[brx8r]

That makes sense, thanks @djpaul.

[brx8r]

Yeah I’m gonna stick it out with bbPress, I think there’s a lot of work ahead of me but there’s no need to do everything up front.

[brx8r]

I’ve just discovered https://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress-usernames-only/
with the compatibility mode constant
solves the issues!

[brx8r]

Unfortunately it seems the HTML returned by bp_nav_menu() does not contain the same options and links as the similar menu that appears in the admin bar. For example, there is no ability to create a group from that menu.

[brx8r]

I added my own version of the code to that page I linked. The only problem with this is that if the BuddyPress devs change how something works, we won’t be in sync with it, so the widget would still be a nice feature.

[brx8r]

+1

I don’t use the admin bar on my sites. It actually took me a while to discover that’s where all the BP functionality was.

The best option right now is to do it with some templating:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31812132/buddypress-display-notification-and-profile-in-header-instead-of-wp-admin-bar
That guy’s CSS isn’t the best, I’d suggest working on that.