Adding custom fields with custom controls to the user page

feature
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Before I start, I just want to say as a non-technical, completely un-savvy individual: Discourse is amazing. From the much-improved UX to the growing list of amazing features, this “forum” (and I use that term loosely, as I see it as being in a different class as far as communication tools go) is a whole different animal than anything I’ve ever seen. Thank you to the co-founders as well as all the many contributors for your work in building this.

With that said, I’ve been working on creating a community for experts and novices. There would be a community for them to have open discussions (Discourse), and also a way for experts and novices to speak 1-on-1, requiring that I set up profiles for each expert. My plan was to integrate some of the experts’ community stats (# of likes, # posts contributed to, etc) and maybe even their most recent posts into their profile, but now I’m wondering if a better alternative would be to scrap using a new profile and instead use their discourse profile as their site profile.

So my question is this: Is is possible to customize Discourse profiles to include functionality such as fields that would list their expertise, an interactive schedule, a method for payment processing (via PayPal/Stripe/Credit Cards), and reviews/ratings? And have these features shown only on those categorized as “experts?”

Or am I better off creating site profiles and integrating forum activity into these profiles?

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Sure look at Admin, Customize, User Fields.

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Thank you for replying.

I don’t yet have Discourse installed. Can you (or anyone else) share examples of profile customizations? They don’t need to be related to the features I listed above, but it would be interesting to see some of the ways others have been able to modify it as I try to wrap my head around how that would work.

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I suggest following our easy 30 minute install guide, then you’d have your very own instance to play with and grow. :wink:

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That would cost money in any situation, or in the very least, handing a credit card over to a third party to get a few hours with it. The former is why I haven’t done that yet either and have to wait until March.

@alfalfasprouts, I can say that sticking with Discourse this long (even not having installed it anywhere for dev purposes) is worth the wait. I suggest perusing the forum here and seeing what else Discourse can offer you. If it all is green across the board, then the investment to shell over a credit card to run up a VPS for a few hours to test is well worth it.

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There is a $10 free credit code included in the blog post. As one month of Digital Ocean costs $10 it is a de facto 30 day eval.

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I am glad that is there for those who wish to try. But a fair warning to others: if you go over that limit and add funds for extra time and then realize you put too much in, DO will take out from that credit code. So please make that month worth it. I can’t get my extra 7 dollars back I put in because I didn’t realize they had that stipulation.

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The cost is not as big of a deterrent as my complete lack of coding ability. Even if i was to install discourse tonight (and I still plan to), I don’t know the first thing about how I would implement any changes to the profile or how I would build any of the functionality I listed above. I am in the process of trying to hire a developer and am just looking for guidance about whether this was even possible and how I might explain this to a developer unfamiliar with Discourse.

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All the customizations we are referring to require no more than a web browser. No special knowledge needed.

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You don’t need to spend money at all. Just install Discourse on your local computer and test it out.

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As far as I know there is still no way to display these custom user fields on the profile page itself. :frowning:

(If I’m wrong I’m sure someone will quickly correct me!)

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:wink: In the options for each custom field is the “Show on public profile?” option.

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Maybe I’m confusing myself and this is all really simple, but just to confirm: I would be able to feature elements likes the ones below within the user profiles? They wouldn’t be links to these features, but would actually show on the profile pages themselves.

Screen Shot 2015-02-15 at 11.08.38 AM.png1198×1000 39.6 KB

Screen Shot 2015-02-15 at 11.07.00 AM.png1504×848 18.2 KB

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What I was referring to is a simple custom text field on the user page containing times, PayPal email address, URLs etc. Not custom date picker controls and so forth.

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Ok, sorry, that’s what I was trying to get at. So then:

  • Yes to adding basic text fields
  • No to modifying the profile template to include imbedded functionality that would be visible on each person’s profile

For the latter, is this not possible period? Or is it just not simple like adding custom fields?

What I’m asking is: Could I hire someone to add this scheduling, review, etc functionality to the profile “theme”?

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Requires an SSD for regular speeds, for developing at least. Again, I have to wait until March to get one.

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Hey, i am trying to setup custom fields and they are not showing up on the user preferences page. I am using SSO from wordpress and I would like users to be able to expand their discourse profile. Also is there a way I could add these fields to the wordpress registration so it sends them to discourse to automatically fill out? I know how to add the fields to the wordpress registration page but I do not know how to send them to discourse.

EDIT: Got it to show up, still want to know about sending the value via sso.

3 Likes