BuddyPress.org

You should be able to change the wording using the translation file and poedit.

Languages and Translations

I also recommend using WPT Custom MO File to manage your translations.

To change the name of tabs etc you need to look into setting up a custom translation file. All the visible labels are able to be translated, so you can change them how you like.

You can use poedit to create your translation file and WPT Custom Mo File to install the translation onto your site.

Languages and Translations

@nikbond no need to edit the codes, you can simply translate Media to Photos using Translation strings. To translate within dashboard you can use Loco Translate plugin.

It’s got to be a conflict of some sort somewhere, translations are usually very reliable from my experience.

I think the first thing to do is to check there’s nothing interfering with the loading of the translation – unload all of your plugins except BP and Custom MO. Also try it running the 2017 theme.

@niclovelace BuddyPress is translation ready and you can simply use Loco Translate plugin to translate any terms with the desired one from the plugin options.
No need to modify any codes.

@avaiya BuddyPress is translation ready and you can simply use Loco Translate plugin to translate any terms with the desired one from the plugin options.

Whoops, I forgot instructions on how to change the account details fields. Here, I updated it:

To change the text on the regular (Account Details) fields, make a copy of wpcontent/plugins/buddypress/bp-templates/bp-legacy/buddypress/members/register.php and place it in themes/your-child-theme/buddypress/members (a folder which you will have to create).

Then, open that file and replace every instance of <?php _e( '(required)', 'buddypress' ); ?> with your asterisk (*).

Then, to change the text on profile fields (Profile Details), just add the following code to bp-custom.php (which, if it doesn’t exist, you’ll need to create in wpcontent/plugins).

function bp_change_required_label($translated_string, $field_id) {
		return '*';		
}
add_filter('bp_get_the_profile_field_required_label', 'bp_change_required_label', 10, 2);

This function hooks into the function bp_get_the_profile_field_required_label() in buddypress/bp-xprofile/bp-xprofile-template using the supplied filter. It takes the translated “(required)” string and replaces it with “*”. which will also remove any translation – but that should be acceptable for a symbol in most cases.

I know this is an old thread, but for those who are (like me) interested and googling this, here’s a quick solution that requires no language file editing.

Just add the following code to bp-custom.php (which, if it doesn’t exist, you’ll need to create in wpcontent/plugins).

function bp_change_required_label($translated_string, $field_id) {
		return '*';		
}
add_filter('bp_get_the_profile_field_required_label', 'bp_change_required_label', 10, 2);

This function hooks into the function bp_get_the_profile_field_required_label() in buddypress/bp-xprofile/bp-xprofile-template using the supplied filter. It takes the translated “(required)” string and replaces it with “*”. which will also remove any translation – but that should be acceptable for a symbol in most cases.

I’m pretty sure you can do this by creating your own translation of the BuddyPress pot file for the field (Required) which is on line 1455 of the pot file. for details of how to do this you could look at buddyuser dot com/changing-the-text-used-in-buddypress-and-other-plugins

That’s an interesting idea. It seems like it should be possible, because BuddyPress is using a JavaScript library called livestamp to generate those strings. It relies on moment.js for localization (localization usually means translation, but could also mean “custom messages”). I think you could change the “relative time thresholds” as described here:
http://momentjs.com/docs/#/customization/relative-time-threshold/

The users get this message when they have yet to activate their account, it’s a basic feature of BuddyPress – each new user gets sent an activation email.

If you got to your wp-content/plugins/buddypress directory you will find the US translation of BuddyPress – buddypress-en_US,po, make a local copy of this and load it into PoEdit, you can then create your own translation, changing the words how you link, just search for the phrase you want to change.

1. (Please correct if I have misunderstood this)SVG are not allowed to be uploaded due to security reasons. Different icons is possible via CSS customisation.
2. Use translation files for relabelling (english to english)