BuddyPress helps you build any kind of community website using WordPress, with member profiles, activity streams, user groups, messaging, and more.

You can automatically install the BuddyPress plugin when doing a demo import or you can manually install the plugins from WordPress repository.

After BuddyPress is installed, go to WP Admin -> Settings -> BuddyPress to change plugin settings.

Components

BuddyPress comes with several useful components, such as Friends, Groups, Activity, Notifications etc and you can see them in the components tab.

Pages

BuddyPress requires setting up some pages to function properly. You need to map each of Buddypress components to your site pages. If you haven’t already created the pages to assign to Buddypress components then go to Pages menu and add them and come back to assign them.

Activity Page

Activity Page shows wide activity from users. This includes messages, comments, friend requests, groups activity, etc

Groups Page

Groups page is used to show the Groups Directory. You can enable users to create groups from Settings – Buddypress – Settings

Members Page

Members page will show all of your site members.

Registration Page

This is the page where users can register on your sites. All the profile fields that users have to complete on registration can be set from Users – Profile fields – Base group. Make sure to enable Extended profile fields so you can add custom user profile fields

Activation Page

Activation page is used to to confirm an account creation. Users will receive an email with an activation link once they register.

BuddyPress Profile Fields

You can create your own profile fields for users. Make sure to enable the Extended Profile component in Settings – BuddyPress.

Fields can be arranged into groups and you can define your own groups to show in user profile edit page.

Note: Fields you add to the Base profile group will show in the Register page.