Adding user profile fields

admin (no pm's please) · Posted: Fri Apr 28, 2006 1:32 am Post subject:

This will be available shortly via the control panel login at :

http://myfreeforum.org/index.php?...amp;task=loginforum&Itemid=27

or

http://www.myfastforum.org/index....amp;task=loginforum&Itemid=27

In the custom profile section you need to enter the fields you require. To start a field type:

[FIELDNAME]

for example:

[GOOGLESEARCH]

Even by itself this will do something. If you now look under user management in the admin panel and edit a user, you will see:

GOOGLESEARCH [ ]

and you will be able to enter some data. But this is not very friendly. So let us change the defintion and make it:

[GOOGLESEARCH]
title=Search Google

Now if you edit a user you will see:

Search Google [ ]

This is an improvement, but more can be done. The html <input> field created will accept size, maxlength and style attributes. So to limit length for example we could have:

[GOOGLESEARCH]
title=Search Google
maxlength=100

So far all we can do is see things in the admin panel, but perhaps this is actually what you want. In fact we can ensure a field stays that way with a field like:

[ADMINCOMMENT]
title=Comment on this user
access=admin
visible=admin

Or perhaps we want our comment on a user to have the potential to be seen but not changed:

[ADMINCOMMENT]
title=Comment on this user
access=admin
visible=all

The access and visible parameter can be given one of the values:

user
admin
all

So how does the user see the information?

When they edit their own profile, you have to have done one of two things, or both if you are mixing methods!

Firstly, you can place the text:

{XPROFILE}

into profile_add_body.tpl where you want the fields to appear, generally between one row and the next. This will add the fields in a default format. Or you can enter a field yourself:

For example:

<input name="GOOGLESEARCH" value="{GOOGLESEARCH}">

Note that {GOOGLESEARCH} will be replaced with the actual value of the field. If you have done this, the the field will appear twice, as it will have been done both automatically in {XPROFILE} and manually. You can stop this with the definition:

[GOOGLESEARCH]
title=Search Google
automatic=no

So how about displaying information in the profile to other users?

In profile_view_body.tpl we could use the following macros:

{L_GOOGLESEARCH} which is the title
{GOOGLESEARCH} the value
{GOOGLESEARCH_IMG} the image and link if one has been defined.

In viewtopic_body we have:

{postrow.GOOGLESEARCH} the value
{postrow.GOOGLESEARCH_IMG} the image and link if one has been defined.

So what about this image and link? These can replace a text item as follows:

[GOOGLESEARCH]
title=Search Google
url=http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q={GOOGLESEARCH}&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
image=lang_english/google_icon.gif

Note the images are always expected to be in your template directory. In the url you can see how {GOOGLESEARCH} will be substituted with the value of the field.

Other options.

Use "register=yes" to make the custom fields visible when someone registers. This defaults to "no" as there are far to many things for someone to enter when registering already.

If you want a multiline entry then use:

type=textarea
rows=4
cols=20

Note that in common with all profile fields apart from the user signature, the custom proflle fields do not currently accept either bbcode or html.

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