I’m feeling frustration, so bear with me, and I hope that I’m not too abrasive…

The membership function in Expression Engine is pretty horrible.  The rest of Expression Engine works great, with each component integrating quite well.  And then I find myself trying to work with the membership function and templates, and I wonder whether the same team of designers worked on that section.  It is so out of place from the rest of Expression Engine that it feels like the software equivalent of putting tail fins on a Porsche…

There have been some great updates over the past couple of years.  But it is really time for someone to take a good look at the way membership functions are being handled, and you need to consider ripping out the old system entirely and replacing it with something that fits Expression Engine a little better…

A few things that a usable membership function should do…

The function and templates should integrate with the regular EE templates.  I should be able to work on membership templates in the same way that I edit my website templates.  I shouldn’t have to maintain separate CSS pages, and I shouldn’t have to recreate my main website templates if I want my membership pages to have a similar look and feel as the rest of the site.

It really should be capable of drawing membership information from a separate database, so that people who want to use the database for other purposes can do so, also allowing people to use a superior membership database that they might already have in place for the purpose.  Just create a control panel page which will map the membership to an external database, identifying all the required fields that need to be referenced and allowing for a generous number of additional data fields.

It should be possible to maintain membership expiration dates, identifying what membership level a person drops down to upon expiration.  Obviously if the system were using an external database, a third-party program could handle this function…

A member should be able to be in more than one membership category at a given time…  A helpful function for websites that have multiple weblogs, and would like to assign access rights independently.

It should be possible to easily turn off or totally discard functions like Instant Messaging, Private messaging, Subscriptions, Avatars and Photos…

It just seems so bizarre to me that Expression Engine was designed to be so easy to fully customize for just about any purpose, and then you provide a membership function and database which works like a straitjacket.

I am sure that there are other people out there who share my belief that this really needs to be a top priority for PMachine…

You are absolutely right!

Hi Douglas,

thanks for your feedback. I’ve moved your feedback over to Feature Requests since that’s what this is

Thank you Douglas! Your analysis has almost the same items I would like to see improve in EE. I’m hoping that EE2.0 will definitely restructure all templating. Not only the member-module, but the forum, wiki, and all other module-templates as well. What I would like to see is that it’s possible to create various member-templates (printer-friendly version, full-version, IE-version, whatever) and be able to show them based upon the restrictions I choose for various pages. At the moment I can create all these versions, but show only one of these templates. Or maybe two if I abuse both the forum and the member-module.

I too tend to agree with Douglas…

I was somewhat hoping to hear from someone at PMachine as to whether or not the membership databases and functions are on the agenda for a rewrite…  I am currently in a difficult place trying to decide if I can wait for Expression Engine to become useful in this area or if I have to figure out a different path… 

Any information would be greatly appreciated…

We always encourage a developer to base decisions on site development on what tools are available now.  Even if we were planning on the exact changes you requested, we would not make an announcement of such as we don’t discussion future features or release dates for upcoming products.  There are dozens of reasons but the most important is that would lock us into a specific direction even if down the road we discover that it would be better to do <x>, and also if something changed or fell short of a previously announced feature, it would incur the wrath of those expecting it.

Some of your frustration is from not really having a grasp of the membership system as it’s intended to be used, and spending time with those areas and becoming familiar with what is capable out-of-the-box may be enough to alleviate concerns to go ahead and choose EE for your project.  If not, that’s fine too; EE is a Swiss Army knife, but sometimes might still not be the tool that an individual needs for a certain job.  Other bits that you mentioned are things that others in the community have mentioned, and we take all of these comments into consideration as we move forward with product development.  2.0 will bring many positive changes, but there’s no way that I would comment on a specific feature being on the table or not, nor would it be wise for you to make decisions on site development based on a product that is not even out yet.

I have to say that I totally agree that the membership template structure is frustrating.  We definitely charge to have that area customized, as it takes quite a bit of time, even if you are familiar with it.

But, it’s a small price to pay for the overall awesomeness that is Expression Engine.

Strangely enough, I came here to post almost the same thing. I’ve made extensive use of ee membership features for the first time in my latest ee project, and it is really a struggle. Full support for the OP’s requests, plus two more:

- There shouldn’t be 2 different member pages when you add a forum - this is confusing (not for me, but for my members). To make it as easy as possible for them,  I’m trying to get the two pages to display the same info - obsolete work, really. I know this can be difficult, as not every site has a forum, but maybe it would be an option to “switch over” member and membership display to the forum way when (if) a forum is installed?

- The default member templates are much too sophisticated. There should be a stripped-down version, like the developer-theme for the forums (making use of all the functionality without design stuff).

Douglas Lorenz - 18 November 2006 03:56 PM

A few things that a usable membership function should do…

The function and templates should integrate with the regular EE templates.  I should be able to work on membership templates in the same way that I edit my website templates.

All I can say is, AMEN TO THIS! And, please!

jtnt - 05 December 2006 09:35 PM

Douglas Lorenz - 18 November 2006 03:56 PM

A few things that a usable membership function should do…

The function and templates should integrate with the regular EE templates.  I should be able to work on membership templates in the same way that I edit my website templates.

All I can say is, AMEN TO THIS! And, please!

I will quietly and oh-so-lovingly third this sentiment.

Fourthed.

There are areas of EE that seem unnecessarily balkanized.

I’ll take the Fifth. And a tall glass with some ice.

Agreed.  This alone was what made me skip over EE last year for a major project.

Great product, but the OP is absolutely right.  That area needs work.

Seventhed?

I too agree that the membership section needs a bit of work.  I ran into the “duplicated functionality” thing when I installed the forum module, and I just avoided the whole issue by running any and all membership-related matters through the forum module.  Logging in, your profile, the memberlist, all is from the forum module.  (This also has the annoying side effect of redirecting people to the forum whenever they log in, but I guess that can be tolerated.)

I would seriously like to see the membership module’s templates revised and better integrated, both into the main site and the forum.  I should be able to include the appropriate tags for membership functionality as easily as weblog entries, and there should not be two separate sets of templates depending on the existence of the forum module.

And on that matter, the forum module is kind of hard to skin.  It would be nice if there were more “automatic” or “free” tags for its templates…

I’ll throw my voice in here too.  I’m just about to enter into the dev phase of a rather major project and am going to use EE.  I’m dreading the membership functionality - I’m going to have to do some rather serious hacking to get the functionality that we need for this project. EE in general is incredibly flexible and that is what has drawn me to the product - the membership system and the forums are not flexible at all however, and this is a all the more striking because the rest of the CMS is so well thought out.

This should be a serious priority IMHO.

I’m currently analysing whether or not EE is the right move for a user-oriented site I’m building and it seems pretty clear that the membership templates will be a big red X in the overall pros and cons. I appreciate that there are (probably very good) reasons for the way in which the system is currently setup but it’s very inefficient from a developer’s point of view. If I do go with EE I’m going to have to accept that fact that users will be viewing two seperate interfaces as the main design features a lot of dynamic content which will not be feasible in the membership areas with this current system.

Perhaps I’m just being spoilt by the flexibility of all the other features of EE, but I can’t see any reason why the whole package shouldn’t be just as nice to work with.

I also agree.

I’d also like to have different welcome messages go out to different member groups on signup.

and

Personalized messages.

Jer

I, too, agree with the membership issues.

It’s one of the reasons I’ve been harping on vBulletin integration, so that the membership ‘issues’ are handled by vBulletin. (That’s what happens with Subdreamer CMS.  Once you integrate with vB, the membership profiles, templates, etc are vB’s)