In October 2013 Packt Publishing released BuddyPress Theme Development by Tammie Lister, a hands-on guide to designing and building custom themes for BuddyPress communities. I was one of three technical reviewers on the book, alongside Alison Barrett and Paul Gibbs, checking the code and the approach so readers could trust what they were building.
The Book at a Glance
Title: BuddyPress Theme Development: A hands-on guide to customize and embellish your BuddyPress website
Technical reviewers: Alison Barrett, Brian Messenlehner and Paul Gibbs
Blow away the myth that creating BuddyPress themes is hard.
Tammie Lister, Author, on her first goal for the book
A large thank you goes out to Alison Barrett, Brian Messenlehner, and Paul Gibbs, who gave their time as technical reviewers.
Brian Messenlehner, Technical Reviewer (from the book's acknowledgments)
Why It Was Written
BuddyPress is a WordPress plugin for building communities, and its themes carry a lot of extra templates that set them apart from ordinary WordPress themes. With BuddyPress 1.7 bringing theme compatibility, the old approach of building on the bp-default theme was giving way to something simpler, and theme developers needed a guide to the new way of working.
Tammie wrote that the book has a very BuddyPress origin story: its chapters and structure were worked out at BuddyCamp Miami in March 2013. Her goals were to blow away the myth that BuddyPress themes are hard, encourage people to tailor their communities, raise the quality of BuddyPress themes, and bring more people into the BuddyPress project.
What It Covers
The book is part rough guide and part practical, hands-on tutorial. It starts with the state of BuddyPress themes in the wild, including responsive design, then walks through every theme option from theme compatibility and child themes to a fully custom theme. It covers the whole process, from sketch and wireframe through code, testing and theme checks before release.
Key Chapters
Chapter 1: State of Play of BuddyPress Themes, from how themes used to work to theme compatibility, niche communities, responsive design and mobile first
Chapters 2 and 3: theme options and customization, including buddypress.css, child theme CSS, the BuddyPress template hierarchy and custom component templates
Chapter 4: BuddyPress File Structure, Templates, and Loops, the anatomy of WordPress and BuddyPress themes, template tags and loops
Chapter 5: Let's Get Building, a full site build from sketch, wireframe and style guide to header, navigation, sidebar, member profiles and directories
Chapter 6: Beyond the Look, adding functionality with hooks and functions, building widgets and theme checking before release
Who It Is For
It was written for designers and developers who want to create BuddyPress themes. Readers were expected to have an understanding of WordPress along with CSS and HTML.
My Role as Technical Reviewer
A technical reviewer checks a book's code and technical accuracy before it goes to print. In her acknowledgments Tammie thanks Alison Barrett, Brian Messenlehner and Paul Gibbs, who gave their time as technical reviewers. BuddyPress was a big part of my own work at the time, from community sites to the BuddyPress themes I was developing, so it was a natural fit.
Legacy and Impact
The book captured BuddyPress theming at a turning point, right after theme compatibility changed how themes were built. Its community first approach, planning a theme around the people who will use it, still holds up.
Build Your Community on WordPress
If you are planning a membership site, a community or a social platform on WordPress, I would like to hear about it. Tell me what you are building and I will tell you how I would approach it.
Technical review by Brian Messenlehner.
BM
Written by
Brian Messenlehner
Founder of AlphaWeb and owner of AppPresser. A former U.S. Marine Corps Sergeant and computer programmer, Brian has more than 25 years of experience leading software teams and co-wrote Building Web Apps with WordPress for O'Reilly.
