BuddyPress.org

I was looking for a simple forums plugin to add to a wordpress site and initially I tried bbPress, which seemed to meet my requirements very well.

Unfortunately when I discovered that it lacked private messaging, I was pointed in the direction of BuddyPress with the instruction to install it and then turn off any extras that I don’t need.

I’ve installed it, it works okay, so now I need to ‘turn off the extra bits’ – this is the part I need help with!

A bit of background about the site, it’s going to be support for patients receiving medical treatment, so they can discuss their treatment with other patients and also send private messages with their clinician.

As these people may not be too computer-savvy, it needs to be as simple as possible to use, with all unnecessary features turned off / hidden.

Also, as it’s discussing sensitive information it needs to be as anonymous as possible, so real names, avatars, identifying information etc, needs to be kept hidden.

I’ve looked and can’t find a general guide to ‘cutting down’ BuddyPress, the administration is quite limited to what is hidden and shown, so I presume I may have to go on a function by function basis.

Here’s the list of things which I would like to remove:

1. Real Names
2. Avatars (remove display of them all and options to change)
3. Only admin can create groups
4. Think the random ‘visit’ on top right of the bar might be confusing
5. Search box in the BuddyPress pages – is this duplicating the searchbox in the main site navigation?
6. I’m also little unsure of whether the Activities / Members / Groups / Forums navigation also unnecessarily duplicates the top admin bar. If I was just to have one link to go straight into the most important page, would it be ‘Groups’ for me?

If there is a guide to removing some of these things, please let me know, if not, I would appreciate help on a step by step basis!

Thanks
Ashley