BuddyPress.org

in the admin, visit plugins, click add new, search “BuddyPress”, install then activate.

https://codex.wordpress.org/Managing_Plugins

Use something like https://wordpress.org/plugins/restrict-content/

Block off BP pages to logged in users and you dont have to do anything special.

Add users manually like danbp suggested. Non members cans still comment on blog posts.

Hi @vukhachminh, @doulos12,

– “subscriber” is wp’s default role. This is site admin territory and is handled on this screen.

– who can comment can be defined in wp settings.

Is “xprofile component” the feature exposed in “Settings > BuddyPress” named “Extended Profiles” (at the very top of the config page)? (It probably is, but I just want to be sure, thanks.)

Yes it is !

it is possible […] to effect the change of either the email or password fields?

Yes it is ! from here: your-site.abc/members/USERNAME/settings/ – the link can be found under the top right usermenu on wp’s toolbar: username > settings > general OR/AND on the buddymenu, when you’re on your profile: Settings ! And that’s it !

For all other BP related questions, please read through the codex, i really have no time to (re)write all explanations. Sorry, hope you uderstand.

Thanks for the background info about WP, @danbp. It certainly is interesting to see how the little old single-user blog platform called “WordPress” has mushroomed into the gargantuan that it is today, following the old adage, “Man expands to fill the available space.”

Obviously I’m a bit of a noobie to WordPress (I’ll admit, so feel free to flame away ;)), but I’d like to ask about your reference to the clause “When BP is activated, and if you use the xprofile component…” I am a bit confused about “the xprofile component” and was wondering if you can help me understand it a bit better.

Is “xprofile component” the feature exposed in “Settings > BuddyPress” named “Extended Profiles” (at the very top of the config page)? (It probably is, but I just want to be sure, thanks.)

I am fully cognizant of the fact that one can preclude access to the WP Dashboard in a number ways, including by Role, etc., and I plan to do that. However, that causes me to provide exposure to the standard WP Profile fields (or as many of thsoe fields that I want to expose, that is) so that the user can modify them. This includes the critical email and password fields.

Relating to this situation, you didn’t quite address my key question as to whether it is possible (without serious WP core hacking — something I would NEVER do, btw) to effect the change of either the email or password fields?

Now listen, I realize that probably sounds like a shameless noobie question, but it really begs the question of whether modifying the email/password fields outside of the WP dashboard is considered “bad form” in some way.

Thanks in advance for your advice and insights.

Just because you mention paid themes, here a small free BP ready theme list available on WP’s theme repo:

Level

Profile

Republic

Alchem

@uscore713,

i’ll try to explain. You’re using WordPress and a plugin called BuddyPRess which add a community dimension to WP.

Members are the heart of BP. Anything done by the plugin will return something related to members: activities, friendships, dicussion and much more.

How is this possible ?
Because WP let you register members separately. To do this, WP ask for a username(pseudonym), a password and a valid email.

You cannot avoid this, whatever plugin you use. It is how it works.

Now, we have 2 different question in this topic.

1) how to restrict access to profile settings ?
2) do we need a plugin for that ?

About point 1
WordPress was designed to be a blog builder. A CMS with one blog author who was mainly also the site
owner/builder… This changed with the years and today, you can handle a multiauthor blog.

When you install BP, you can still handle a multiauthor blog (or even blogs) and also a big community of different users, whith different (wp) roles.

What hasn’t changed is the way WP handles authors(or members): from within the dashboard, whatever the role.

When BP is activated, and if you use the xprofile component, you can build a registration form who is added to the original wp registration form. This form is then available on each user profile and can be modified from there.

To restrict user access to wp-admin, you can use different technique. This depends of your coding knowledge or working philosophy, with custom code or applying some plugin solution.

This is independant of BuddyPress and out of the scope of this forum. Just remember that BP let you access to your credentials from front-end.

About point 2
– in theory, you don’t need a plugin
– you always need to read about a plugin before using it.
For example, the workaround mentionned in this topic about the usage of Profile Builder.
– here a recent tutorial – for beginners – you may found more advanced advice by googling about “wordpress restrict dashbord access”.

When you read the teaser on that plugin page, you already should have understand that you don’t need it !
Simple to use profile plugin allowing front-end login, user registration and edit profile by using shortcodes.

Astonishment ! BuddyPress offers exactly the same options (among others).

What ever plugin you use, the regiter process of WordPress won’t change, and the user list or the user data will always be at the same place. What plugins do (most of them), is to modify the appearance of that process.

What you can also do is to remove all WP related items from the toolbar, if you use it. This is widely documented and discussed on WP’s support and codex. It’s WP territory and has nothing to do with the fact you use BuddyPress.

Admitting you found a solution for the backend, you need to use BP’s login widget. From there, users can enter the site. And if they loosed their password, they can ask for a new one from there (usually the sidebar, on front-end).

There’s a few different ways you could go about this, there’s a few privacy plugins that will hide different aspect of the site from public view. One is BP Registration Options, this installs new member moderation (so you can choose who to allow on you site) and BuddyPress privacy, where the BuddyPress pages are all private, but the WordPress pages and posts are still public.

If that’s not private enough for you then there’s BP Simple Private which allows you to hide all aspects of your site apart from the homepage.

You don’t have to be logged in to comment in WordPress

BuddyPress used to come with it’s own theme, it’s still there though not really supported.

The theme dictates the look and feel of your site so recommendation is difficult, also there’s a choice to be made between premium and free themes.

For the free themes just take a look over on the WordPress Themes Directory

Hi,

BuddyPress use templates to show his stuff.
The registration is part of WP and BP’s xprofile component add only some additionnal fields to the original register form.

If you open a template file you will see a lot of code and many lines starting by do_action( ‘something’ );

These files are all stored in bp-templates/bp-legacy/buddypress/

Now you have already the where and the what. here’s the how.

To show some text on the register page you have two options:
1) altering the whole template file bp-templates/bp-legacy/buddypress/members/register.php
2) add what you want by using an action hook

The second method is the fasted and the easiest. You just need to write a function and you’re done.

function valeriemanne() {
   echo 'Here i am !';
}
add_action( 'bp_before_register_page', 'valeriemanne' );

Add this to your child theme functions.php file or into bp-custom.php

WordPress codex references
add_action
Child theme

This may of may not be of help:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress-custom-profile-menu/

Think this was the plugin Hugo was thinking of, it’s not been updated in 4 years though.

https://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress-announce-group/

Thanks @wordpressrene, I’m having a closely related issue. WP 4.6.1, BP 2.7.2.

Just to restate the issue for clarity, my client brought to my attention what she considers to be a bug: in places such as the members listing and individual profiles, no recent update is shown for some members who *have* been active.

looking around in the code, it appears that the bp_member_latest_update() function seems to not include forum replies or activity comments, just updates.

HOWEVER, the bp_member_last_active() function DOES include activity comments in its calculation of how much time has passed since the user interacted with the site. One sees that a person was active, but for some mysterious reason that activity isn’t shown. My personal opinion is that all activity, including activity comments, should be included in bp_member_latest_update() by default, but my guess is that this is by design.

Any advice as to how to print out a user’s most recent activity regardless of its type? Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks everyone!

What you could do is install WPFront User Role editor, one of the features of this plugin is that it allows you to choose menu items as not being visible until you are logged in etc.