OK, I am way behind the times as I just found out about the bp skeleton framework with the plugin.php concept.

My understanding of how it works is still quite basic but if I get it right, a setup like this means I can finally get rid of the extraneous divs like header/footer/sidebar etc from all the templates thus making themes work much easier in all themes.

Is there a skeleton plugin.php for bbPress available?

If so, could someone provide a basic example of how to get it working?

[@djoep Member 13 years, 2 months ago]

Just curious… since bbpress 2.0 uses wordpress custom posts rather than it’s own dB tables, what would you be expecting of such a skeleton plugin? As far as I have seen, normal WP plugins appear to apply to bbpress 2.0, though one could take advantage of the new post types like forum, topic, etc.

joe

[@anointed Participant 13 years, 2 months ago]

Because the skeleton plugin adds the capability of adding theme templates which do not require added markup such as the header/footer/etc.

The way it is now, bbPress has a bunch of twentyten specific templates which handle all the output for bbPress. Each of these templates carries the overall ‘layout’ for twentyten instead of just what is output by bbPress.

If my understanding is correct, I would create a single bbpress.php file that holds just the twentyten layout. ‘The_content’ would then be auto replaced according to what page you are on.

This would mean that in order to get a custom setup in any theme, I would only have to modify one template file, ‘the twentyten base layout’ instead of modifying every file.

Basically I am trying to find a way of making it easier for me to build and market bbPress templates that work in any theme.

An example would be people that don’t want a sidebar. You would simple change the bbpress.php file to remove the sidebar, change the css attribute for the content area to be fullwidth and your done. You don’t have to modify the other bbPress templates.

*Yeah, I know, there are shortcodes, custom page templates etc already avail, but trying to find an even better approach.

[@anointed Participant 13 years, 1 month ago]

@JJ

Did you get my message about a generic ‘bbpress theme plugin’ skeleton component?

Basically just like we talked about last month, I was thinking it would be really beneficial if there were a generic plugin that we could use for our custom themes.

I’m thinking just the barebones basic setup. Heck even if the plugin included all the default template files it would be great.

Then all we would have to do is replace the template files in the plugin with our own, so long as the names are the same.

*well I know there is a bit more to it than that, but I think you get the idea of what I am after.

And yeah, it is 5:30am, ouch… have not slept all weekend as trying to finish this up, crazy tired now.