A user requested a long-form text field type for user profiles that preserves line breaks and Markdown/HTML. unfairest asked if this could be done with limited coding knowledge or via a custom plugin, and inquired about budget. pfaffman explained that a plugin would be required to create a custom UserCustomField, modify the serializer, and display the field on profiles or user cards, estimating a cost of $500–$1000 for a basic implementation. chapoi later confirmed the feature is now implemented and linked to a related discussion on meta.discourse.org.
I would like to have a user field type that is for long-form text, so users could write paragraphs and have line breaks (and any markdown/HTML) preserved when it is shown in the user’s profile.
Could I achieve this myself with limited coding knowledge? I have done a little with Javascript, but I admittedly find backend development intimidating.
If this is best achieved through a custom plugin in the marketplace, what kind of budget should I expect to have?
I think you’d need to write a plugin to do that, as you’d need to create your own UserCustomField (slightly different from the ones you can create in the UX currently) to do that and then add it to the serializer, and then display it wherever you want it to show up. If it’s just one field, a place to edit it on the user profile, and then to display it on the user profile (when other users look) and/or the user card, I’m guessing $500-1000.
This is implemented now, see also