Install the BuddyPress Plug in Within WordPress

Download/Activate BuddyPress

Download and activate the BuddyPrss plug-in just like you would do for any WordPress plug-in.

1. From the WordPress Admin Panel GoTo: Plugins -> Add New
2. Search for "buddypress"
3. The official BuddyPress plugin should be listed as the first choice. Click on the "Install Now" link.
4. Click on the "Activate" link to activate the plug-in.
5. At this point an instruction box will appear at the top that provides a link to the BuddyPress installation wizard. Click on that link and follow the on screen instruction.
   1. Step 1: Select BuddyPress Components to Install Note that you do not have to activate all BuddyPress components and can activate components later.
   2. Step 2: Create BuddyPress Pages The BuddyPress Installation Wizard will add several pages to your WordPress installation such as: Activity, Groups, Members, Register, etc The actual number of pages created depends on the number of components that are activated. It is best to let the BuddyPress Installation Wizard create these pages. Note that these pages will be listed in the page list view; however, these are special pages that are used by BuddyPress and should not be modified or used for anything else.
   3. Step 3: Set Up Permalinks When you install BuddyPress you must choose a permalink other than the default permalink.
   4. Step 4: Settings This page has has various settings that are somewhat self-explanatory. These settings can also be changed after the installation.

BuddyPress 1.7 (Due out early 2013)

Total Rewrite of the Installation Wizard

The installation wizard is being totally rewritten for the upcoming 1.7 release. It will be simpler and encourage the activation of components in stages. Therefore all the above steps will be edited as soon as the stable version of 1.7 is released/

Group Forum Setup

If you choose to activate group forums on BuddyPress installations before Version 1.7, it is somewhat convoluted. If you let the BuddyPress Installation Wizard install group forums you will get bbPress Version 1.x which is a very basic forum. bbPress was totally re-written and Version 2.x is a full featured forum that will be installed by default starting with BuddyPress 1.7 There are articles on the web that cover how to install bbPress 2.x on BuddyPress installations before 1.7 and this would be the best solution if you can't wait until the release of BuddyPress 1.7.