[dingxiaohan]

I’m extremely new to WordPress and totally new to bbpress. I have designed a community website in 2012 which seems fine, and want to add a forum.

It needs to be compact and waste no space, or people won’t use it. That doesn’t seem to be possible in 2012, which forces a sidebar if you want a search facility, and which consumes a lot of vertical space with the identity of the contributor, including a large avatar. My very first experimental shot is here:
http://www.hundredthmonkey.eu/?topic=wish-list
and you’ll see what I mean. I wish I could attach a screen shot of the Sibelius.com forum, which is my ideal.

I am thinking that the only solution will be to link out to a separate site with a really compact, unfussy, uncluttered theme. Can anyone suggest?

[Robin W]

That doesn’t seem to be possible in 2012, which forces a sidebar if you want a search facility, and which consumes a lot of vertical space with the identity of the contributor, including a large avatar.

Good job we’re in 2014 then 🙂

If you switch on the search facility
dashboard>settings>forums and look for search allow forum wide search, you’ll get a search bar at the top of the forums page

for the avatar size use the following code in your functions file

function my_bbp_change_avatar_size($author_avatar, $topic_id, $size) {
    $author_avatar = '';
    if ($size == 14) {
        $size = 24;
    }
    if ($size == 80) {
        $size = 110;
    }
    $topic_id = bbp_get_topic_id( $topic_id );
    if ( !empty( $topic_id ) ) {
        if ( !bbp_is_topic_anonymous( $topic_id ) ) {
            $author_avatar = get_avatar( bbp_get_topic_author_id( $topic_id ), $size );
        } else {
            $author_avatar = get_avatar( get_post_meta( $topic_id, '_bbp_anonymous_email', true ), $size );
        }
    }
    return $author_avatar;
}

/* Add priority (default=10) and number of arguments */
add_filter('bbp_get_topic_author_avatar', 'my_bbp_change_avatar_size', 20, 3);
add_filter('bbp_get_reply_author_avatar', 'my_bbp_change_avatar_size', 20, 3);
add_filter('bbp_get_current_user_avatar', 'my_bbp_change_avatar_size', 20, 3);

The example increase the size, just change to to what you want

see https://codex.bbpress.org/functions-files-and-child-themes-explained/ for how to do that

you can also remove things like keymaster – just come back with what you want – and we’ll try to help you

[dingxiaohan]

Thank you, that’s very encouraging. I’m on the brink of setting off for France for some serious work on other things, so there may be a break.

But just for now, “allow forum wide search” was selected and I don’t see a search. Is there something else I have to do to switch it back on, having previously removed it from the sidebar?

And I don’t suppose it’s possible to get rid of the avatar altogether, is it? We’re a very small community, we know who we are!

[Robin W]

to get rid of avatar

//get rid of the avatar
function my_bbp_change_avatar_size($author_avatar, $topic_id, $size) {
    $author_avatar = '';
    return $author_avatar;
}

/* Add priority (default=10) and number of arguments */
add_filter('bbp_get_topic_author_avatar', 'my_bbp_change_avatar_size', 20, 3);
add_filter('bbp_get_reply_author_avatar', 'my_bbp_change_avatar_size', 20, 3);
add_filter('bbp_get_current_user_avatar', 'my_bbp_change_avatar_size', 20, 3);

can you give us your url so we can see the lack of search !