BuddyDev

Introducing Bp Mag: A Professional Theme Framework for BuddyPress based Sites

Hi All,

I am very glad to release our first premium theme for BuddyPress. The theme I am Introducing today is Bp Mag. Bp Mag is more than a normal theme you have seen for BuddyPress. It is a theme framework for the development of BuddyPress based sites. It allows you to customize your site in your very own way. I had put all the efforts to make it possible for customizing every aspect from child theme's functions.php than copying the template files and the feedback till now have been very positive. So, I am finally putting the theme here.

Introduction:-

BP Mag is a BuddyPress Theme framework for Building your very own special social network. It has the unlimited potential to extend up to any level. The main goal of bp-mag was to provide a basic framework and allow to extend it using child themes with very few lines of code. And it does. With a few lines of code magic, you can manipulate the whole layout and build almost any sort of layout on it. Further, It uses the current features available in wp 3.0/3.1(trunk) and leverages the core of BuddyPress.
And in case, you don't want to build the child theme, well bp-mag is itself a complete theme with many more flexibilities as shown below.

Basic Demo: http://bpthemes.buddydev.com/bpmag/

Child Theme demos:-

Now, let us have a look at the basic features.

Features

  • Unique widget enabled sidebars for almost all component
  • Currently It has 18 widget areas, and at the time of release may have a few more
  • Inbuilt Global unified search for BuddyPress
  • Highly Customizable and Fully widgetized Home page
  • Spacious forum pages
  • Contains templates for Bp-gallery,branded login,global forums and all of our components
  • Admin options to control the features
  • Around 5-10 supplementary widgets for many features
  • mag-blog child theme for seamless blog look and fel
  • You can extend it using filters, there are around 30-40 useful hooks which will assist to develop new child themes based on the bp-mag

Basic Advantages:-

  • Theme Framework:Β  Low maintenance for your theme development(I mean child theme development).
  • Efficient hook/action System: allows developers to extend it in all the way they want.
  • Most of the nifty features you want are included by default in the theme
  • Cuts down your development time, as you can create unique child themes easily (It's not about just the color/background, you can manipulate the layout as you want).

Basic Site/Blog features:-

  • Page Layout: 3 layout option for content orientation
    • 2 column layout (sidebar, Content)
    • Column layout (content, sidebar)
    • Single Column layout (no sidebar)
  • 2 options for fluid/fixed width
    • Fluid layout(auto adjust according to screen size)
    • Fixed layout(1024px)
  • Admin panel for easy customization
  • You get two top menus[optional], can disable/enable from backend
  • You get up to 13 unique widget enabled sidebars (you can enable/disable from back end)
  • Widgetized home page [please see here]
  • Localization supported[advance localization to allow reading the translation files from child themes too]
  • Supports WordPress 3.0 custom menu
  • You get 2 menus , you can enable/disable any of them
  • Multilevel drop down menu
  • Supports post thumbnail/Featured Image
  • Posts contents can be changed by calling simple functions
  • Templates for Custom Blog page
  • Template for Single Column Full Width Page
  • Themed template for Subscribe to Comments management page
  • Support for wp pagenavi/Breadcrumb NavXt

BuddyPress Specific:-

  • Global Unified search inbuilt
  • Unique Widget enabled sidebars for each of the component
  • Friends search On My friends Page
  • Groups search On My groups page
  • Enhanced Group Forum Page

BP Mag includes custom templates for Following Components

BP mag contains some codes/hacks to support following components too:-

Other than the above, we have tested it with the following plugins:-

  • Oembed for BuddyPress
  • BuddyPress Verified
  • BuddyPress Member profile Stats
  • Bp TinyMCE
  • WP Super Captcha
  • Wp Recaptcha
  • Bp Moderation
  • BuddyPress Like
  • BP Group Hierarchy
  • ..the list will grow with more test coming in next couple of days, I plan to support all theΒ  plugins(I see it around 270), which claims to be BuddyPress compatible.

For Developers:-

  • Bp Mag is a theme framework, so you have the option to create your own layout in minutes with minimal coding
  • More than 200 action/filter hooks to customize everything
  • Helpers for Custom post template support (you can define unique templates for say movies in "movies" directory of your child theme)
  • Hook based home page, so you can customize it
  • Hook based directory page[ you can changed from the list item to whole loop with functions]
  • Hook based profile page, change the order of any element of profile page
  • Hook based group page, change the order as you want
  • and so on…the list is a little bit long to put here.

And don't forget there are a ton of other features.

For More information on how to Use the theme, Please take a look at the documentation section

All the above sections are discussed in detail on here, here and here.

Now, let us watch a couple of Screenshots.

Screenshots:-

Bp Mag 2 Column Fixed Layout:-

Introducing Bp Mag: A Professional Theme Framework for BuddyPress based SitesBp Mag single column fixed layout:-

Introducing Bp Mag: A Professional Theme Framework for BuddyPress based SitesBp Mag 2 column layout(fluid):-

Introducing Bp Mag: A Professional Theme Framework for BuddyPress based SitesBP Mag Fluid Width:-

Introducing Bp Mag: A Professional Theme Framework for BuddyPress based SitesUnified search:-

Introducing Bp Mag: A Professional Theme Framework for BuddyPress based SitesSingle Blog Post:-

Introducing Bp Mag: A Professional Theme Framework for BuddyPress based SitesBlog Home page(This is not the site home page but the blog home page /blog):-

Introducing Bp Mag: A Professional Theme Framework for BuddyPress based Sites

Profile Page

Introducing Bp Mag: A Professional Theme Framework for BuddyPress based SitesCategory

Introducing Bp Mag: A Professional Theme Framework for BuddyPress based SitesMembers Directory

Group Forum single topic

Introducing Bp Mag: A Professional Theme Framework for BuddyPress based Sites

Admin Options(from current version, It may change when being released):-

Please read the detailed Admin Options here

here is one screenshot.

Introducing Bp Mag: A Professional Theme Framework for BuddyPress based Sites


You can enable/disable individual widget areas. here is a screenshot of most widget areas enabled:-

Introducing Bp Mag: A Professional Theme Framework for BuddyPress based Sites

A few Screenshots from Child Themes

Cosmic Buddy Pro Screen Shots:-

Home Page:-

Introducing Bp Mag: A Professional Theme Framework for BuddyPress based Sites

Profile Page when User is logged In:-

Introducing Bp Mag: A Professional Theme Framework for BuddyPress based Sites

Non Logged User :-

Introducing Bp Mag: A Professional Theme Framework for BuddyPress based Sites

Bp Mag Classic Profile Page Screenshot:-

Introducing Bp Mag: A Professional Theme Framework for BuddyPress based Sites

And a Couple of More Child Theme coming soon.

Download:-https://buddydev.com/themes/bp-mag/

Documentation:-https://buddydev.com/themes/bp-mag/documentation/

Please Note you must be a member of BuddyDev Premium to download this theme.

Happy Social Networking πŸ™‚

35 Responses to Introducing Bp Mag: A Professional Theme Framework for BuddyPress based Sites

  • Very cool Brajesh! Will be submitting a child theme later next month πŸ™‚

    • Thanks for The comment Mercime πŸ™‚
      Looking forward to it.

  • Great job! Wondering if you are going to get the child themes out before my subscription runs out? Sad to have it end, but it has been a great ride and you have done a good job, just taken longer than anticipated. Thank you.

    • Hi Roy,
      Thanks for the comment. Sure, we will have both the child theme, another version of BP mag and hopefully a 3rd child theme too before your membership expires. I am looking forward to put another version of Bp Mag and one of Child Theme today πŸ™‚

      Thanks
      Brajesh

  • Cool to hear. What $ does a lifetime subscription go for?

    • Hi Roy,
      I guess you don't need to buy that as you are already a member of Buddydev premium. Still, for clarification, The life time subscription enables you to have access to all the updates/new versions of the theme for future.

  • Question: Does the Remove-blog-slug plugin work with this theme and is it necessary? Can you make an option to remove that from the menu or is a custom menu the recommended way to do that?

    • yes, that does work with this theme. Please install that plugin. the plugin removes /blog from the url automatically.

  • Great looking theme and highly customizable. Looking forward to the child themes.

    • Thanks for the comment Aaron. The CB pro is out and I am looking forward to put the bpmag-classic tomorrow πŸ™‚

  • I recently installed Cosmic Buddy Theme [Not the PRO one], and my website is basically a Music Magazine style website, so Im very interested to upgrade to the BPMag theme soon..

    However, I had some quick questions about it.. I read in the details of BPMag that it's better to have 'CHILD THEMES'.. Now im a little new to BuddyPress and BuddyDev, so Im a little confused about what 'CHILD THEMES' refer to exactly..

    Also, I was wondering that if I didnt want the hassle of installing Child Themes [because I didnt do that for my current Cosmic Buddy Theme], would it all work okay and be 100% for me? Or is the installation of Child Themese really necessary to create a full-feature BPMag website?

    Thank you very much!

    – Raf

    • Hi Rafaat,
      Thanks for the comment and your interest in BP Mag.

      yes, I have suggested child theme when you want to write some extra code to customize some sections of theme. Let us say you want to change the blog post layout, so Instead of editing parent theme I suggest doing that in child theme.

      Now for your question:- BP mag is itself a standalone theme and will work with WordPress/Wordpress Mu and BuddyPress. even if BuddyPress is not active, you can use BP Mag with your WordPress installation.

      The child themes just provide you the extra option for new looks and functionalities with fewer lines of codes. But that is not necessary to use if you don't want the child themes.

      Hope it clarifies your concerns.

      Thanks
      Brajesh

  • Thanks for the reply Brajesh. Your post was very helpful.

    I had one more quick question. Im going to upgrade from the Cosmic Buddy theme to the BPMag theme and was wondering if I'd have to reinstall my BP plugins for that? I have quite a few plugins installed (such as Facebook plugin, chat plugin from BuddyDev, etc).. Will those plugins stay? or will they require an update when I change to BPMag?

    Thanks!

    • Hi Raafat,
      That's right. You don't need to install any plugin again.All the plugins previously install will work just fine. I have tested BP mag with the most recent version of the plugins.
      Please make sure you are running on BuddyPress 1.2.6/1.2.7 and have most recent version of all the plugins.

  • Hello,

    I just downloaded BP Mag and already installed it. Any chance to switch to German lanuage?

    Thanks
    Joachim

    • Hi Joachim,
      Please translate the .po file in bp-mag.languages to your language. And rename the generated file to your_Local.mo. That will automatically take in effect. I guess the mo file in your case should be renamed(de_DE.mo)

      Thanks
      Brajesh

  • Hi Brajesh,

    Thanks for this great theme… I was installing the BP TinyMCE but i cannot have it to work with Buddypress in BPMag..

    Readme file say to check path on line 20 in bp-tinymce.php, and there is no path at all ??

    Thanks
    Rune

  • Hi again,

    I figured it out, it is the Firfox browser who not works wit TinyMCE πŸ™

    Another question, where can i edit color on the black buttons in activity stream?

    Thanks

  • Hi Brajesh,

    Question, I have some pages i will link from the menu where categories get listed, i belive i need to add a function somewhere as we do when adding links to adminbar?

    Any chance that you have a function to use?

    Thanks
    Rune

  • Hi Brajesh,

    As I've said before i really like Comic buddy pro,
    I've been updating the theme for a few weeks now and have it fully working on bp 1.5 RC1,
    Took sometime with a few issues, But I've yet to test all the updated plugins with it, I've also fixed browser compatibility (Mainly Internet Explorer 7 & 8) as that uses different expressions for gradient,
    Here's a image of a few changes I've done : http://www.peeps-chat.com/cb-pro-edited-scrolling-ff.jpg
    http://www.peeps-chat.com/cb-pro-edited-ff.jpg

    Do you think there will be many more changes when bp 1.5 is fully stable?

    Ben.

  • Hi Brajesh,

    I just installed the BP Mag theme into my site, however, when I click on BP Mag Options, I get an empty dotted line box. Any thoughts on why the admin options aren't showing up?

    Thanks,

    Sean

    • Hi Sean,
      sorry for the trouble. There was a bug in the theme causing the issue with wp 3.3.
      I have just updated it. Please upgrade to 1.0.9.6. It should work properly now.

      Thanks
      Brajesh

  • Thanks Brajesh!

    One more question. I've downloaded a few of your plugins that the theme says it has custom templates for (I've actually upgraded to BP Mag Claasic). Do I have to enable these? If so, how do I do that?

    When I click on these links (BP Wire, Blog Categories for Groups, Gallery, etc.), the page gets a bit jumbled and doesn't keep the correct layout (i.e. sidebar goes to bottom of content or it does not keep the vertical nav layout).

    They seem like great plugins, I just want them to work seamlessly with the BP Mag Classic layout. Please let me know what I need to do.

    Thanks!

    Sean

  • After some research, I've realized that the template layouts are for the default buddypress theme, not BP Mag Classic. I'm not very experienced in coding and php, would you mind telling me how I should go about adjusting the templates to fit the BP Mag Classic theme seamlessly?

    You're help is greatly appreciated.

    Thanks!

    Sean

    • Hi Sean,
      almost all of our plugins templates are included in the bp-mag theme(and that will work fine for the mag classic). Other than that we have supported a number of other plugins too(as mentioned on the documentation page).

      Please do let me know in the forum if we have missed something.

  • Thanks Brajesh. That's great, I'm sorry I missed that on the documentation page. I'm brand new to developing, so please forgive my ignorance, but how do I activate those templates so they are working instead of the default? This is the last thing I need to fix before launching my site. If you could let me know how to use those templates, it would be a huge help and I'd really appreciate it.

    Thanks a great deal

    • Hi Sean,
      Just act activate the plugin and do not move the templates as described in plugin documentation. Bp Mag should take over that. There may be a couple of components which might not work, please let me know if you are using one and does not work. I will include support for that too πŸ™‚

  • Brajesh,

    Thanks a lot, gallery works great now. I would like to use the blog categories for groups as well, however it does not seem to be currently supported. Would you mind including support for it? Thanks in advance

    • Hi Sean,
      Thank you.
      Will look into it and post about the Blog categories support tomorrow.

      • Great, thanks a lot. Would you mind also providing support for buddyvents and mapology? This would be an enormous help. Thanks again in advance, can't wait for blog categories. Cheers

  • Hi

    I am getting this error when i visit my website after activating & setting the options in theme.

    " Call to undefined function bpmag_get_page_on_front() in /home/friendzf/public_html/wp-content/themes/bp-mag/lib/framework/nav-controller.php on line 31"

    Please guide me on this . I have multisite wordpress installed !

    • Hi Waqas,
      It seems you are not using BuddyPress. Not a problem. Please login to Dashboard. go to appearance->Bp Mag options and visit Menu Options.
      You will see this selected 'Use default Buddypress Navigation' Select the 'Use wordpress custom menu' and everything will work.
      sorry for the trouble.

      • Hey Thanks. Just resolved the issue. Well i had multi site wp installed. may be thats why the issue was occurring. Anyway i just followed your advice and resolved it fully !
        Thanks for the help !