?php bb_forum_pad( ‘</div>’ ); ?></td>

</tr>

<?php continue; endif; ?>

<tr<?php bb_forum_class(); ?>>

<td><?php bb_forum_pad( ‘<div class=”nest”>’ ); ?>“><?php forum_name(); ?><small><?php forum_description(); ?></small><?php bb_forum_pad( ‘</div>’ ); ?></td>

<td class=”num”><?php forum_topics(); ?></td>

<td class=”num”><?php forum_posts(); ?></td>

</tr>

<?php endwhile; ?>

</table>

<?php endif; ?>

<?php post_form(); ?>

</div> <!– End Content –>

<?php bb_get_footer(); ?>

Thanks again sambauers, _CK_ and other mods – you’re doing a great job.