[pcpro178]

I’ve read a lot of the documentation and posts on this, but it unfortunately is not sinking into my skull. From what I can tell, there are basically three pages to the standard bbPress installation & usage: Forum Index page, Forum page, and Topic page. I saw something referring to the wp-content/plugins/bbpress/templates/default/bbpress folder, available after installing bbPress. How do I know which of these files to copy/modify, and to which file name should I copy it? Any help or insight you might be able to offer would be appreciated. I am completely lost on this.

[Robin W]

it depends what you mean by integration.

In essence if you create a page in your site called say ‘forums’ and put the shortcode [bbp-forum-index] in it, then you have integrated it.

Let us know beyond that what you want, and we’ll try and help further

[pcpro178]

Thanks, Robin. I’ve already done that for the Forum Index and Forum pages. In concert with a few .htaccess redirects, it works fine, as can be seen here:

https://sopearly.com/forums/
https://sopearly.com/forum-introductions/

Any links to the bbPress-generated https://sopearly.com/forum/introductions/ are redirected to https://sopearly.com/forum-introductions/.

Redirect /forum/introductions/ https://sopearly.com/forum-introductions/

The biggest problem I am having right now is with the Topic pages, since I do not have control over which discussion topics be created by my users in each of the forums; the Topic page links are automatically generated by bbPress. Here is a good example:

https://sopearly.com/topic/welcome-to-the-sopearly-community/

I can make the colors, spacing, etc. match the rest of my site with a little work, but the page backgrounds and header are managed by the theme I’m using. What I’ve been able to gather by the reading I’ve done is that I should be able to take the contents of one of the files located at wp-content/plugins/bbpress/templates/default/bbpress, insert that into the appropriate (copied) theme file (single, template, etc.), and rename that file to one of the following:

• plugin-bbpress.php
• bbpress.php
• forums.php
• forum.php

I can get with my theme’s support to find out which of their files I should start with, but (unless you think there is a better way) I guess my question is which of the files from wp-content/plugins/bbpress/templates/default/bbpress should I use, and to which of the four filenames should I copy it in my child theme? Thanks so much for your help. 🙂

[pcpro178]

Robin, I’m sorry. I don’t know why it’s trying to populate the pages from my website. I’d break the links (in a meaningful way) but there is no edit button. (Today is just a bad, bad day for me on a number of fronts.) 🙁

[Robin W]

ok, I think you have may two issues here

1. styling
2. functionality

or maybe both

using template files will not fix styling, and from the link you sent, I cannot understand what functionality is missing – I can access both forums and topics just fine.

So I am not clear exactly what you are trying to fix? Is it just the page background and header – if so you a right they are theme related, but perhaps you could explain what is wrong and what you want to do to fix it by giving me precise examples

For example :

I want to not have xx
I want yy to be green

etc.

[pcpro178]

You are correct. There is no functionality missing, and I am trying to get the bbPress pages to look like they fit with the rest of my site (i.e. background and header–theme elements). My last reply (#176623) was badly mangled by the auto-populated page elements from my site (did not see that coming), and Akismet keeps blocking my posts, so I have no idea when anyone will see this. :”’ (

Please correct me if I am using the wrong approach, but what I am trying to do is figure out which of the files at wp-content/plugins/bbpress/templates/default/bbpress that I should be using to customize the bbPress topic page (e.g. ‘sopearly.com/topic/welcome-to-the-sopearly-community/’) and which file name I should rename it to: plugin-bbpress.php, bbpress.php, forums.php, forum.php.

I realize I’m having a lot of trouble with this. Thanks so much for your help. 🙂

[Robin W]

which of the files …I should be using to customize the bbPress topic page…which file name I should rename it to

You’ll need to say what customisation you want to do, as that will affect my answer, if you can detail what you are after, I’ll try to help, but I do need details as I said above. I’m not trying to be awkward, just trying to help !

[pcpro178]

I appreciate your willingness to help. 🙂 It’s not functionality that I want to customize at this time. Right now, I’m only really interested in getting the pages to integrate/fit well with my site. That is, I need to integrate it with my theme.

Perhaps if we look at this from the other end the problem will be easier to understand:

My plan at present is to develop a new template page within my theme to handle bbPress Topic pages. This new page will adopt elements (mostly copy/paste style) from one of the bbPress files (plugin-bbpress.php, bbpress.php, forums.php, or forum.php). I’m confused as to which of those files should be used for displaying bbPress Topcic pages (e.g. sopearly.com/topic/welcome-to-the-sopearly-community/).

If I had to guess, I would start by copying & modifying forum.php into my new template. Would that be correct?

[Robin W]

Sorry, I still have no idea what ‘integration’ looks like to you, and without knowing what you wish to change, then I cannot help

Template do functionality for a major part, I suspect that changes you are after are css.

[pcpro178]

I already know how to do CSS. How do I make a template for the bbPress Topic page?

[Robin W]

https://codex.bbpress.org/themes/theme-compatibility/getting-started-in-modifying-the-main-bbpress-template/