[Updated] Plugin: Custom Member data, forum usage, and category name translation

Wow this seems to be really promising and I will definitely will use it for a future project (if we can develop it in EE).

I’ve got one question though: I assume your extension can be used within {exp:weblog:entries} tag as well. If that’s the case it should be possible to compare member-data to custom-weblog-fields. So to take your example: inside my weblog I have a custom field where I could select any of the NFL teams.

Am I correct if I then could use the following bit in my template?

{if {exp:va_custom_member data="field_name"} == "custom_field"}You are a Fan! You really should read this!
{if:else}You're not a fan.. why are you even reading this?
{/if}

An additional question: if the code above is correct, will it work with Mark Huot’s extensions called checkboxes?

Thanks for the questions! As far as I know, it shouldn’t conflict with the checkboxes extension; my plugin does not modify EE in any way. So it should work just peachy with any other plugins, modules, etc. It’s not an extension at all, just to make clear–it’s a plugin. As such, it’s installed in the plugin folder, and installed via the plugin manager in the administration panel… not the extensions panel. Just like any other plugin.

I am fairly confident it works inside the weblog:entries tag; I see no reason why it wouldn’t work like you want it to. If it doesn’t, I’d be surprised. But let me examine your example. Your code would be testing for something like this:

{if "bears" == "custom_field"} You are a fan! You really should read this!
{if:else}You're not a fan.. why are you even reading this?
{/if}

My plugin will be replaced by the value of the data in that custom member field. So, in this case, the {exp:va_custom_member data="field_name"} is replaced by the contents of the field for the member… so if we used data=”team_name”, it would be replaced with “bears” say. So then, in your weblog entries tag, or this if statement, you can test for whether the member selected the team name “bears.”

In other words, your statement should read something like this:

{if {exp:va_custom_member data="team_name"} == "bears"}You are a Fan! You really should read this!
{if:else}You're not a fan.. why are you even reading this?
{/if}

Hope that helps!

Oh, as a note–if the member never selected any data (the field is blank)–this plugin will faithfully show that–it returns an empty string (if the default parameter was not set). Not a Null or anything…. perhaps the next revision will allow a parameter to return a FALSE or something similar in those cases.

If it’s not clear, let me know!

I have added two custom profile fields to my forum - studying and Study_Method and want those to appear in the forums.

I have installed the Va_custom_member plugib and inserted the following code into my forums themes_threads.php template as follows:

Unforunately nothing is returned.

The plugin is working because I can the default to “Not selected” and that appears or set member_id=”x” and get the correct data for member x.

I just wonder if I need to tell it which member to return the data for?

Can anyone help please?

Thanks

Mark

Thanks for trying out my plugin!

This is interesting, I’ve not used this in a forum setting. But you say it works if you set the member_id specifically? Intriguing. I assume that you actually HAVE data in the studying and Study_method custom member fields for this user? I know that I’ve been caught out when I didn’t have any data in my custom member fields.

Okay, you’ll have to use the member_id parameter. Reason being is the plugin in its default state assumes you want the info of the currently logged in user. In a thread setting, you’ll want this to be for each poster’s post, so that will change. So, hmmmmmm. Try using this as a parameter in my plugin: member_id=”{author}” and tell me what happens. Also try it with {author_id} and see what happens. It may just work!

Hi

Thanks for the suggestion - tried it but same result - nothing returned.

Mark

Lol, I just edited right as you posted. Try it with {author_id} and tell me what happens.

Same result - nothing showing on where it should

Mark

I’m working on a new version of my plugin that solves this issue. 😊 Testing has it working for the forum, I just need to finish testing a couple of other changes.

I’m sure this amendment will prove really useful to lots to people wanting to pull information across to the forums.

Look forward to seeing it - and thank you very much for spending the time to develop it.

Regards

Mark

I’ve updated this plugin with a TON of new functionality. Now you can use this in the forum, MagicMarkuk. You now only have to have unique category names within a category group, not totally unique. You can use this plugin to translate category names into category id’s for, say, weblog entry tags.

You can now reset the plugin and use multiple member’s data on a template; you can use the username and not just the member Id anymore. This plugin will, I think, be far more useful.

I’ve edited the first post with the new download. Full instructions and descriptions of how to use it are in the plugin, once installed.

I hope this new version is useful! Please post any questions/bugs etc here!

Is there any way this plugin could spit out multiple categories?

I have this:

–category heading —-sub-heading 1 —-sub-heading 2

And I have a field in the member field which corresponds to the category heading name. When I use the plugin it gives me one category ID number. Perfect.

{exp:weblog:category_archive weblog="proofing" backspace="6" show="{exp:va_custom_member:category data='company_name' auto_format='no'}" parse="inward"}
{categories}
<h3>{category_name}</h3>
{/categories}
{entry_titles}
<a href="http://{path=SITE_INDEX}">{title}</a>

{/entry_titles}
{/exp:weblog:category_archive}

This gives me the one heading, but is there any way to pull out and children ids of the same heading? If so, this would solve alot of problems in an extranet I am trying to build.

OR is there a way that I could assign a category group with the same name as my custom member field? This way I could assign a category group a company_name, then pull this ID number in with the plugin. This would allow me to display multiple categories per member login, instead of limiting it to one category specifically.

Make sense?

Interesting. Right now, this plugin is aimed primarily at a single tag setting; mostly to facilitate much of the purposes of this plugin. Expanding it to an opening/closing tag could be done, I guess.

The second suggestion would fit the plugin better. I’ll see if I can update the plugin with that functionality.

I see what you mean about pairs. Look forward to any updates that are put into this and glad the suggestions are possible.

Can’t wait.