Just a bit lost

Can the user set up their profile via the front panel (website) widgets

I’m afraid not. This isn’t the way the plugin works. In order to gain access to a user’s profile you need to be logged in, authenticated and in the relevant admin screen. There’s no technical reason why a plugin couldn’t do this, but I’ve never seen one that bypasses the admin screens and exposes admin functionality directly to the front-end.

I want user to be able to have a profile without going I the back end.

You can’t create a user without being logged in, having the applicable role and being on the WordPress dashboard/admin screens.

-Gary

Let me explain myself better. To view club’s private web site you must sign up then be set at a contributor. This is the only way I could find to make it totally private. I really don’t want the contributors to have access to the dashboard so I use a plug-in to hide the admin bar for everyone but the admin. But my p2 theme gives me no way to set up a profile picture. I tried setting up an admin picture in the “your profile” but that didn’t work either. I figured worse comes to worse I could upload everyone’s picture. It is a small local club.

I had hoped to find some plug-in that would allow people to set up a profile pictures or select an avatar on the site itself without them having to go in the back end where the your profile is.

Thank you
Kimber

There may well be a plugin that allows this functionality, but if there is I haven’t seen it. All the avatar management/enhancement functionality that I can see (on an admittedly brief and cursory search) rely on a user being a) logged in and b) accessing their profile via the dashboard.

But regardless of this, this is really a more general question and not one that specifically relates to WP Biographia, as far as I can see.

I’d recommend posting in either the Plugins And Hacks or How-To And Troubleshooting forums to see if someone has come across this sort of thing before.

-Gary