BuddyPress.org

Hi there, I’d like to start off by thanking the entire BuddyPress team for not only making a revolutionary product, but giving it out for FREE! Thank you endlessly!

Here’s my dilemma:

I’m relatively new to BuddyPress and I’m making a website to match musicians in a certain area by genre, experience, instrument- here’s how I want it to work.

You register and, as part of the registration process you select (in the music section- there will be an information section and a music section) from a drop-down the instrument you play, the genre you’re interested in playing, years you’ve had formal training, years you’ve been in a group, and type in any website where you can hear your music, along with an additional comment box.

In the information field box thing there will be ONLY First name, Last Name, Year of Graduation (this is limited to a specific college) and e-mail.

I want the e-mail to be used AS THE USERNAME, so you don’t have to remember a username. Preferably I’d like the entire name to be displayed instead of the username (e-mail).

I want users after registration to be automatically added to two groups- an INSTRUMENT group (automatically placed based on their selection in the drop-down menu) and a GENRE group (a group within each instrument group e.g. there will be a Rock group in both the Guitar and Drums group).

I want users to be able to look through these groups for members and be able to MESSAGE them to say “hey let’s jam”.

Three features I’m looking for in review that I have yet to find in a plugin or other method:

1) CUSTOM REGISTRATION
– e-mail as a username
– full name display as the user (like facebook)

2) AUTOMATIC GROUPING
– automatically placed in an instrument group
– automatically placed in a genre sub-group
– members able to see all members of groups

3) MESSAGING
– members should be able to message one another once they’ve found each other.

Note: That’s all I want, how do I remove activity streams, etc. so that messaging is the only feature?