RIP BuddyPress Default Theme: Finally Laid to Rest in 1.9

BP Default, May you rest in peace

The BuddyPress Default Theme passed away at his home in the BuddyPress trunk on November 13, 2013, surrounded by family. BP Default is predeceased by his parents and relatives, the 1.1 themes, the wire, and the status components. Born on February 16th, 2010, during the golden era of BuddyPress 1.2, the BP Default theme was three years old.

In his day, BP Default was considered “clean and stylish”. He could build a social network straight out of the box like nobody’s business. BP Default was a dapper fellow, often seen about town sporting a fashion-forward blue gradient, fancy widgets and featured images.

The BuddyPress default theme is survived by hundreds of child themes that will go on living without him. A service was held on the BuddyPress development blog earlier this week. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that you send pizza, beer or donations to any one of their Amazon wishlists.

Choking back tears, BuddyPress developer Boone Gorges spoke at BP Default’s funeral, saying:

I think I speak for everyone who has worked extensively with bp-default and its derivatives when I say that this is something of a bittersweet moment. bp-default was often a bear to work with, but it also proved to be a remarkably flexible and powerful foundation for building BuddyPress sites. And oh, that beautiful blue header gradient!

Also in attendance was Hugo Ashmore, who thanked BP Default for his service and spoke of the future:

bp-default served with honour and deserves a well earned rest :) This is the right way to go to keep core code and attention focused on theme compat and not offer too many alternatives to have to consider and support. Moving to WP theme repo would be optimum scenario and short of a few hurdles shouldn’t be too hard to achieve.

It is with fond remembrance that we lay BP Default to rest this week. While the theme will continue to be packaged with the BuddyPress download, it is no longer supported by the core development team.

BP Default will still receive critical fixes and security updates but will not get any bug fixes or new features. New installations and sites where bp-default is not already in use will no longer see BP Default in the Dashboard > Appearance screen. It’s possible that the theme will be laid to rest on wordpress.org, but that has not yet been decided. We’ll keep you updated about its final resting place. In the meantime, raise a glass to BP Default. Thanks for all the good times.