Bear with me. Very new to this.

I just installed bbpress 2.3.2 via the plugin directory in my wp site. Works fine from what I can tell.

I have a custom site and I want to make a few layout tweaks to my forum pages (eliminate sidebar, yadda, yadda). I am currently hosting my site locally using MAMP so I can blow things up with impunity. Don’t know if that matters, but I’m putting it out there.

Here’s the deal: I made a child directory on my theme and the many step-by-steps said I have to put it in my plugins > bbpress > themes folder.

I go there and SURPRISE! No themes folder.

Am I missing something?

[@johnjamesjacoby Keymaster 11 years, 7 months ago]

Not sure where you’re getting your info, but it’s not correct. 🙂

bbPress uses your existing WordPress theme, and allows you to customize the individual templates as you see fit. You can copy the template files you want to customize out of:
wp-content/plugins/bbpress/templates/default/bbpress/
and drop them in…
wp-content/themes/YOUR_ACTIVE_THEME/bbpress/
where YOUR_ACTIVE_THEME is the name of the currently active theme on your site.

Then start editing them, and you should see your edits come through.

[@gameredie Participant 11 years, 7 months ago]

That’s the thing.

I go to wp-content/plugins/bbpress…

And there’s no “templates” file. So can’t really copy anything from templates as… it doesn’t exist.

[@gameredie Participant 11 years, 7 months ago]

Additionally, inside:

wp-content/themes/myActiveTheme/… There is no “bbpress” file. So I’m not really sure where bbpress is pulling it’s theme from. If I did, I could copy that theme and drop it into the myActiveTheme file. But until I figure out where it’s getting its information, I’m kinda stuck digging around.

[@gameredie Participant 11 years, 7 months ago]

Oh wait. Brain fart. I found it. Sorry for the last two posts. It was kinda hidden.

No, more like I’m a moron.

Thanks.

[@gameredie Participant 11 years, 7 months ago]

Okay, but I thought in order to remove the sidebar from your forum (i.e.: a full-page forum) you need to be working in “themes” not “templates.”

Let me be more to the point. I have a website with a custom WP theme, (http://www.gamehounds.net/).

I want to intgrate bbPress forums under the tab “Forum.” I want the bbPress forums to be full-screen without the sidebars, but of course I want to keep the sidebar in the rest of my site.

After a LOT of reading… including your wonderful thread that says Never Modify bbPress core files, I built a child theme and activated it.

But when I go to where says to in order to put my bbPress theme into my child-theme file, there is no “themes” folder.

I do have a “templates” folder, but it doesn’t seem to have any information for themes where it instructs to “get sidebar,” which from what I read is the thing that I want to “//”.

Does this make sense at all? Again, apologies for being kind of numbskully about this. I’m really just hacking around in the dark and learning as I go.

[@lynq Participant 11 years, 7 months ago]

Here is my setup.

Main Theme
/wp-content/themes/MyTheme/

bbPress theme files
/wp-content/themes/MyTheme/bbpress

If you visit your theme directory, like Main Theme above and there is not a bbPress folder, then you need to copy them out of the bbPress plugin and into your theme folder.

Get that done first, then we can go from there.

Good luck!

[@gameredie Participant 11 years, 7 months ago]

Okay. I created a child theme for my custom theme, and copied all the .php files for bbpress into a new folder titled “bbpress” into the child theme folder.

Check.

[@kettlewell Participant 11 years, 7 months ago]

@johnjamesjacoby I believe this link is the source of the problem… I think if this page is updated to be made current, it will solve a lot of confusion.

https://codex.bbpress.org/step-by-step-guide-to-creating-a-custom-bbpress-theme/

[@edkubisa Participant 11 years, 7 months ago]

i’m in the same situation – and i’ve yet to find a post that explains how to remove the sidebar correctly.

JJJ, could you write a post that explains how to do that – in an idiot proof format?

Thanks!