I see a couple of issues here users talked about – most, if not all, seem resolved…

simple press works with 99% of the themes out there… it is, after all, doing its own thing on a standard wp page…  any theme issues usually come in if a theme (or other plugin) violates the wp standards (such as loading its own jquery instead of using the one wp ships with)…

its quite easy for you to test out…  the core simple press pluign is free… download it and give it a try…  set up is simple and easy to just see how they work together…  just create a dummy forum and make some posts…  should there be issues, we can usually work through them with you here…

if happy, then you can wipe the test forum and import from bbpress to get your current forums…

I did some further research on Simple Press. I found a video that showed clicking on the themes and there was a large drop-down list of a number of different themes. In my install all I see is three barebones themes and nothing else. ??

I also found a site using Simple Press that has a great layout and I would like to duplciate it for my new site.  https://www.fidosysop.org/forum/ but I can’t find anywhere to replicate this layout. ??

I’ve also searched and searched your site to learn how to add a topic; but can’t find anything. Is there anywhere on your site that has documentation because searching through all the posts is time consuming? 

As always appreciate any help. 

Well, I’m at that point that everyone gets to once in a while with plugins. I’ve spent far too many hours researching this plugin and getting nowhere. I tried to modify the styling of my current theme with CSS Hero 3 and most of it didn’t work. Not sure which plugin is at fault. 

Took me hours to simply find how I could do a topic and a post. Finally got into the edit and pasted an article about terms and conditions on a forum; but it pasted as white text. No idea why. Then I looked for what someone else was showing as the Tiny Mice editing; but I couldn’t find anywhere to edit the styling of the post, like bold, italics and so on. Pretty boring to just have plain old text. Other forum user had images, videos and all kinds of formatting. No idea where he got it. 

Speaking of getting it, another user talked about all the “skins” he could use for Simple Press. I couldn’t find any skins anywhere.

Either this plugin has changed drastically over time, with most of the great features people talk about being removed, or I am too stupid to use this plugin. I’ve spent the better part of two days now and I have nothing to show for it. I had my phpBB3 forum up in maybe an hour and the same with bbPress, so I guess I’ll have to go back to them. 

Hey. I tried.   

the only thing that has changed would be more themes…  all of our themes are listed here:  https://simple-press.com/store/themes/

you may have been thinking of classic themes…  all of which still function 100% with simple press…  you have to install the additional themes if you want to use them…  it makes the install package much smaller…

skins were in simple press back in the 4.x days – last supported like 8 years ago?  

No features have been removed (that I can think of)…  however, some additional capability is provided via add on plugins…

Thanks for responding, Mr. Papa; but I’m not any further ahead. Yes, I’ve been to the themes; but all I see are three “barebones” themes and none of the many different themes (about twenty, like “ice”) that users talked about. They show a drop-down when you click on themes that’s extensive. Appears to be gone now. 

If I need to buy themes now, okay; but I’d like to figure out the basics or I’ll just be throwing money away. I did finally manage to do a post; but there’s nowhere to do any basic styling as I said with the tiny ice editing. Is there no styling in the basic theme? That makes for a very boring forum. 

I still can’t find any documentation on the basics of creating a forum, sub forums, then topics and then posts. This is not my first forum. I’ve been designing phpBB forums (far ore complicated styling) and bbPress and never had this much trouble just getting it started. 

If in fact there is no styling then I need to use CSS Hero; but it does nothing. 

I’ve been looking at the Reboot theme that other user has and the layout is great. Is there anywhere to demo the theme before buying it? I want to make sure it solves the issues I’m having or I will go back to bbPress.

Appreciate your help.   

‘Ice’ is an overlay of the ‘Default’ theme which is free to download and use. See all available themes here – https://simple-press.com/store/themes/

The Default theme is getting a bit long in the tooth and has largely been superceded by more up to date and mobile friendly themes like Reboot, Unified and BareBones.

BareBones does not come with any overlays as it has a built in customiser that allows you to set what main colours you prefer so overlays are not required. BareBones is also – as the name implies – a simple and basic theme which, to some degree, mimics the more simple styling of plugins like bbPress but still retains the advanced features of SP. The other feature of BareBones is being simple – it is also a fast loader and quick to display.

If you want to style more than the colours in BareBones then you can, of course, create a child theme from it (frameworks also free to download) and add your own replacement CSS rules.

As to creating forums (in the admin) and topics and posts (in the public front-end) then having used a number of forums in the past myself In don’t fully understand why you should find it so complicated. ‘New Topic’ and ‘Add Reply buttons/links (dependent upon theme) are, surely, pretty self-explanatory!

What SP does offer – and can seem somewhat complex at first sight – is a very rich set of options and settings. But for a basic forum you are probably safe leaving them al as defaults from the install. But getting to know them and using the popup help against each section will open up many possibilities for the more advanced and, perhaps serious, forums.

It’s disheartening that I have to admit I am just too stupid to use Simple Press. I searched and searched for “ice” which you said was an overlay, but I can’t find it anywhere.

I’ll need to reset my forum if that is possible because it’s such a mess now that I can’t figure anything out. I started with the demo data and then made a mess out of it. I don’t remember ever seeing a “new topic” button or link anywhere. That would have certainly eliminated my confusion. 

Maybe I’ll just delete the plugin and start over. You didn’t answer me if there is anywhere to demo the Reboot theme before I buy it.

Appreciate your help.   

Once again – ‘ice’ is an overlay of the Default theme. If you do not download the Default theme and install it you will never see the ice overlay listed in the drop down.

This forum here is using the Reboot theme. There are one or two minor mods but they do no effect the visuals. Reboot too comes with a collection of overlays.

You do appear to have easily found the create topic/create post buttons on this forum. If you are not seeing them on yours then it is probable that your theme is effecting the styling in a negative way, One way to easily find that out is to briefly switch to the WP default theme and see what happens with the links and buttons.

To remove the forum and all of its data so that it can be re-installed go to the WP plugins listing and use the ‘uninstall’ link against the SP entry. Read the popup and follow the instructions. Following the second stage deactivation, SP can be re-installed.

Quick question and thanks for helping this dummy. I did download the default theme, but didn’t see anywhere to download the overlays. ??

Another sunny day in paradise..

Suggested Gary purchase your Reboot theme and SEO plugin to get started.

Might be a good day to dig into my overlay css and change the button colors.. I’m more concerned with SimplePress SEO factor which actually outranks many of my blog posts.

Good Stuff!

and… overlays will be downloaded with the theme.

Bought the theme and downloaded. Tried to do the Simple Press install. On activate got an error “there is no valid header”. Went back to the plugins page and Simple Press was there so I clicked on “activate”. It looked like it ran the full install because it told me it was complete, but when I clicked on the button at the bottom to go to the admin page I got another error saying that I did not have access to that page. 

So far, not so good. 

The ‘there is no valid header’ error is an old WP chestnut. Search and you will find hubndreds oif posts in this. Something like this – https://scotty-t.com/2011/03/28/fix-for-the-plugin-does-not-have-a-valid-header/ – could well be responsible. But whatever the cause – there is nothing wrong with the plugins header.

Your second issue doesn’t sound like an error to me. At least that is not an error message. Having installed – do you have a ‘Forum’ menu in the WP admin side bar? You should see about half a dozen entries. Are they there and do they all deny access?

And if so – then do you have some sort of security plugin that can  deny access to admin pages?

The first issue just prevented following through with the activation after the installation; however, it looked like it was installed so I clicked on the activate.  It showed a number of status boxes showing what was being installed then when I clicked on the admin button at the bottom all I got was a blank screen and the error message that I was denied access.

The only two menu items were Forum and Install, both of which showed the installation instructions again. I do have Wordfence installed, but it has never prevented any installation before and usually only sends me a message about attempted logins and that didn’t happen. 

I deactivated and deleted SimplePress until I know what to do. 

Appreciate any help.