bp-progenitor

A starter standalone theme for BuddyPress based on the next generation template packs work at: https://github.com/buddypress/next-template-packs

Outline

Progenitor is a complete theme based around the next generation BP template packs known in their first iteration as 'Nouveau' the current default template files for BP core plugin.

The intention with Progenitor is for a theme capable of replacing the older BP-Default theme and is complete as a WP theme while still retaining the BP theme compatibility layer. It affords us the opportunity to build out specific theme styles and layouts free of the constraint of theme compatibilty needing to fit in to an unkown themes styles and layout and the restrictions that necessarily imposes on developing styles & layouts.

It is considered a 'Starter Theme' as it should be able to be taken and further developed with custom styles worked up as a child theme.

The theme uses a modified version of BP Nouveau and Underscores for the primary WP template components, the Underscores implementation is being heavily modified for use with the BP.

Versions

Version: current version is considered a pre-alpha and undergoing adhoc development as time permits and stands at v0.1.0 pre-alpha.

Development

Development will be in the dev branch, merging to master and creating a tag version when a suitable milestone point reached, for the moment while initially hacking the basics around commits are being made directly to master.

Installing

Currently the theme is in very early development but does mainly function fully as a WP/BP set of style & templates. Either clone the repo or download zip and install/use as you would any WP theme.

One caveat though at present the necessary BP theme registration has to be performed by hacking the bp-core-theme-compatibility.php file to add: This is an aspect to be tackled later rather than hold up development. Now the registration of the BP theme package is an automated process. Regsitration is performed from mu-plugins until such time as the BP core function can be updated to run on a later priority. The mu file is located in the themes /inc/ folder, in functions.php we create an mu-plugins dir if checks show it doesn't exist then we instantiate the WP filesystem and write a new file to it that has simply an include() to fetch our plugin file in theme dir, this is hooked on admin_init and will only run if we have no existing file. This is still considered a temp workaround but improves on having to manually create dir and add functions.

add_action( 'bp_register_theme_packages', function() {
  bp_register_theme_package( array(
   'id'      => 'progenitor',
   'name'    => __( 'BuddyPress Progenitor', 'buddypress' ),
   'version' => bp_get_version(),
   'dir'     => trailingslashit( get_template_directory() . '/community' ),
   'url'     => trailingslashit( get_template_directory_uri() . '/community' ),
  ) );
} );

Early look screenies ( somewhat adhoc )

The users account screens main nav in vertical display & subnav as tabs

The users account screens horizontal nav styling

A grid style layout of post loops as box panels

Archive view with sidebar - grid boxes displaying in reduced area width, also as displayed for mediun width, tablet devices

Various layout options for menus & primary site blocks

1. Vertical main menu plus vertical user/group menus in main header:

2. Vertical main menu with user/group menu in default position inside the item-body element & horizontal:

3. Vertical main menu, user/group menu in item body but vertical: