[wilcoxc]

Hi all,

I’d really appreciate some guidance on a couple of plugins that may or may not exist to help with styling of my forums. (My site: http://www.plymouthoctopus.org)

I’m hoping to achieve something like this: https://seventhqueen.com/support/forums/forum/kleo/bugs-issues – note the wide reply incorporating the avatar, and also randomly assigned avatars. I thought this might be custom CSS but I have seen very similar designs on other sites (plex.tv) and have concluded, perhaps wrongly, that this is a plugin doing the styling.

I’ve searched all through the plugin suggestions on this forum, installed loads (thought that bbp Style Pack was what I’d been looking for) but to no avail. Any suggestions would be hugely appreciated!

Many thanks in advance.
Chris.

[mithrandir]

This is not very difficult to achieve, and does not require any plugins. A similar look is possible with modifying the bbPress template files, and some custom CSS styling. Although it depends on your experience with HTML,CSS and a bit of knowledge about PHP and how WordPress templates work.

To find the location of the bbPress template files navigate to:
‘wp-content/plugins/bbpress/templates/default/bppress/’
Here you will find various template files which serve various purposes.
for eg. loop-topics.php is the template file for the topics ( like in the kleo theme ).

You should not modify the original files.
Instead create a folder named bbPress in your theme root folder (or child theme root folder)
ie. ‘wp-content/themes/YOUR-THEME/bbpress/’
Any changes you make in this newly created folder will be given priority over the originals.

Copy any files you wish to modify from the original location into this folder.
This way updates to bbPress wont overwrite any files you have modified and your changes wont be lost.

The avatars you see, can be selected as an option in the WordPress dashboard.
Navigate to Dashboard> Settings > Discussion –> Default Avatar
Here you will have the option to choose from:

• Mystery Person
• Blank
• Gravatar Logo
• Identicon (Generated)
• Wavatar (Generated)
• MonsterID (Generated)
• Retro (Generated)

The (Generated) avatars are the ones to choose from.

If you are willing to invest some time ( since without fluency in the aforementioned skills, it could take a little bit of trial and error), I could help you in achieving this.

It is a little late in the night at the moment(in my country), ill post back tomorrow to get the gears rolling with some examples.

[mithrandir]

PS. to answer your original question, a plugin does not exist for this purpose, as what you are trying to achieve is a custom built solution. Any plugins that exist are for more general purpose and commonly used bbPress styling patterns.

[wilcoxc]

Thank you so much – I had no idea about the ‘Discussion’ section for selecting avatars. Excellent!

I’ve found the topic-loop.php and put it in my child theme folder – will have a play around with it tomorrow and see if I can get it looking a bit smarter – any pointers massively appreciated as PHP is not my strong point (although reasonably ok with CSS).