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bbPress theme development

  1. Since redesigning ThemeHybrid's forums, I've found a passion for developing with bbPress again. Sure, it was a pain doing some of it, but it was also pretty fun.

    My next bbPress theme will be called BB Experiment. It will be based off the ideas behind the Hybrid WordPress theme. The reason behind the name is that this is literally an experiment so that I can learn more about bbPress. Eventually, I'd like to release a full-fledged bbPress theme framework to match Hybrid, but I need to understand the system a lot better first.

    Differences between WP themes and bbPress themes

    Most of you know that WordPress themes can be used to accomplish pretty much anything through its templating system. Well, if you're familiar with bbPress at all, you've probably noticed it has a much more advanced templating system. I'd argue better in many respects. But, this leaves things more open ended as far as how things should be structured. Figuring it all out can be confusing, even for me.

    I've been working with blogs for a few years now, and knowing how to set them up, structurally, is second nature to me now. But, a forum is an entirely different beast.

    On to the questions

    • Should a sidebar (yes, we can use sidebar in this discussion) be shown on every page?
    • What things in the Hybrid WP theme do you think would carry over well into a forum?
    • What do you think should be a part of the theme?

    Those are just some general questions. I want this to be pretty open to any type of discussion. You can even use the forums here as an example for discussion if you'd like.

  2. Although I have asked this question here as well, I thought I'd copy/paste it here, so that more people can perhaps pitch in --

    I am trying to get the bbpress theme to work exactly like you are making it work on themehybrid.com … especially the global menu on the top, that stays ‘as is’ when one is in the forums etc.

    How did you do it? I have searched the net and found nothing concrete :/

  3. @Momekh
    If you have support questions, ask the on the support forums:
    http://themehybrid.com/support

  4. Sorry if I'm just pulling up old posts, just that I'm curious to know if you have released any bbPress Themes yet Justin or not? While bbPress is still getting started, it's growing more and more on me, and I'd like to take it for a test drive, but also have a decent theme to play about with! - All about getting started on the right foot, otherwise it'll just become a pain I think?

    Please do let me know! :)

    Thanks
    Mark

  5. I missed this post in the initial search. How is this going?

    I'm considering becoming a club member but I wanted to understand if bbpress themes were aviailable. Sounds like its in the works? Is that accurate?

  6. bbPress themes are not available right now. I do plan on creating some, but it's not quite as simple as that.

    Right now, I'm working on a theme called Experimental. It's a framework, like the Hybrid WP theme. I'll use it as a platform to learn more about how bbPress works.

    And, eventually, I'll create Hybrid for bbPress. If bbPress will ever make it easy to have child themes, it would be extremely easy for me to port over all of my WP child themes.

  7. Justin, did you release your forum theme for bbpress? I can't seem to find it.

  8. Nevermind. Found it. Obviously right after I posted... /facepalm

  9. Where please?

  10. This is the experimental theme:
    http://themehybrid.com/downloads/experimental.zip

  11. Thank you!

  12. Nothing to add concrete on this other than to say that you should take into account the WP merge and the fact the BP integrates forums already. I saw your comments on the bbPress IRC log and you clearly are a structured thinker which I think helps the whole group. There will be very few sites where the forums dominate the site. I would think about themes that complement a non-blog CMS implemtation of WP or even BP later. That's where I see demand in the future.

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