[Toni]

MultiSite with bbPress plugin – the latest
One subsite dedicated to bbPress forum

I just want to know what “bbPress ready” “works with bbPress” means
What are some characteristics that make a “theme bbPress ready/compatible”?
What do the results imply when I search for themes for bbPress, what can I expect in general?
– If a WordPress theme is reviewed in an article and is said to work for bbPress
– If I search WordPress themes using bbPress keyword

I have been struggling with themes, like all bbPress newbies. I don’t understand the structure of bbPress – the layout, navigation, hierarchy and the pages it generates. It’s a new surprise with each theme I try. (Yes, I have used Theme 2015 to check things.)

Surprise Example:
theme Ample, forum looks great but the Home/Forums/… (bbPress breadcrumb navigation) “Forums” page renders all the topics with the heading “Archives”, I had to use Edit Menu to add a custom link to add that page to the WP menu, and I had created a page to list only the forums with the bbPress short code, but then it was not part of the bbPress nav, and it was unusable – too bizarrely rendered to try to correct.

I prefer not to have to get into editing generated pages and editing whatever to get the breadcrumb navigation/menus to correlate. Little comprehension, skill, or time.

Thank you

[Toni]

Ah, okay I managed to change the title of the Archives page for theme Ample.
Easy!

Anyway, question still stands please.

[Robkk]

I just want to know what “bbPress ready” “works with bbPress” means
What are some characteristics that make a “theme bbPress ready/compatible”?

Most common theme related issues are not visible with the theme.

If a WordPress theme is reviewed in an article and is said to work for bbPress

There are quite a few, like a handful of paid themes that actual go out and style everything and add something custom in their forum layout. Some others just say it just works but do not really customize the layout much.

Same thing with free themes, only a few I have seen actually customize the layout. There are some good free ones.

What do the results imply when I search for themes for bbPress, what can I expect in general?

The theme has no possible theme issues with bbPress and possibly some minor or major customization in the default bbPress forums look.

I have been struggling with themes, like all bbPress newbies. I don’t understand the structure of bbPress – the layout, navigation, hierarchy and the pages it generates. It’s a new surprise with each theme I try. (Yes, I have used Theme 2015 to check things.)

It is close to a traditional forum layout (except the categories/forum layout). Can you please explain exactly why some things might not understandable so I can help you better?? I do not want to try to assume things from what you meant by structure or the pages generated.

In /forums page is the forum post type archive, same goes for the topic post type and /topics. In some themes they configure a custom page title for Archive pages. Since you can use the regular WordPress conditional is_archive() and affect bbPress, well it affects bbPress.

Here is the code in the free version of that theme that outputs the Archives title for any archive using if_archive() and some extra conditionals to check if it is a category archive or an author archive and so on. Since the bbPress archive page does not follow one of the other conditionals, the title ends up just Archives.

function ample_header_title() {
   if( is_archive() ) {
      if ( is_category() ) :
         $ample_header_title = single_cat_title( '', FALSE );

      elseif ( is_tag() ) :
         $ample_header_title = single_tag_title( '', FALSE );

      elseif ( is_author() ) :
         /* Queue the first post, that way we know
          * what author we're dealing with (if that is the case).
         */
         the_post();
         $ample_header_title =  sprintf( __( 'Author: %s', 'ample' ), '<span class="vcard">' . get_the_author() . '</span>' );
         /* Since we called the_post() above, we need to
          * rewind the loop back to the beginning that way
          * we can run the loop properly, in full.
          */
         rewind_posts();

      elseif ( is_day() ) :
         $ample_header_title = sprintf( __( 'Day: %s', 'ample' ), '<span>' . get_the_date() . '</span>' );

      elseif ( is_month() ) :
         $ample_header_title = sprintf( __( 'Month: %s', 'ample' ), '<span>' . get_the_date( 'F Y' ) . '</span>' );

      elseif ( is_year() ) :
         $ample_header_title = sprintf( __( 'Year: %s', 'ample' ), '<span>' . get_the_date( 'Y' ) . '</span>' );

      else :
         $ample_header_title = __( 'Archives', 'ample' );

      endif;
   }

[Toni]

Outstanding!!! So much more than I had expected.

This makes such a huge difference for me. I greatly appreciate the time and careful effort to thoroughly explain this all for me so clearly. This will help me get to a new level in Things WordPress.

Thank you
Cheers!

[Toni]

Can you please explain exactly why some things might not understandable so I can help you better??

I barely remember the other instances. In general, the changes I notice are with the breadcrumb menu and the pages each link in the breadcrumb goes to. Sometimes there are pages in that breadcrumb that I cannot edit – there is no admin edit feature available, there are pages I cannot add via the WP Edit Menu – they do not show up as pages in that Edit Menu section.

[Toni]

Oops, to continue…those mystery pages I mentioned from the breadcrumb are usually blank. And they fall at the top level of the breadcrumb nav hierarchy – the first or second item.

When I first installed bbPress I had 2 forum entries in the breadcrumb – Forums/forums/… the first one (I think it was the first menu item) had nothing on it.

[Robkk]

If you placed a shortcode in a page, you do not have to add the forum index shortcode to a page but instead use the default forum root url /forums. If you did use a custom index page using the shortcode, editing the forum root slug in Settings > Forums to be the same as custom index page’s slug should help with the breadcrumb thing.

You can always create custom menu links if the pages are not in the menus section.

[Toni]

Okay. I need to carefully process that info. (I’ve been wrestling with WP site issues, my brain has almost bricked.) 🙂

I appreciate the clear explanation, big time.

Thank you

[Robkk]

no problem 🙂