BuddyPress Community

Theme Installation and Use Instructions

Installing a theme from WPMU DEV

1. Download the theme file
2. Unzip the file into a folder on your hard drive
3. Upload the folder to /wp-content/themes/ folder on your site

• If you're using multi-site you'll need to visit Network Admin -> Themes and Activate it there.

      4. Make sure your install path is correct for example: /www/var/site/wp-content/themes/thethemename not /www/var/site/wp-content/themes/themes/thethemename

     5. You’ll see several files and folders depending on the theme package.  Most themes contain a folder for the parent and child theme within the folder called themes.

     6. Launch FileZilla or your FTP client - read more about using FTP and FTP clients here.

     7. Enter your domain name, your username and password. NOTE: the same username and password that you use to log into your cPanel.

     8. Click Quickconnect

     9. Upload both the parent theme folder and child theme folder to wp-content/themes/

• For example, with BuddyPress Daily theme you need to upload bp-daily and bp-daily-child to wp-content/themes/ (bp-daily folder is the parent theme folder)
• With Gallery you need to upload gallery and gallery-child to wp-content/themes/ (gallery folder is the parent theme folder)
• We provide child themes with themes to enable you to customize your own files without having those changes overwritten when we update a theme.
• To find out more about parent and children themes please visit our guide to parent and child themes.

10.  Dragging the theme folders from your computer into theme folder in your WordPress directory uploads these new themes to your WordPress install however they aren't enabled on a WordPress Multisite install.

11. As Super Admin user on WordPress Multisite you have the choice to enable:

a) The theme network wide so that all users can use the theme
b) Enable access to the theme on a per site basis
c) Use Supporter plugin via supporter-themes.php to make it available as a premium theme for supporter sites only

Enabling The Theme network wide

Here's how to enable Sleek Photo network wide so that all your users can use the theme:

1. On your Network Admin dashboard click on the Themes menu
2. Select Network Enable underneath the theme name to enable its access network wide.

To enable more than one theme at once:

Enabling themes on a per site basis

Any theme that has not been activated for the entire network can be activated on a site as follows:

1. Locate the site you want to enable specific themes on by searching for the specific site by clicking on Sites > All Sites

2. Once you have located the site click on Edit (hovering your mouse over the domain name brings up the action menu)

3. Click the Themes tab

Only themes that haven’t been enabled network wide appear on the site theme list

You can also enable more than one theme at the same time:

Using Supporter Plugin for Premium Themes

The supporter plugin allows you to select premium themes for supporter sites only.

The idea is you make the best and nicest themes available on supporter sites so users will want to sign up to access the themes.  

To install:

1.  Install the Supporter plugin as per the installation instructions.
2.  Upload supporter-themes.php to wp-content/mu-plugins

How it works is:

1.  A Premium Themes page is added to Settings > Supporter in the Network Admin dashboard, where you can select the themes that you want to enable for Supporter sites only. 

• Only themes that haven't been enabled network wide on Network Admin >Themes will be listed on this page

2.  A Premium Themes sub-menu item is added to the dashboard of all sites under both Supporter and Appearance - but only users using supporter site can activate a Premium theme.

3.  Whereas users on non-supporter sites can see all the Premium themes but can't activate them - instead they see a message saying 'This feature is limited to supporters only'