BuddyPress.org

I haven’t had time to update the plugin (nor my community), but running BuddyPress 1.0.3 and WordPress MU 2.8.1, it shows up below the profile field settings in the BuddyPress secion of the menu.

Perhaps something has changed which breaks the plugin, causing it to not show up at all. If so, perhaps an URL like this will help: http://yourwebsite.tld/wp-admin/admin.php?page=buddypress_stats_wrap

@gaz: Yes, with the default theme you get a main navigation bar that focuses on BuddyPress features (Members, Groups, Forums). So in that sense, BuddyPress “takes over”. But there’s also the “Blog” link which links to your WPMU main blog. WPMU is nothing more than Posts and Pages. So it’s all still there.

But yes, the main navigation is BuddyPress-focused when using the default theme. However, that is easily changed. Simply create a child theme with a custom header.php file. Your navigation could then be… Blog, About, Products, Contact, Customer Care… whatever you wish. Perhaps those BuddyPress links (Members, Groups, Forums) would be either in a separate navigation bar (like the bottom bar on Facebook) or maybe subsections of a “Community” menu. Or what have you. It’s all very do-able.

Unfortunately… you are also correct that there are very few custom themes right now. And no purpose-specific themes. BuddyPress is too new. So your choices are to either a) roll up your sleeves and be prepared to do a ton of learning and research or b) hire someone.

And Site Architecture is critical of course. It seems like you have a good idea of what you want to do but you’ve started out by taking a default BuddyPress install and working backwards from there. A good sanity check (if you haven’t already done so) is to sit down and sketch out exactly what you want… what sections… what navigation bars… what functionality… etc. Draw it all out (again, if you haven’t already). Then work from there.

I think you’ve made the right choice. It’ll just require some work. WordPress and BuddyPress are so much more flexible and better supported than the other open source alternatives. It’s worth the effort.

All I can share from personal experience is this: It’s real easy to get lost in all the gloss. About two years ago when I was hunting down low-cost, self-hosted, white label social networking software, I narrowed it down to two choices, Elgg and Dolphin. What I loved about Dolphin was how intuitive and pretty the whole backend was — you could easy drag/drop/rearrange different menu items and easily swap out your pages/columns/widgets. You could even change the sizes of certain page elements with just a few mouse clicks. It was almost like a Square Spaces for social networks. But then came more research. And upon that research, I found that Dolphin has some of the ugliest code ever written. On top of breaking tons of add-ons during upgrades, there also wasn’t (and probably still isn’t) an active support group available — more like a commune of helpless, p/o’ed customers who were all experiencing the same bugs. That’s not to say that it’s useless. I’m sure it works fine for a good handful of users who dumped a lot of money into development. But it became apparent that I needed to look into Elgg instead.

Now, Elgg does everything it says right out of the box 100% and we had instant love affair — http://www.michaelkuhlmann.com/category/elgg-vs-buddypress/. The whole installation took me about 10 minutes and there wasn’t a single problem… until I tried to re-design it. It was virtually impossible creating an entirely different layout. In fact, I have yet to see an Elgg-powered site that looks completely custom-made like the BuddyPress-powered VW TDI Truth & Dare site. Again, I’m sure Elgg fulfills the needs of many of its users – and probably a lot more so than Dolphin – but when it came to theming the software, it just fell a bit short. Although I could see how it could seem *ahead of the game* with its ease of use and drag’n’drop capabilities, it really isn’t compared to BP.

So BP came right along just as I finished *theming* — I should actually just say “colorizing” – my Elgg installation. Immediately, I dumped Elgg and switched to BP. I had seen what Andy did with ChickSpeak several months before the BP/Automattic venture was announced, so it looked quite promising. Then, the first release came out. First, I had trouble installing WPMU. Next, I had trouble installing BP. Following that, I couldn’t figure out how to get forums up and running. I sounded just like Mythailife – frustrated to the core. But I also remembered what an amazing difference a few months of development did to WordPress going from version 2.3 to 2.7, so I decided to stick around.

Up until now, I can easily say that BP has made strides in development. Out of the dozens of forums that I’ve visited, BP has *consistently* given the most support to its users in a timely fashion – FOR FREE. I have to stress the complimentary tech support part, because a lot of people tend to demand an answer to every single question immediately after they’ve posted their question, which is ridiculous. And if that speaks to you, here’s what you are getting – again – FOR FREE:

– A social networking system built on top of one of the best open source publishing systems, which means you’re also inheriting tons of great functionalities like WordTube/MapPress/eCommerce/Facebook Connect

– Loads of documentation including WordPress for Dummies and the upcoming book BuddyPress for Dummies (books are not free, of course, but they do count towards documentation)

– Support forums, development roadmaps and overall project transparency

– Ability to customize/theme BP exactly the way you want it to appear

– Dozens of available plugins

– Did I mention that this is built on WordPress?

If you don’t have the luxury of time to wait for support-related questions or still feel like this project is lagging AND you have deep pockets, there’s always Crowdfusion and Anahita. Otherwise, don’t get lost in the gloss, because BuddyPress is the next-best-thing to come out of the Automattic vault.

What you are truly asking is, “How can I customize the BuddyPress slugs?” Well, there is a BP blog article that answers that question!

https://buddypress.org/blog/how-to/customizable-slugs-in-buddypress/

I would recommend you create a child theme (see https://codex.buddypress.org/how-to-guides/building-a-buddypress-child-theme/), copy header.php into it and make your change there.

You can go into the header.php file in your template and do it in there

<li<?php if ( bp_is_page( BP_MEMBERS_SLUG ) ) : ?> class="selected"<?php endif; ?>><a href="<?php echo get_option('home') ?>/<?php echo BP_MEMBERS_SLUG ?>" title="<?php _e( 'Members', 'buddypress' ) ?>"><?php _e( 'Members', 'buddypress' ) ?></a></li>

You can change _e( 'Members', 'buddypress' ) ?>"><?php _e( 'Members', 'buddypress' )

to _e( 'Analyists', 'buddypress' ) ?>"><?php _e( 'Analysts', 'buddypress' )

I’m having the same problem. I will provide as MUCH information as I can per the list.

Website here: http://test.risdarchitecture.net

I’ve moved the BP themes to the wp-content/themes directory.

This is the third clean install of WPMU and BP (including new SQL database, etc).

I host with 1and1, so I’ve had to add a .htaccess file to the root directory to change to php5.

1. Which version of WPMU are you running? WordPress MU 2.8.4

2. Did you install WPMU as a directory or subdomain install? Directory

3. If a directory install, is it in root or in a subdirectory? It is in the root, however the root URL itself is a subdirectory.

4. Did you upgraded from a previous version of WPMU? If so, from which version? No.

5. Was WPMU functioning properly before installing/upgrading BuddyPress? Yes.

6. Which version of BuddyPress (BP) are you running? Version 1.1.2

7. Did you upgraded from a previous version of BP? If so, from which version? No.

8. Do you have any plugins other than BuddyPress installed and activated? No.

9. Are you using the standard BuddyPress themes or customized themes? Yes.

10. Have you modified the core files in any way? No.

11. Do you have any custom functions in bp-custom.php? No.

12. If running bbPress, which version? Or did your BuddyPress install come with a copy of bbPress built-in? BP came with an install of bbPress installed (I think).

13. Please provide a list of any errors in your server’s log files. My site is hosted by 1and1. I don’t think they provide log files.

Please help! I’ve read and read this forum and there doesn’t seem to be a definitive solution anywhere.

Sounds interesting to me, but the only add you made is the “favorites” on the bar, other than that you can already use that plugin (global header).

I’m personally working towards removing the blogs fully and just give each member 1 blog on their normal profile page, that way you just have everything of a member on one page, without the option of themes and making more than 1 blog. Basicly the same as any social community works (facebook for example). I’m also looking for a way for members to change the look and feel of their profile page, so that they can differentiate a little from the rest (background, colors etc.). But that’s just me rambling..

@elemsee

but it sounds as if your solution removes blogs from the bar altogether. We plan to make subscribers members of blogs that the Admins set up…

You have BuddyPress installed, I assume. So why don’t you give it a try–disabled the blog tracking and see what happens. It does exactly what you’re looking for. It prevents your members (users) from being able to create their own blogs. It does not hide the existing Admin blogs from them.

If you have more than one Admin-created blog, you can place additional buttons, or fancy menus, to those Admin-based blogs.

Unless you change the default behavior, WPMU by default makes all new users subscribers to the primary site blog (Blog ID number 1), which is the Admin blog. If you try out my suggestion, you will see that the “Blog” button is still visible. It takes users to the Admin-created blog. Only the “Blogs” button disappears for sight as it is a link to all user-created blogs, not the Admin blog.

Will I risk having to have the whole thing redone at every update?

Yes – because you’ll essentially be customising the default BuddyPress themes.

If you can build a WordPress theme, building a BuddyPress theme is not very hard – it is just larger.

The username field is a mandatory WPMU field. It is used by WPMU as the “user_login” field of the wp_users table. It is the necessary piece of datum that is used when a user logs in.

BuddyPress has its own mandatory registration field that by default is called “Full Name”. Look in the BuddyPress submenu group in WPMU’s backend. Go to “BuddyPress > General Settings > Full Name field name”.

You can change the “Full Name” field name to display whatever you want but you cannot remove that field from the registration page nor edit it to be something other than a single textbox field–at least not without hacking the core. Look under the “Basic” field grouping in “BuddyPress > Profile Field Setup” to see what I mean.

In fact, for testbp.org, Andy did change the outputted name of that field to simply read “Name”.

It is this BuddyPress field that is used to display the user’s name. If fact, this field can be edited by the user when they visit their profile and navigate “Profile > Edit Profile”. On the other hand, the username field, which is a WPMU field, cannot be edited.

I have finally been able to duplicate the installation.

Here’s a relatively complete set of steps for guidance. This took me several hours to prepare and it can be easy to make a stupid error along the way. Just take it slow.

These steps are for WordPress MU 2.8.1, bbPress 1.0.1 and buddyPress 1.0.3.

1. Download and install WordPress MU 2.8.1

2. Install the “bbPress Integration” plugin version 1.0 via the “Plugins” -> “Add New” menu of your wordpress mu installation.

In the search box enter ‘bbPress Integration” and click “Search Plugins”.

Click the “Install” link for the “bbPress Integration” version 1.0 plugin.

Click the orange “Install Now” button.

Click the “Activate Plugin” link.

3. Download and install bbPress 1.0.1 in a sub-directory of your wordpress installation.

I chose the sub-directory “/forums/”.

4. Load up the bbPress installation script by going to http://<yourdomain>/forums/

5. Click “Go to step 1”.

6. Enter the database name, database user and database password that you used for your wordpress installation.

You will not usually need to click “Show advanced settings”.

7. Click “Save database configuration file”.

You should see a message “Your settings have been saved to the file bb-config.php. You can now continue to the next step.”

8. Click “Go to step 2”.

9. Next you add the integration settings. This is the important part!

– click “Add integration settings”

– click “Add cookie integration settings”

– you will be presented with a list of eight text entry fields

– the first two are for your wordpress and blog url. For each of these enter your exact urls. I just used the same value for each. They need to commence with http://

– for all the cookie values just enter “COMMENT OUT”. These will become reference points in the bbpress config file for later.

10. Click “Add user database integration settings”. This step is also important!

Leave the existing value in the “User database table prefix” field.

Enter the WordPress Primary blog id value “1” – THIS IS IMPORTANT.

11. Click “Save WordPress integration settings”

If all is well you should see this message.

Your WordPress integration cookie and database settings have been successfully validated. They will be saved after the next step.

Once you have finished installing, you should visit the WordPress integration section of the bbPress admin area for further options and integration instructions, including user mapping and the correct cookie settings to add to your WordPress configuration file.

12. Click “Go to step 3”.

– enter your site name

– enter your site url. I entered the url to the forums including the http://

e.g. http://bp.dev/forums/

– select the “admin” user for your wordpress installation

– enter a name for your first forum e.g. “Announcements”

13. Click the “Save site settings” button

14. Click the “Complete the installation” button

15. You should see a screen indicating installation has completed.

– click the “Show installation messages” option. Scroll through and see of any errors are reported.

16. At this point you should be able to login to your bbpress installation with your wordpress admin username and password.

17. Login to bbPress

18. Click the “Admin” link to go to the admin screen

19. Go to “Settings” -> “Writing” and enable XML-RPC publishing protocol (this is needed by buddyPress)

20. Go to “Settings” -> “Discussion” and enable pingbacks (I think this is needed by buddyPress ….?)

21. Go to “Users”

22. Go to “Settings” -> “WordPress Integration”

Set the mapping of bbPress roles to WordPress users roles

For the WordPress Administrator role select “bbPress Key Master”.

For all the others select “bbPress Member”.

Click “Save Changes”

23. Login to WordPress MU as the admin.

24. Go to “Plugins -> Add New”

25. Enter “bbPress Integration” and click “Search Plugins”.

– you should see “bbPress Integration” 1.0 listed

– click “install”

– click the orange “Install Now” button

– click “Acrivate Plugin”

26. Go to “Settings” -> “bbPress Integration”

Ensure there is a full url for the bbPress forums entered.

Select WordPress type “WordPress MU”

Click “Save Changes”

Copy the values listed in the dark grey box at the bottom of your page into your clipboard. There will be four lines that look something like this:

define( ‘COOKIEHASH’, ‘da4672dda66fd60a6b80e420d32ef26c’ );

define( ‘COOKIE_DOMAIN’, ‘.bp.dev’ );

define( ‘SITECOOKIEPATH’, ‘/’ );

define( ‘COOKIEPATH’, ‘/’ );

Don’t worry – these values will be different for your installation.

Open wp-config.php in an editor and insert these lines immediately after the opening “<?php” line.

Whilst you have wp-config.php open, copy the authentication keys to your clipboard. They look like this:

define(‘AUTH_KEY’, ‘800345c011dfad9261cedec0a3d914ffa1b40d67b23b66e4809797ce728f0b80’);

define(‘SECURE_AUTH_KEY’, ‘5d6d3f657c9fb496e3f5488044fc174c238554a1b5347eb633ea8baecf0dcc7c’);

define(‘LOGGED_IN_KEY’, ‘6749832494719d8217e06c233326cb86da9ec040b16f705156660e1642a5f0e8’);

define(‘NONCE_KEY’, ’87a5b149e95e0a13020541040353548eaf65b68452be91c685e96a7fbab685bc’);

define(‘AUTH_SALT’, ‘8ff197cc15f311c975bd14ce131e7872eb390706bd316f72435c081836d14f34’);

define(‘LOGGED_IN_SALT’, ‘642683992ae38da46082bf9850ab90273deb7d5d1034baf80a3fd32871b5e04a’);

define(‘SECURE_AUTH_SALT’, ‘7c066b9c14bd558737b74b76c77f928e3612935832a6a47bd70842e118c947fa’);

They will be different for your installation.

Save wp-config.php

27. Open bb-config.php

Find the lines containing the Authentication Unique Keys. They will have the values “COMMENT OUT” if you followed the instructions above. Comment these lines out!

Insert the lines from your clipboard into bb-config.php below the lines you commented out.

You need to edit each line you inserted and prefix the name of each constant with “BB_”

After doing that, the lines will be something like:

define(‘BB_AUTH_KEY’, ‘800345c011dfad9261cedec0a3d914ffa1b40d67b23b66e4809797ce728f0b80’);

define(‘BB_SECURE_AUTH_KEY’, ‘5d6d3f657c9fb496e3f5488044fc174c238554a1b5347eb633ea8baecf0dcc7c’);

define(‘BB_LOGGED_IN_KEY’, ‘6749832494719d8217e06c233326cb86da9ec040b16f705156660e1642a5f0e8’);

define(‘BB_NONCE_KEY’, ’87a5b149e95e0a13020541040353548eaf65b68452be91c685e96a7fbab685bc’);

define(‘BB_AUTH_SALT’, ‘8ff197cc15f311c975bd14ce131e7872eb390706bd316f72435c081836d14f34’);

define(‘BB_LOGGED_IN_SALT’, ‘642683992ae38da46082bf9850ab90273deb7d5d1034baf80a3fd32871b5e04a’);

define(‘BB_SECURE_AUTH_SALT’, ‘7c066b9c14bd558737b74b76c77f928e3612935832a6a47bd70842e118c947fa’);

Save the file and exit.

28. Clear cookies and Refresh for your domain. In Firefox you can clear cookies for a specific domain pattern.

29. Login to your wordpress installation as the wordpress admin user.

30. Assuming you managed to follow the setps above, If you go to your bbPress page you should find that you are logged in!

31. From WordPress Admin go to “Plugins” -> “Add New”

– in the search box enter “BuddyPress” and click “Search Plugins”

– find BuddyPress 1.0.3 in the list

– click “Install”

– click the orange “Install Now” button

– click “Activate Plugin”

32. BuddyPress is now installed. Follow the BuddyPress instructions for installing the themes to the correct locations and activate them.

33. In wp-admin go to “BuddyPress” -> “Component Setup” and check that the “bbPress Forums” component is enabled.

34. In wp-admin go tp “BuddyPress” -> “Forums Setup”

– ensure that the URL for the forums is entered

– ensure that the bbPress username and password details have been setup

– click “Save Settings”

35. Create a group with option selected for a forum.

36. Check that you can post topics in the group forum!

37. Take a break!

wpmu 2.8.1

bp 1.0.3 trunk version

bbpress 1.0.1

here is my bug list. I read the trac message mentionned above and made my own change. Anyway all i listed here is already not working.

I suggest you go to the site and terst yourself (it’s a test site straigth out of the box)

May this help.

Group page – main content

http://buddypress-fr.net/bpdemo/groups/groupe-de-tests/home/

Topic list is showing well.

This is a link from one of the topic. When click on it, it brings me to the homepage.

http://buddypress-fr.net/bpdemo/groups/groupe-de-tests/forum/topic/25

Same thing with the “view all topics” link

http://buddypress-fr.net/bpdemo/groups/groupe-de-tests/forum

Group page – Forum button

http://buddypress-fr.net/bpdemo/groups/groupe-de-tests/group-forum/

Menu is ok, but when i click on “forum”, the right col “main content” becames blank.

The admin bar disapear also

Group page – Wire

http://buddypress-fr.net/bpdemo/groups/groupe-de-tests/group-wire/

“view all” brings me to the homepage

Group page – create a group

http://buddypress-fr.net/bpdemo/members/admin/groups/create/step/group-details

The 4 menu options (details, settings,…)in maincontent are no more translated

After the group is created, when i go to the new group admin, the options are translated.

on step 2, the forum option is deactivated.

The permanent warning message about configuration is not necessary for ordinary user, because they can’t never install bbPress, even if they are blog admin or there own group forum master.

Anyway, this means to create a group first, then finish the whole register process, saving and to come back to the group to activate the forum. Not sure if this is a bug, but it’s anoying.

Once the group is created, the forum option is not appearing at all.

Group page – wire

unable to create a message. When posting, i flip to the homepage without any error message.

Group page – change group avatar

This is impossible ! I load a new image, loader is turning a little, and… nothing happens.

*****

I uploaded the 1.0.3 latest release version and changed the whole bp-theme/group folder from trunk to latest release.

Now, i can change group avatar.

Also, can you explain me the difference between the two folder, the trunk version has a very different content.

One other bug I encountered when using the BuddyBar was the second-level menus weren’t popping out in bbPress.

I found out that the problem is due to some CSS rules overriding one another.

In /plugins/buddypress/bp-core/css/admin-bar.css, move line 177 under

#wp-admin-bar ul li:hover ul ul, #wp-admin-bar li.sfhover ul li ul {

left: -999em !important;

}

So your admin-bar CSS from line 171 should look like:

/* third-and-above-level lists */



#wp-admin-bar ul li ul ul {

margin: -28px 0 0 183px !important;

}



#wp-admin-bar ul li:hover ul, #wp-admin-bar ul li li:hover ul, #wp-admin-bar ul li.sfhover ul, #wp-admin-bar ul li ul li.sfhover ul { /* lists nested under hovered list items */

left: auto !important;

}



#wp-admin-bar ul li.align-right:hover ul {

right: 0 !important;

}



#wp-admin-bar ul li:hover ul ul, #wp-admin-bar li.sfhover ul li ul {

left: -999em !important;

}



#wp-admin-bar ul li:hover ul, #wp-admin-bar ul li li:hover ul, #wp-admin-bar ul li.sfhover ul, #wp-admin-bar ul li ul li.sfhover ul { /* lists nested under hovered list items */

left: auto !important;

}



... and the rest of it here

That was the case for me anyway! If you’re using a custom admin-bar CSS, make sure you make the change as well.

Looks like your BP site is up and running!

What is your problem again?

Are you saying you can’t access the BuddyPress menus in the WPMU admin area?

ht*tp://example.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=buddypress/bp-core.php

What happens when you try to go there?

—

It could be an issue with RewriteRules if you changed the settings in the .htaccess file…

@wtfman

You are linking to a thread that is three months old. Much has changed since then. For instance, BuddyPress now runs in /plugins/– not /mu-plugins.

Also, as r-a-y has pointed out, once you activate BP site wide, there is a new menu grouping in WPMU admin called “BuddyPress”. It is located at the very bottom of then menu grouping column.

Hey wftman,

It really depends on the developer of the BP plugin in question.

The readme.txt that comes with the plugin is usually the best indicator of where to place the plugin.

There is a BuddyPress menu in the WPMU admin area, but it would be good to know what you mean by “and it sucks that I have to make changes every time there is a blog”.

Re: Pressbox theme… check out the default “bphome” theme, especially the functions.php file. You’ll probably want to copy over some of the functions into the Pressbox theme functions.php file.

Hope that helps in some way!

Burt,

I found a bug in the 1.0 alpha 2 and I was curious if the other members have experienced the same issue, and also if you resolved the issue with the 1.0 release.

Problem:

click on Members Directory

click on a letter for a member listing, say ‘M’ and it shows 21 listings. Okay, first 10 members are displayed. If you click on page 2, it goes to a weird submenu that leads to a blank page.

Here is the weird behaviour –

a new page loads with the following url and it’s blank:

http://www.xxyy.info/OurSocial/OurSocial/wp-load.php?upage=2

Resolution:

deactivate the bpc plugin, return to Members Directory

follow same member listing search for category ‘M’

click on page 2

all is fine – works as expected.

The links for pages 2 and 3 show the same links as listed above, but when you click on them, the main page stays the same,

http://www.xxyy.info/OurSocial/members

and only the Member Listing changes

Using:

wpmu 2.7.1 and the new bp 1.0.2

Also, an other question: if we upgrade automatically to bpc 1.0, what about the existing db created tables? Will they be in conflict or will the plugin just create a new table? I ask this because I read the ‘details’ of the upgrade and it says the new plugin creates one new table in the db

Thanks so much for your hard work.

Brian

First off, I do sympathize with your frustration on finding an acceptable set of solutions to your questions. Without writing the code for you, it is difficult to point you in the proper direction. There have been a number of options presented, that while being a compromise to your ultimate, desired solution, could produce satisfactory results.

Isn’t the whole point of Buddypress to turn the WordPress base into something more user-centric?

Yes and no. As I already said two posts above:

WPMU is not designed as a user-centric platform. It is blog-centric. BuddyPress puts the focus on the user.

But, BuddyPress is still a layer that rests on top of WPMU, not the other way around. BP relies heavily on certain WPMU functions to handle much of the user registration process. And WPMU requires that the username field be populated (I realize that you know that).

This thread is NOT about the username issue.

I understand that. But what I quoted from your past post was about the username field and that is what I specifically answered in my last post.

This particular thread is entitled “How to use full name, first name + last name“. Burt already provided an answer to this question above via this thread where he shows you how to do exactly this in code.

I’ve understood all along in the various threads that you’ve started on this range of related topics that you want another option, some other way to insert your desired datum into the user_login field, or use newly created fields to allow registering users to enter their firstname and lastname, or that you want a way for users to enter their email for login, or a way to use BP’s xprofile table to display fname and lname in various ways and places, or a way to rearrange fields on the registration form, and that you hate WPMU’s concept of username and want a different option. I get all of this.

Others (including myself) have tried to be as helpful as possible in each of those threads, often rehashing the same answers. I don’t say this to be mean; I say this because we’ve tried to explain in multiple ways and multiple times that what you are after is not possible at this time without hacking the core (in some cases) or writing your own custom plugin(s).

https://buddypress.org/forums/topic.php?id=1746

https://buddypress.org/forums/topic.php?id=1811

https://buddypress.org/forums/topic.php?id=2118

https://buddypress.org/forums/topic.php?id=2119

https://buddypress.org/forums/topic.php?id=2926

How does Buddypress handle first name + last name?

It does and it doesn’t. There are no firstname and lastname fields in BuddyPress unless you create them as Mike Pratt explained above. BuddyPress has its own mandatory registration field that by default is called “Full Name”. Look in the BuddyPress submenu group in WPMU’s backend. Go to “BuddyPress > General Settings > Full Name field name”

Now, there is a function in bp-xprofile-filters.php called xprofile_sync_wp_profile() that will take the datum from the “Full Name” field and split it into a pseudo firstname and lastname and then insert that as meta data into the wp_usermeta table, but it can only do that if a user actually edits their fullname field to include a more than one-word name. So if a user does not edit that field, there will not be any fname/lname wp_usermeta entries for that user.

Buddypress puts a default first x-profile field Name on the registration form; is it possible to replace that with separate first name + last name fields?

You can change the “Full Name” field name to whatever you want but you cannot remove that field from the registration page nor edit it to be something other than a single textbox field–at least not without hacking the core. Look under the “Basic” field grouping in “BuddyPress > Profile Field Setup” to see what I mean.

Or is there already a native solution for first name + last name in WPMU that Buddypress could tap into? (Nicola Greco: ‘… you could replace it with the wp built-in name & last name, or use xprofile fields fot that …”)

In this post above, I explained that if you want to go this route, you’ll need to pull data from two records in wp_usermeta to extract the firstname, lastname combination. If you do not feel comfortable coding this yourself, you could hire a coder to write a simple function to do just that. But be aware, as I explained above, it is possible that not every user will have firstname and lastname meta date.

From your OP:

Default Buddypress is fine for teens/tweens who want to use their anonymous username, but it’s not suitable for a more grown-up business network, for example.

BuddyPress seems perfectly acceptable for business users. There are many professional, adult-based sites that are successfully attracting users to their BP sites. Mike Pratt’s site is a great example, for one.

I’ve been using my full name on this site from day one. It did not bother me that I had to use a single username when registering because I knew I had the option to fill out my full name for display purposes later. It also allowed me to brand BuddyPress.org with my unique name, creating a useful URI in the process.

In fact, the single username approach is what many sites use to allow users to brand themselves. Twitter, youtube, FriendFeed, Delicious, Digg, LinkedIn, and many more all require a unique, single-word username. Of course, some of these then allow you to (or even require) that you use an email for subsequent logins. This is in BP’s future as well.

In the not too distant future, there may be an option to allow users to sign on with their email address via OpenID or another protocol. See the BuddyPress Roadmap and read about the Open Stack.

But for now, your options are limited and if you want to change things you must code your own custom solution or hack the core.

There is not much more we can do, but as I said in my last post, if the username concept bothers you so much, you’ll have to go to the WPMU forums and see what solutions might be in the works–if any.

You need to log into WPMU’s backend as site admin ( /wp-login.php), and then go to

Site Admin > Options > Allow new registrations

and set the options you want.

Also I am unable to create an extended profile like shown in some of the demos. It only allows me change the “base” and avatar. I can’t put birthday, location, etc.

To add additional profile fields, you need to navigate to the BuddyPress submenu grouping in WPMU’s backend. If BuddyPress is installed and activated, this submenu group is found at the very bottom of the menu column.

So, go to

BuddyPress > Profile Field Setup

and set up the additional fields you want.