[Resolved] bbpress forum question

[Are Martin]

Hi Tom, I recently started using bbpress on my site. But I´d like the forum archive page to have a different layout then the other archive pages. I currently have the blog page and category archives set to sidebar/content/sidebar. However, I would like the forum archive page which lists my forums to have a different layout then the rest of the archive pages. I would like this page to have a sidebar/content layout.

How would I target the forum archive page with css to achieve this?

Regards

Are Martin Kallåk

[Are Martin]

to clarify…. I actually need the same layout for all the bbpress forum pages. I use two sidebars on all the other pages on my site but I need one of the sidebars to disappear on all the bbpress forum pages. Since bbpress uses custom post types I can not do this with the standard GP meta box for sidebar layout.

I therefore tried to target the forums using css and

#bbpress-forums .left-sidebar {
      display: none;
} 

which is probably missing something important. I´m a novice at this so this completely random trial and error.

Any idea how to do this using css?

[bdbrown]

Hi Are Martin. Based on the information Tom provided in this post it appears that the bbPress forum page layout is set in Customizer > Layout > Blog Sidebar Layout.

[Are Martin]

Thanks for your answer! 🙂 I know I can change the layout in the customizer. But the problem is that this also changes the blog page and I need bbpress forum pages to have a different layout then the blog page.

[bdbrown]

Got it. Another option might be to use a function to set the layout using a test for “is_buddypress()”. Here is a KB article that discusses setting sidebar layouts.

[Tom]

We have a cool filter for this 🙂

add_filter( 'generate_sidebar_layout','generate_custom_buddypress_sidebar_layout' );
function generate_custom_buddypress_sidebar_layout( $layout )
{
 	// If we are on a buddypress page, set the sidebar
 	if ( is_buddypress() )
 	 	return 'both-left';

 	// Or else, set the regular layout
 	return $layout;

 }

Adding PHP: https://generatepress.com/knowledgebase/adding-php-functions/

[Are Martin]

Cool! So if understand this correctly I can use this same filter using various conditional template tags to target specific pages within buddy press or bbpress?

So for example if I wanted to target only the activity page in buddypress I could use the bp_is_activity_front_page() tag so the code would be:

add_filter( 'generate_sidebar_layout','generate_custom_buddypress_sidebar_layout' );
function generate_custom_buddypress_sidebar_layout( $layout )
{
 	// If we are on a buddypress page, set the sidebar
 	if ( bp_is_activity_front_page() )
 	 	return 'both-left';

 	// Or else, set the regular layout
 	return $layout;

 }

I just change the conditional tag to the template tag that correspond with the specific page I like to change the layout for? Correct?

[Tom]

Correct 🙂

[Are Martin]

Hi Tom, this worked! 🙂 But how can I use multiple conditional template tags in the same filter? I have several template tags i´d like the same output for.

[bdbrown]

You would use the PHP logical “OR” operator:

if ( bp_is_activity_front_page() || bp_is_home() || bp_is_blog_page() )
    return 'some-value';

Ref: http://php.net/manual/en/language.operators.logical.php

[Are Martin]

Thanks! 🙂 That worked perfectly!

[bdbrown]

You’re welcome. Glad it worked 🙂

[Author]

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