BuddyPress.org

Hello, I’ve been trying to find out how to set BuddyPress registration as the homepage of my site. Previously I have accomplished that with a redirect page plug-in, it does the job, redirecting users when they hit your main page does not look very professional.

So, I have copied register.php content and pasted it to index.php (the main homepage file for BuddyPress). How come none of the registration fields display? If I go to http://www.sampledomainname.comregister, the fields show up, if I go to http://www.sampledomainname.com (which has the same exact code as the registration page) the fields do not show up.
What can I be missing?
Some kind of permission / link issue that has to be adjusted in BuddyPress core?
The does not like when it’s added to index.php?

I have not tampered with the default BuddyPress code, it’s a standard, default working installation.
I have looked through the forum, but I did not see a working solution for this issue yet. There was one posting that stated you had to create a sub-theme, and they guy stated that it “should” work. But I don’t think that’s necessary at all.

Please advise,

Thanks.