[Mycelus]

I don’t know what the designers were thinking when they designed bbPress, but it looks like crap, not the theme, just the way the stock design is where the forums are just all bundled up underneath the category.

Look at the forums for example:

https://linustechtips.com/main/

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/

The categories are nicely separated in a hierarchy, with the posts and replies being shown to the right.

I need my forums to look like this, cause I’d like to avoid using crap paid software or open software like phpBB, vBulletin, IP Board, etc.

[koendb]

I would show a little more appreciation for the people making all of this possible.

That being said, this is my bbpress forum: 24Baby (dutch). Looks exactly like the two you linked to. I would be happy to provide some code, but before I put any effort into it, please make sure bbpress is the forum software of your choice.

[Shmoo]

@koendb,

Very nicely!
Well integrated with the entire theme.

Just one question:

How did you change the time-format at each last_activity.
By default bbPress shows something like this, (two items)
– 2 days, 3 hours ago
– 8 hours, 37 seconds ago

But you only show one item,
– 2 hours ago
– 6 days ago
– 1 years ago

I like your format better.

[koendb]

Thanks Shmoo!
I added this filter, don’t remember where I found it:

function short_freshness_time( $output) {
$output = preg_replace( '/, .*[^ago]/', ' ', $output );
return $output;
}

add_filter( 'bbp_get_time_since', 'short_freshness_time' );
add_filter('bp_core_time_since', 'short_freshness_time');

Shall we leave this thread to Mycelus now? Feel free to PM me or open your own.

[Mycelus]

Sure, it’s just I don’t know any coding languages unfortunately, but I’m good with it once I get a hold of it, just never actually got one down.

I would like to separate mine like that, I just don’t wanna break my theme’s layout.

[koendb]

You could change your forum lay-out with a template and let your other pages stay the same. It’s going to be though to achieve this result without ANY coding languages. Even when you use other’s code you’ll need to change the .css to change the colors etc.

If you however decide to try it yourself, you should start reading here.

[koendb]

Ah, sorry @shmoo or @macpress: forgot to add the filters:

add_filter( 'bbp_get_time_since', 'short_freshness_time' );
add_filter('bp_core_time_since', 'short_freshness_time');

[PCTP]

Are there any other options … plugins, for example, that will change the look of the forum, but not the theme? I would have no idea where to place the filter codes and not even sure how that would change the forum look.

[jslom]

Hi @koendb, thank you for sharing! Your site looks great.

Can you please help me out with the custom icons next to each forum? This is something I have been trying to achieve for some time now.

Thanks!

[koendb]

@jslom I think I used something from this thread: https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/add-a-featured-image-to-a-forum/

[Majijiboo]

@koendb

Which bbpress file should I add the below filter to to get that feature? Thanks.

function short_freshness_time( $output) {
$output = preg_replace( '/, .*[^ago]/', ' ', $output );
return $output;
}
add_filter( 'bbp_get_time_since', 'short_freshness_time' );
add_filter('bp_core_time_since', 'short_freshness_time');

[koendb]

You could just put it in your functions.php file.

If it’s empty put this on the first line:

<?php 

General information about adjusting your theme (and functions.php): Making a child theme

[Majijiboo]

I have multiple functions.php files in different folders of the bbpress plugin. Which of the below functions.php files should I add the code to?

• …/bbpress/includes/users/functions.php
• …/bbpress/includes/replies/functions.php
• …/bbpress/includes/extened/buddypress/functions.php
• …/bbpress/includes/forums/functions.php
• …/bbpress/includes/core/functions.php
• …/%theme name%/functions.php

Thanks,
Majid

[koendb]

You can add all sorts of changes to your theme or bbpress from the general wordpress functions.php file. You can find this file here:
/wp-content/themes/%theme name%/functions.php

But if you update your theme your changes to this file will be overwritten, that’s why you should make a child theme with your own functions.php file. It’s not that hard and after you’ve made your child theme it’s easy to tweak other things as well.

[Majijiboo]

It worked. Thanks. How were you able to make your mobile website look so great? This is a link to my mobile site . I would like to do the same exact thing which is:
• Have the forum take the whole width of the phone
• Remove image of person who posts a topic
• Remove # of voices per topic
• Remove name of person who made the last post

Thanks for your help.

[koendb]

Great!

You should read something about responsive webdesign. Easiest way to make a mobile site is to adjust the way users view the page with css.

[Majijiboo]

Thanks. You did a great job modifying your layout so that images and text were placed in different parts of the forum. Do you know of a good resource or a term I should google to learn how to do that? I understand html, css, and how to build php hooks, but I do not know how to modify a forum layout. For example, I would like to have an image that is right before my forum title after you click on a forum name. Thanks.

[rafferjr]

Ok so i guess im confused. i too want the forums to look more like the way it was mentioned above. where the category has the forums under it like this site. http://teamoverpowered.com/forums/

I see that bbpress creates or uses the pages forums to put its code there. im not a code master. can someone point me in the right direction? im not looking for the nice pictures, just a category as a header and the forums of that category below.

[shanhard]

@koendb your forum looks amazing,
Can you please tell me how you managed to style your ‘Laatste forumreacties’ widget like that, with the user avatar on the left, and then the links on the right over 2 neat lines. Is this a custom plugin?

It is exactly what I want to do with my site http://www.perthtrailscene.com

[koendb]

I got in contact with @shanhard but basically copied most of my code from wp-content/plugins/bbpress/includes/common/widgets.php

[Victor]

@koendb How did you separate the categories into multiply columns?