[jtprattmedia]

@Chouf1 for someone who is upset I’m complaining – all you really did is complain that I was complaining. I didn’t give any details, because mine were the same as the OP’s. In addition, I was talking about a base install – and the groups/forums issue is the same no matter what the theme.

I have since found a few tidbits of information that were helpful.

1. BP ver 1.7 does away with group forums
2. BP ver 1.7 is in beta 2 and almost ready for release
3. moving forward forums should be integrated using bbpress (which you have to install separately)
4. you only get the “create” a group button from the master root /user-groups BP URL
5. profile BP links like /members/username/groups are different than the master root pages
6. to manage a group after creation before BP 1.7 you have to actually visit the groups page in question (/user-groups/groupname) and the click “admin” to make changes – there is no master groups editing page
7. in BP 1.7 there is actually a new “groups” section in the wp-admin sidebar where you can (for the first time) have group management capabilities on the backend (edit / delete)

I stick by the fact that there is very little documentation on how to use BuddyPress after first install. I have been using WordPress since 2004 and have created and hacked hundreds of plugins and themes. I have written thousands of blog posts and articles / tutorials on WordPress. From that background, having installed BuddyPress I can quite easily say that it’s not intuitive to use, it’s difficult to figure out the integration points, and many things that should be easy are just plain hard.

WordPress is the #1 CMS in the world because of the low technical point of entry. It’s intuitive, easy to use, easy to install, well documented, and quite easy to hack. It’s usage has eclipsed both Joomla and Drupal because they are not. I think many people think BuddyPress will be as easy to install and use as WordPress itself, and it’s just not (yet).

I’m definitely figuring out where everything is, and how to get going after first install. I didn’t find much here in these forums or the Codex in that overall regard. Even external blog tutorials are a little sparse on the subject – most information you find is just severely dated.

Am I willing to contribute to the documentation? Certainly. I’m in the process of writing up my findings now – but I was looking for answers first…and all I was finding were others with similar unanswered questions.

[jtprattmedia]

I don’t understand why there haven’t been any additional comments on this. Much like @pdillon809 I installed fresh install of BuddyPress and found absolutely no links to create either a group or forum (form the admin bar profile links). I finally a create group button if you go to /groups – but still nothing for creating a forum topic (even as admin). I’ve used bbPress countless times, but can’t find any documentation for how it integrates with BP Groups, and there is no “Forums” on the backend even.

Doing some searching I found dozens and dozens of people trying to create forums and groups – most have no answers. This post was better at stating the actual issue – links in BP menus vs. the user-based links in the profile menu.

But still no answers and severe lack of documentation.

Can anybody shed any light on this?