Hi,

I definitely solved it a while ago, although using other techniques. Please post this yourself where necessary.

In general, when you use get_entity(), you must specify a GUID, not the username. Specifically, you must specifiy the GUID of the profile owner. You get that by calling page_owner().  So for example:

$guid = page_owner();
$user = get_entity($guid);

Then you can do the following:

$user->username

You can actually call any property for that user given it is set to it's desired access level (make sure you set it to public or at least logged in users when you set up Elgg). If you want to add a property, simply include it upon registration. For example, you can save a public_username in registration by doing the following on register.php

$username = get_input('username');

$user->public_username = $username;

$user->save();

Do this for any property you wish to save for the user or any Elgg object in general. Then, wherever you want to show it, just get the object's entity (i.e get_entity(guid)) and call its property (i.e. $object->property). It will show depending on its access property (public, logged in users, friends, or private).

Hope this helps. Please let me know if you have questions regarding anything else on Elgg.

Best,

Carlos