I’m at a loss for working on member templates - because I’ve just spent way too long on a member template for a site and it was/is driving me mad. Does it work? Yeah, but what I’ve done just seems so non-EE and…dirty. This is a call for help or advice on what others have done when developing member templates - either the stock ones or totally custom versions. I think I’m about to write a small book, but any responses as to how you have attacked similar problems, no matter how brief, would be appreciated.

Here’s my situation on this site:

1. I have members. There are 3 extra custom profile fields I’ve added to the members page:
- First Name
- Last Name (separating these really helps sorting member lists by last name…how else would one do that?)
- a dropdown for three different types of member that has no effect on member groups or permissions
Basically the only thing a member entry does on this site is tell you what permissions you have (Super-Admin, Member, etc)

2. I have a members weblog that I call “Extended Member Info”. Entries here relate to a single member. I have a number of fields in here:
- Bio (with Textile formatting)
- hobbies, sponsors, join date, etc etc. Lots of extra info.

There is one field called “Member ID” for which I developed a custom extension called “Related Member” (based largely in part on Robin Sowell’s related gallery extension). What that does is make a dropdown and pull from members any member who does not already have an entry in this extended weblog. If they do already have an entry, this will not show as a drop down, but as text showing the name and ID of the member this entry belongs to. That way you can never duplicate a member in this weblog. (see attached pics). Is there a better or more efficient way to do that?

3. I have a weblog for Executive Positions. These would include President, Vice President, Executive Director, etc. There is basically one field in each entry in this weblog - and that’s a relationship to an entry in the Extended Info weblog.

So, I can have a member called John Smith, who has all his extended info stored in an entry called “John Smith” in the extended info weblog, and he also happens to be the President of the organization.

I really don’t think I can do what I need to do on a page with the default member templates, so I’ve constructed a template manually with the query module. I’m using the method discussed on this thread: “[Solved] Custom member templates using {include:content …hack?” and the directions for which are found in more detail at over this this thread and outlined by smallbeer to at least hide or “disable” the EE-driven member template. To sum that up, I’ve changed the profile triggering word to something that no one will guess, to essentially disable EE’s built-in member template.

Why did I do all this?

1. I don’t find the custom profile fields robust enough. I needed to add a date field for each member, and I want to be able to control formatting on each field just as I do on regular weblog entries. Therefore, I thought it best to put any extra fields possible into a related weblog - that has a single entry for each member. So, a member on my site has a member entry, but also has an entry in a weblog called “Extended Member Info”, which contains many more fields, including date fields, etc.

2. I’m not sure the default member profile template can embed or include content from anywhere else. Can I embed a template in the default EE member template that has info pulled from a related weblog entry about the member I’m viewing?

3. I want my URLs to have the member’s name. I am just NOT a fan of numbers in the url that don’t describe what’s on the page, especially if I am able to do so. I personally would much rather see:

than

4. An article written in the articles weblog can relate to a member or members. I know I can relate a weblog entry to another weblog entry, or even multiple other entries using Mark Huot’s multi-relation extension, but can I relate an article to a member or multiple members? With my method I know for sure I can relate a single article to 2-3 entries in the Extended Info weblog.

Why is all this not cool?

1. Major query module usage. Not a big deal, because that’s what the query module is there for, but a major shot to the productivity on this site as I work out these crazy queries in Navicat, and then have them sitting there all ugly on my template.

2. There may be an easier way. If there is, and I don’t jump off the roof first after hearing about it, I’ll be grateful for whoever pointed me in the right direction. Lisa. Derek. Sue. Ingmar. Others too numerous to name. *ahem* Anyone…

If there’s one thing I’ve learned using EE, it’s that the more I learn, the less I know, which I think is a good thing. I just think I need a little advice from more seasoned pros on how to handle member templates, relating members to entries, and storing lots of custom member info. Thanks.

Ditto all of that. Great observations Ryan. I’m really hoping that EE 2.0 heralds a huge shift in how member based templates are handled, ideally do that you can develop and deploy just like any other template.

Thanks for chiming in, Nathan. I thought I was alone and crazy thinking all of that. Well, I’m crazy, at any rate. You should see the kooky queries I’ve put into my custom member template(s) on the site I’m developing right now.

I’ll tell you what, now I know to quote MUCH higher on jobs that require messing with the members area at all.

Yea, I’m working on my first site which has significant member features, it’s turning into a total nightmare. I’ve also got another 2 coming up which will be using significant amounts of member stuff, unfortunatley it has to be the job with the tight deadline that I’m cutting my teeth on! :/

I have a question for you actually, I’m trying to hard code some checkbox and radio select custom profile fields into my member templates, have you done anything similar?

I haven’t yet done anything similar to what you mention.

Hi guys,

I am new to the forum but I have had some experience with customising the Member Templates

I would be happy to help with any of the form field entries and the related checks in the member modules needed.

You can email me at vsimoss@stadon.gr if you would like advice, pointers or even already set code.

However:
I have a question about the Member Templates and dynamic embeds from the Custom Templates. Why is it that the {embed=”“} tag is read as a text entry in these templates but not in the other groups under *site/ for example?

VCF

Ryan:

I completely agree. I’m going to have to set up my site almost exactly as you describe, and I expect that I’ll have to make heavy use of the query tag, or just write some custom PHP scripts that talk to EE’s database directly. I don’t like the idea, but I don’t see another way.

Speaking of hacks, it did occur to me that there is an existing way to relate a weblog entry to a member: the author field. You could use “author” as meaning “related member,” at least in theory, and then retrieve their custom profile fields with

You wouldn’t be able to use template caching for any page on which you did that.

Maybe this thread should move to Feature Requests.

Best,
Ben