Gossamer Forum
Home : Products : Gossamer Forum : Discussion :

New User Direct

Quote Reply
New User Direct
Hi,



Is it possible to direct a newly validated forum user to thier profile on each sign up till they have filled in the blanks so to say?



Thanks!
Quote Reply
Re: [Teambldr] New User Direct In reply to
That would be fairly user unfriendly don't you think? I know I'd say good riddance to such a scheme.

My .02 bits.
Quote Reply
Re: [ArmyAirForces] New User Direct In reply to
It depends on how it is used.

But thanks for the opinion.

Now all I need is an answer.
Quote Reply
Re: [Teambldr] New User Direct In reply to
Hi Brian,

Take a look at the user_first_action option, under Setup -> Users. It allows you to direct the user for their first login. Note that there's also a <%current_user_first_logon%> tag available to detect whether or not this is actually the first login.

The second part gets more difficult. The easiest way to go about this would be to use a sort of redirect if the desired fields aren't filled in. Maybe not even a redirect - an annoying reminder link at the top of the page if the user hasn't filled in the desired fields. So, you'd do something like:

<%ifnot current_user_homepage%>
<font color="blue">Just a reminder - you should enter your homepage from the
<a href="gforum.cgi?do=user_profile;<%hidden_query%>">Profile</a> page</font>
<%endifnot%>

If you really want to force them there, on category_list.html you'd put the appropriate meta refresh tags between the <head> tags. I'd be careful doing this though - not being able to view the main index until you enter your profile data might annoy some users.

Jason Rhinelander
Gossamer Threads
jason@gossamer-threads.com
Quote Reply
Re: [Jagerman] New User Direct In reply to
nifty, a nice little function to have Laugh

openoffice + gimp + sketch ... Smile
Quote Reply
Re: [Jagerman] New User Direct In reply to
Hi Jason,

Good info...

But what if I wanted to have a "message bar" at the top of the page (sticky posts) that contained a message reminding a person to fill it out till they actually did and then the message would change to whatever the message of the day is?

I understand the annoyance factor so making it a message rather than a redirect may be a better option but would require a special message bar (sticky note) per forum with a global variable (if new user with no profile data give link to edit user profile/if profile populated then show forum specific message/if no forum specific message show global message).

Or maybe even this option would be better:

If new user w/no profile population give link to update profile (line one)
If forum specific message available display it here (line two)
If global message available display it here (line three)

So all available messages would post in the sticky note. Cool

Last edited by:

Teambldr: Aug 26, 2002, 5:25 AM
Quote Reply
Re: [Teambldr] New User Direct In reply to
You could do something similar in the forum_view.html template as well.

Jason Rhinelander
Gossamer Threads
jason@gossamer-threads.com
Quote Reply
Re: [Jagerman] New User Direct In reply to
Thanks Jason.

How can that be broke out by forum though? This way an applicable message could be added based upon the forum.
Quote Reply
Re: [Teambldr] New User Direct In reply to
It would take some heavy customization and hard-coding of forum_id's in your template. You could also have it display alternate between displaying a note to the user to fill in their profile, and displaying the forum_desc field.

Jason Rhinelander
Gossamer Threads
jason@gossamer-threads.com