Usage of <H*> selectors in theme compatibility templates

[ericlewis]

Currently, <h*> elements are sprinkled throughout the theme compatibility templates of BuddyPress. However, this can lead to some unexpected output, as some themes may style specific <h*> elements as less-significant that are intended for item headers in BP templates (Group title on Twenty Eleven is notably significantly small and the weight is normal, giving the impression it's secondary information here).

[ericlewis]

Group header in twenty eleven, note small size of group title

[r-a-y]

This is a similar problem with themes in general.

Other than overriding the template part in question, there's not much we can do.

You can also use BP's special 'bp_replace_the_content' filter and replace the header tag with whatever you want.

See Beau Lebens' article for some inspiration:
​http://dentedreality.com.au/2010/07/02/dynamic-headings-in-wordpress/

But instead of the 'the_content' filter, use the one I state above. Untested, but it should work... hopefully!

Marking this ticket with the 2nd-opinion and close tags.

[boonebgorges]

I'm going to agree with r-a-y here. The problem is not us: We are using the semantically correct elements - at least, the semantically correct _HTML4_ elements, as our templates are minimally HTML5-ified. If themes do funny things do funny things with the way <h*> elements are styled (and I have actually seen themes that, eg, make <h3> bigger than <h2>, make <h4> smaller than the body text, etc), it's really a bug in that theme. The only ways we could work around it are (a) supply our own overriding styles, like #buddypress h3 { font-size: 1.2em; }, or (b) stop using header elements altogether. In the case of (a), we'd invariably clash with the native header styles of many themes, which defeats much of the purpose of theme compatibility. In case (b), we would still have to supply our own styles, *and* we'd be abandoning semantic web protocol.

Going to close as wontfix. Let's be evangelists to themers about this kind of stuff. Thanks for the report, ericlewis.