Character bbPress Theme

How to use hooks in the Character bbPress Theme

Shivanand Sharma — Fri, 14 May 2010 10:58:57 +0000

Welcome to another tutorial on the Character bbPress theme. Character theme is extensively customizable, more so because of the hooks we’ve incorporated in the templates. In simple language hooks are like events to which you can attach your custom functionality. For example you can have your custom function called/executed whenever the footer of the theme is rendered. This no the actual definition or description of hooks but this is pretty much what happens when you use hooks. Check out our previous article for a list of all the hooks in the Character theme.

Generally your custom functions can be added directly to a themes templates or the functions file. However Character is a theme which keeps things organised so that the code is easy to edit, maintain and customize. All your custom functions will go into the user_functions.php file under the user directory of Character. That way all your customizations will be at one place where you’ll be able to edit them or back them up easily. Now let’s start with an example usage of a hook. Let’s try to add a link to the navigation menu (which is right above the header). As you know from the list of the hooks in Character, one of the hooks is ‘ch_hook_last_nav_item’ and it fires after the last link in the header. We are going to attach (the right verb is ‘hook’) a custom PHP function to this hook to display this link. Paste the following in your user_functions.php file:

function show_blog_url() {
 ?>
 Binary Turf


The last line starting with add_action attaches our custom function ’show_blog_url’ to the hook ‘ch_hook_last_nav_item’. The ‘11′ stands for priority, so if multiple functions are hooked to the same hook, the highest priority is given to the one with a priority of ‘1′. So this function ’show_blog_url’ executes whenever the hook ‘ch_hook_last_nav_item’ is triggered (and it triggers every time the header navigation menu is displayed). You can use this example to display your blog’s url or homepage to your forums. To summarize, here’s what you need to do step-by-step in order to customize Character.

Define and understand your objective.
Create your custom function which will create the functionality you require (like ’show_blog_url’ in the above example).
Attach it to the right hook using ‘add_action’ (as in the last line of the above code).

Suggestions and feedback are welcome. Questions go to the forums.



Hooks Reference: Character Theme & bbPress
Shivanand Sharma — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 08:24:12 +0000
Here’s a reference of the hooks in Character bbPress theme as of version 1.0

ch_hook_before_html: After the opening  tag.
 ch_hook_after_html: Before the closing  tag.
ch_hook_before_header: Before the div#header opens.
ch_hook_after_header: After the div#header closes.
ch_hook_before_title: Before the #logo opens.
ch_hook_after_title: After the #tagline closes.
ch_hook_before_content_box: Before div#content opens.
ch_hook_after_content_box: After div#content closes.
ch_hook_first_nav_item: Before the first li in .menu (the header menu).
ch_hook_last_nav_item: After the last li in .menu but before li.rss (the header menu).
ch_hook_before_content: After div#content opens.
ch_hook_after_content: Before div#content closes.
ch_hook_before_sidebars: After div#sidebars opens.
ch_hook_before_widgets: After ul.sidebar_list opens.
ch_hook_after_widgets: Before ul.sidebar_list closes.
ch_hook_after_sidebars: Before div#sidebars closes.
ch_hook_before_footer: Before div#footer opens.
ch_hook_footer: First thing inside div#footer
ch_hook_after_footer: After div#footer closes.
ch_hook_first_footernav_item: After #footer_menu div#footer opens.
ch_hook_last_footernav_item: Before #footer_menu div#footer opens.
ch_hook_before_headline: Varies. Mostly this fires right after div.headline tag opens. Set the Debug option to “On” to verify the location of this hook on individual pages.
ch_hook_after_headline: Varies. Mostly this fires right before div.headline tag closes. Set the Debug option to “On” to verify the location of this hook on individual pages.
ch_hook_before_topic_headline: Fires on the Topic page right after ch_hook_before_headline.
ch_hook_after_topic_headline: Fires on the Topic page right before ch_hook_after_headline.
ch_hook_topicinfo: Fires on the Topic page inside div.infobox. Used to attach the topic info into the sidebar.
ch_hook_before_post: Fires before div.threadauthor on Topic page.
ch_hook_after_post: Fires after div.threadpost on Topic page.
ch_hook_before_post_meta: Fires after div.threadauthor opens; on Topic page only.
ch_hook_after_post_meta: Fires before div.threadauthor closes; on Topic page only.
ch_hook_404_title: Fires on 404 template/pages only. Used to attach 404 page title to the 404 error pages.
ch_hook_404_content: Fires on 404 template/pages only. Used to attach 404 page content to the 404 error pages. this is the only child of div.container_404.
ch_hook_postform_field: Fires on the post porm after the post form title. Can be used to attach additional fields to the post form.
ch_hook_postform: Fires right before the ‘post_form’ hook. This is before the submit button on the post form.
oip_login: Fires on the login page only if OpenID Plus plugin is installed.
post_post_form: Fires after the post form.
before_pos_n: Fires on the Topic pages before the post content (text) of every post. Substitute n for the post position (which can be retreived by get_post_position() bbPress template function). Thus you can use it like before_pos_4 to attach AdSense before the content of every topic page’s 4th post’s.
after_pos_n: Fires on the Topic pages after the post content (text) of every post. Substitute n for the post position (which can be retreived by get_post_position() bbPress template function). Thus you can use it like after_pos_4 to attach AdSense after the content of every topic page’s 4th post’s.
after_post_n: Fires on the Topic pages after the div.threadpost of every post. Substitute n for the post position (which can be retreived by get_post_position() bbPress template function). Thus you can use it like after_post_4 to attach AdSense after every topic page’s 4th post’s.

Bonus bbPress Hooks

post_form: Fires right before the submit button on the post form.
edit_form_pre_post: Fires before #post-form-post-container on the edit form.
topicmeta: Fires after the topic meta block.
extra_profile_info: Fires on the registration form before the submit button. Can be used to attach extra fields to the registration form.
bb_foot: Fires after the bbPress footer.
post_form_pre_post: Fires before the #post-form-post-container.
under_title: Fires after the topic title.
tag_above_table: Fires before the topics table when viewing the posts on the single tag page.
tag_below_table: Fires after the topics table when viewing the posts on the single tag page.

With all these hooks, customizing the Character bbPress theme is never an issue. You can customize it extensively or even turn bbPress into a web application! Subscribe to the RSS and watch this space for a small tutorial on how to use hooks.

      



Troubleshooting Character Theme and bbPress
Shivanand Sharma — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 15:45:38 +0000
Here are a few tips just in case bbPress or other technologies play tricks with you. As we find more issues we’ll keep updating this page. If you know of some common problems and solutions please report in the comments section.
The bbPress forum gets broken when I activate Character (or some other theme). What can I do?
This is mostly caused by incorrect theme permissions. Follow the installation instructions precisely and treat them as a checklist. Once you’ve gotten so far verify the following:

Your custom theme should be installed under the “my-templates” folder. If it’s not there create one.
The “my-templates” folder (and any other subfolders) should have “755″ permissions. All the files under “my-templates” folder and sub-folders should have “644″ permissions.


      



How to Install & Setup Character
Shivanand Sharma — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 17:28:14 +0000
Installing Character is easy and just like the installation of any other bbPress theme. Here’s a quick step-by-step walk-through.

Download and extract Character to any folder on your hard-drive. This should create a folder “character” with all the templates inside it .
Verify that there’s a folder “my-template” in the root of your bbPress installation directory on the server with permissions set to “755″. If not then create it. Verify the permissions to be “755″.
Upload the “character” folder containing all the theme’s files on the hard-drive to the “my-templates” folder on your server.
Log into your bbPress forum with the keymaster/admin account. Go to Administration > Appearance and activate Character.
Once activated you should see the “Character” Options menu. Click on it to setup the options.

Setting up the options
Setting up the options is easy too. The first time you install (or upgrade) Character you must visit the options panel and save the options (even if using the default values), This makes sure that the options are created and saved to the database or upgraded in case of an upgrade.

Navigate to the Character Options page.
If you are activating Character for the first time, you’ll be greeted by a welcome message. Click “Next” to save the default options.
Most of the options are self-explanatory and may vary in each release. Each option/setting is accompanied by a help text/tip on the right column. Here’s a summary of the options as they exist in version 1.0.


Headings Font sets the font-face for the headings and titles.
Body Font sets the font-face used in the body content text.
Google Search: If you want to Integrate Google Search, you’ll first need to create a Google Custom Search Engine through Google CSE or from within your AdSense account under the “AdSense for Search” option. Once you’ve done that, you can copy and paste the code into the Google Search option. This shall place the Google Search Box unit into the sidebar. This is highly recommended as most webmasters agree that Google Search is a more powerful search tool than most other search tools.
Feedburner URL: If you want to use Feedburner with your bbPress Forum’s feed, you’ll first need to burn the feed into your Feedburner account. The bbPress feed url is mentioned to the right of this setting which you can copy and use to burn the Feedburner feed. Once you have the feedburner url of your feed you can place the same into the Feedurner URL setting of Character and your forum’s main feed will be redirected through feedburner. (The Feedburner integration uses true redirection — 301 — and existing uses subscribed to your old feed shall be redirected to the Feedburner feed).
Header Scripts: You can include any header scripts, links or CSS using the “Header Scripts” options.
Footer Scripts: You can include any footer scripts, links or CSS using the “Header  Scripts” options.
Footer Note: If you want you can place a footer note on your bbPress forum footer. Using this option you may want to display a copyright notice or custom attribution text etc.
SEO Options —

Meta Description: Place a description of your site here. This is the snippet that Google Search displays in the SERPS when your site appears in them.
Meta Keywords: Enter the keywords related to your forum/content.
Enable Canonical Links: This is used to attach the canonical link element to the page head.
Enable Automatic Meta Descriptions: This option automatically generates a description meta tag depending on the content of the topic or the current forum page. This option overrides the “Meta Description” option except for the front-page.
Enable Automatic Meta Keywords: This option automatically generates a keywords meta tag depending on  the content of the topic or the current forum page. This option  overrides the “Meta Keywords” option except for the front-page.
NoIndex Non-content pages: This option adds a meta robots element with the noindex property to pages like a forums page, sub-forums page, user profile page, or a category page. These pages are nothing more than a listing of the sub-forums or topics and thus can be safely noindex-ed while the actual content — the topic-threads are indexed.


Post Position: During the course of moderating spam posts or unwanted posts and deleting them, you may find that the subsequent posts in the thread are not assigned the new (correct) post count. This option sets the correct position for the posts that appear after any user-post is deleted. (The post-position is important for certain custom hooks which fire on every post. These come in handy when you want to attach custom content like ad-banner or AdSense ads on or after every n-th post.)
Advanced Options: most of these options are for troubleshooting purposes. The Disable “user_functions.php” option disables any custom PHP code used to customize the forum. The Disable user.css option disables any custom styles. Turning the Debug option to ON displays additional debug info on the options panel. In addition it also displays (most of) the custom hooks on the site, thus it’s use is only recommended for advanced users.

As you see Character is an extremely powerful, SEO’d  and highly customizable theme. It’s a complete framework that lets you tweak and customize your forum to harness the real power of bbPress. Now your forum is what you want it to be.

      



Know your Character Theme Membership Benefits
Shivanand Sharma — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 16:30:28 +0000
When you sign-up for Character, you are entitled to several benefits. While you use Character, it’s good to know what these benefits are and how you can make use of them:
Support Forums
When you sign-up for Character, you get access to the premium membership of Binary Turf Support Forums — you have access to the support community helping out each other with a responsive (official) support team. If you have an issue with Character we fix it for you — on priority.
Free Lifetime Upgrades
New versions of Character are made available to you free of cost.
Latest Announcements
You have access to the latest announcements, bug reports and fixes that are officially announced or reported by other users.
Free RSS Subscriptions
You can get all these updated delivered to you via RSS or email. This comes handy when there’s any important announcement or security release.
Not only this, we also attend to your feedback and suggestions and try to incorporate them into the next release after establishing priority.

      



Character version 1.0 released
Shivanand Sharma — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:54:17 +0000
We are pleased to announce the initial release of the Character bbPress Theme Framework. This initial version took more than a month to be developed from scratch. From creating a template system, a perfect and customizable layout, typography, options panel, and then to beta testing and release, the journey has been filled with excitement.
Character is the only premium bbPress theme as of this date. And with Character we wish to extend all its power to you — the forum administrators, webmasters and bbPress theme developers. Take a look at the features and you’ll realize the sheer power of running Character on your bbPress forum. From SEO, customization, integration and beyond — we’ve taken care of it all — with attention to detail and a professional architecture.
Going forward we are going to update this site with Character tips, tricks and tutorials regularly. With Character one thing is clear — you are in complete control of your bbPress forum. If you haven’t tried Character now would be the right time to claim your copy of Character.