Single.php should be a fallback template for edit forum/topic/reply

[ptahdunbar]

The edit templates for forum/topic/reply don't follow the same pattern as other edit templates.

For example, bbp_get_topic_tag_edit_template() and bbp_get_single_user_edit_template().

Patches adds single.php as the last fallback template to the three templates.

[johnjamesjacoby]

Diff is empty. Care to repatch?

[johnjamesjacoby]

After rereading the intention of this ticket, I'm not 100% sure this is needed. What ends up happening here is it defaulting to what will most likely be a blog template, which pre 2.0 was confusing to users when themes were incompletely supporting bbPress. I think it might be better to provide some feedback about missing templates rather than fallback to unwanted styling.

Thoughts?

[ptahdunbar]

with actual code this time :)

[ptahdunbar]

WordPress has specific templates for each type of query and eventually falls back to index.php no matter the query type.

If bbPress (and BP for that matter) did this too, there wouldn't be any more white screens if a theme doesn't have a certain template. The only template you really need in WP is index.php, the rest are optional. It seems like a lot of ppl are confused about how bbPress works because it doesn't do follow that approach. It would definitely make bbP/BP templating a lot easier to get into to. Thoughts?

[johnjamesjacoby]

The way the WordPress template hierarchy not-withstanding, having bbPress previously fall back to single.php and display a topic (with no replies mind you) like a blog post, led to questions about why their forums looked like their blog, and whether or not that was what bbPress looked like.

I'm not convinced that having an inadequate fallback makes theming things easier, but I'm on the fence about what the proper action should be.

[ptahdunbar]

Valid points. What I meant was that perhaps we can introduce a standard bbpress.php fallback file to use, not index.php.

I'm sure the pros of actually having a catch-all fallback for every bbPress view (eventhough it may be inadequate) would be preferred over a white screen. WordPress made this decision with it's template hierarchy (e.g. 404, search, archives, single blog post all fall back to index.php) so why wouldn't it make sense for bbP/BP?

[johnjamesjacoby]

bbPress shouldn't white screen if the template cannot be found, but rather 404. Not sure what is worse I guess. What I want to avoid is falling back on single.php with WordPress comments visible, having someone not realize their forums aren't functioning, and have users leave comments that will never become bbPress replies. This actually happened a few times in beta, and was really confusing to everyone, including me. :)

For now I'm going to move this to Future Release.

[johnjamesjacoby]

This hasn't come up as a need since the original discussion, so closing as worksforme. Open to future discussion, ideas, and approaches if anyone is passionate about improving this.