Thread

I’ve search the user guide, KB, wiki and forums but no luck with this so far.

Can someone explain to me the different between a member’s screen name and username? My initial expectation was that username would be url safe like a weblog entries url_title but that isn’t the case. I get it that a username is unique whereas a screen name doesn’t have to be but other than that, what’s the difference? is there one?

i’m trying to use the username in a url but i really don’t want to have to run it through some processing function (js or php) to make it url safe. i also don’t want to use the member’s id.

i am, by the way, perfectly fine with preventing members from changing their usernames once initially assigned.

If i’ve missed this somewhere in docs, feel free to call me on it.

I get it that a username is unique whereas a screen name doesn’t have to be ...

Actually, they do. EE requires screen names to be unique, too. Generally, the user name would be just that, a simple name known only to the user, whereas the screen name is used for purposes of public display (but couldn’t be used to login, eg.)

i’m trying to use the username in a url but i really don’t want to have to run it through some processing function (js or php) to make it url safe. i also don’t want to use the member’s id.

I am afraid these are really your best options. Neither for user names nor screen names “url safeness” is enforced. They may contain all kinds of special chars, spaces etc.

Screen name = the name that is displayed to others (in comments, forum-posts, etc.)
username = the login

The normal thing would be to use the member id in the url ..

- bjorn

Thanks - got it. Seems like we’ll just go with the member ID. We’ll trade off url sexiness for bulletproof safety and let people do whatever the heck they want with their user and screen names.

Sounds good 😊 Please post again if you need anything else.