There is no simple theme integration solution that I am aware of. Because bbPress is in a state of flux, many people are saving their energy for developing for it once 1.0 stable comes out.
Hi Chris,
I’ve actually made a plugin that makes theme integration between BBpress and WordPress an absolute breeze (one click!), but it used to require one of my customized baseline theme’s.
Last week I converted it to work with any standard BBpress installation but alas hit some bugs in the BBpress core. I have posted about them, but have had no reply yet. You can find the post here: https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/overwriting-template-functions
Basically all of my original customized themes have a far more usable div nesting in the header and footer, so that it matched 3 of the most common wordpress theme’s (standard, sandboz, K2); thus anyone loading up an integrated BBpress would see their own website styling/menus etc. While not 100% accurate, it saved me a great deal of time when customising.
But then last week i converted this into a much better plugin. It reads the directory of the wordpress theme you are using and automatically outputs the WordPress theme’s header and footer files with the necessary BBpress code injected. It effectively encapsulates your BBpress forum inside wordpress pages for seemlesss moving around (basically like simpleforums).
But the whole thing’s on pause until we can get answer to https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/overwriting-template-functions . On a side note, as someone who is attempting to build plugins for BBpress, getting answers to questions like these to help development is really difficult, and the standard answer of “read other plugins that’s how i learnt” really doesn’t help when you come up against something new. Maybe we should have a plugin developer section (as the current plugin section has become a request section)?
Hey kevin,
Thanks a lot for your great info. I hope that someone in the know picks up your request.
In the meantime, is there anything you could point me to that will at least get me started in allowing some WordPress template tags to function from within bbpress? I’m using a shared database, 2.7.1, and the latest bb alpha.
Does that still work?
And of course, I ‘d love to hear more about your plugin if things get fixed up on it.
Best,
Jason
Hi Vernal,
In terms of integration in a software sense, you have to answer yourself this:
1) Do they need to look the same?
2) Do I need shared login ?
3) Do i need shared wordpress functions (menu, sidebar, otehr cool wordpress stuff) ?
If you answered yes to 1) and no to 2) and 3) you only need to make your style sheets and HTML look similar and dont need any integration.
If you answered yes to 1) and 2) and no to 3) then you should be able to use the latest alpha and latest wordpress and all should be fine. Personally, i’d not ouch with with a bargepole and i’d use BBpress 0.9 and WP 2.7.1 with _ck_’s Freshly Baked Cookies plugin (link coming up in a bit).
If you answered yes to 1) 2) and 3) then you need to use Ann’s plugin (again link coming up).
In terms of fixing your BBpress to integrate into your wordpress theme easily, that one is simple. Replace the code in your header.php file with this:
<body id="<?php bb_location(); ?>">
<div id="page">
<div id="wrapper">
<div id="header">
<div id="headerimg">
<h1 id="blog-title"><!-- PUT YOUR WP LINK HERE --></h1>
<div id="blog-description">
<div class="description">
<!-- PUT YOUR WP DESCRIPTION HERE -->
</div> <!-- #description -->
</div> <!-- #blog-description -->
</div> <!-- #headerimg -->
<!--
K2 USERS
THIS IS WHERE YOU PUT YOUR MENU CODE
-->
</div>
<div id="access">
<div class="skip-link"><a href="#content" title="Skip to content">Skip to content</a></div>
<div id="menu">
<!--
SANDBOX USERS:
THIS IS WHERE YOU PUT YOUR MENU CODE
-->
</div>
</div><!-- #access -->
<div id="container">
<div id="primary">
<div id="current-content">
<div id="content">
<div id="post">
<div id="main">
<h1><a>"><?php bb_option('name'); ?></a></h1>
<?php if ( bb_get_option('description') ) : ?><p class="description"><?php bb_option('description'); ?>
<?php endif; ?>
<?php login_form(); ?>
<?php if ( is_bb_profile() ) profile_menu(); ?>
Rather than using the crazy structure of BBpress’s header.php file – actually while i’m on that can i ask why BBpress DID NOT use the same div nesting as WP so that integration was simple? madness – if you use this one, your BBpress forum should automatically look 90% like it’s in your WordPress page if you use the default theme, default K2 or sandbox.
You will have to tweak bits of course, this isn’t fool proof, but in terms of the basics, it makes life alot easier.
I mentioned these changes back in October, so i’m used to the copying and pasting of them now as it doesn’t look like making thing easy for the end user is part of the goal here; hence the plugin. I too hope we get an answer on the bug soon 
Hey Kevin,
I need to do all 3. I have that database, user table, and cookies all nicely set up… but am trying to figure out the best way to tackle the theme.
Thanks a lot for the code. I’ll try it out on Monday. Ya, I too hope we get an answer on that bug soon. Maybe something will move on it over the weekend.
Fingers crossed,
Jason
The creators of bbPress, are putting their head in to the sand, the function most people wants (theme integration) isnt still available in bbPress, and that’s a big shame! 
