The Forum simple template is an alternative front page for your bbPress forums. Where the Forum template shows bbPress’s own forum index, this template draws the list itself: each top-level forum becomes a heading with its description, followed by a table of the sub-forums inside it. Use it when your forums are organised as a few sections, each holding several forums, and you want that structure spelled out on the page. Everything about installing bbPress, creating forums, the theme’s forum settings, search and housekeeping is in the Forum template article and applies here too.
Set up a page with the Forum simple template
- Make sure bbPress is active and your forums exist, with each discussion forum placed inside a top-level forum using the Parent box on the forum.
- Go to Pages, then Add New, give the page a title, and in the Page Attributes box set Template to Forum simple. Give the page a slug other than “forums”, bbPress’s own forum root address.
- Type an introduction in the editor, publish, and add the page to a menu.
What the Forum simple page shows
From the top: the breadcrumb trail, the page title and your introduction. Then a line for the reader: “Logged in as [name] | Logout” or, for anyone not logged in, “Login | Register”. The Register link only works when Anyone can register is ticked under Settings, General.
Below that, every published top-level forum in turn, in the order set by each forum’s Order box and then by name: a rule, the forum’s name as a heading linking to it, its description, and a table of its sub-forums with the columns Topics, Posts and Freshness. Each sub-forum row gives its name as a link, its description, the number of topics, the number of posts (topics and replies added together) and how long ago the newest topic or reply was written, or “No activity”. Topics posted directly in a top-level forum are not listed on this page; only its sub-forums are.
The page has no sidebar and the About this page widget is not shown. Like the Forum template, it is only offered while bbPress is active.
How Forum simple differs from the Forum template
- Layout: one table per top-level forum with the forum’s name as a heading, instead of one table of top-level forums with a “Subforums:” line in each row.
- Login line: shows who is logged in with a Logout link, or Login and Register links. The Forum template has no login line.
- No forum search box, and no “Last Post” author: freshness is a time only.
- Visibility: it lists published forums and never shows hidden forums, but it does not follow bbPress’s private-forum rules the way the Forum template does. If you use private forums, use the Forum template.
- Speed: it counts every topic and reply in every sub-forum each time the page loads. Keep it for small forums; a busy forum with thousands of topics is better served by the Forum template, which uses bbPress’s stored counts.
Related
- Forum template: the full article on bbPress forums in the theme.
- Available templates: every page template in the theme.