If you have integrated your bbPress with WordPress, you must have at least once thought about the problem of your users having two separate interfaces for modifying their profile settings.

Furthermore, if your bbPress and WordPress both use a good deal of plugins, you end up with a situation where some settings (say, email notifications for new WordPress posts) have to be set on a WordPress profile page, whereas other settings (for example email notifications for new forum topics or replies) must be set through the bbPress interface. This will confuse your average user so much that they will simply not use any of your website’s fancy features at all.

It would therefore be good to have just one user profile page that would merge everything from the two together. Preferably, this should also be a page that could be displayed within the website template, so that it would really look like being part of the website, and not behind a completely different-looking interface as is the case with WordPress user pages. (Those also scare people.)

Would this be doable?

I am personally not much of a coder, so I don’t know all the details of what is going on when the WordPress and bbPress profile pages get served, and how various plugins get to modify that process by adding new fields and buttons on those pages.

I assume, however, that the most difficult thing for a “one profile page to rule them all” sort of an approach that I am thinking about here would be to keep track of additions to those profile pages. It should somehow be able to notice that some new bbPress or WordPress plugin has modified one of those user profile pages, and incorporate those changes to the merged profile page that is actually displayed to the end user.

I would love to hear some input from those of you who know more than I do about the behind-the-scenes activity when it comes to user profiles in bbPress and WordPress. What do you think, how difficult would a plugin like this be to code?

[@aleskalex Member 13 years, 9 months ago]

hey, thanks timskii

it did great!

i’m under wordpress 3.0.5 and the latest version of bbPress

for defualt’s permalinks (standard profile.php?id=.. type)

you can try this replacement:

replace:

$my_profile_destination = $my_forums_directory.”profile/”.esc_attr( str_replace( ” “, “-“, strtolower( $user_login ) ) ).”/edit”;

with:

$my_profile_destination = $my_forums_directory.”profile.php?id=”.$current_user->ID;

isn’t there any WP plugin for this? we should take it into something more customizable. To make it easy to use, what do you think? I’m not experienced with lots of wp code but this could be helpful for others too.

anyone willing to help?

[@jamieskella Member 12 years, 10 months ago]

Is there a plugin for this yet, or can anyone confirm if timskii’s code still works? I really would like the bbPress profile to be the only profile non-administrative users can access.

[@jaredatch Member 12 years, 10 months ago]

There is no reason a user has to access the admin as the profiles can all be edited though front end.

This plugin will also help https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bbpress-no-admin/

[@jamieskella Member 12 years, 10 months ago]

I’m not sure you understand the issue I’m talking about, or perhaps I’ve misunderstood you.

When someone clicks on “Howdy, Name” they are given the option to “Edit their profile”. This takes them to wp-admin rather than their bbPress profile page.

I want to ensure all users except admins are directed to their bbPress profile page.

All that plugin you linked to does is stop users creating content once inside the area I don’t want them to visit at all.

[@jaredatch Member 12 years, 10 months ago]

You can do user registration and user login all on the front end using shortcodes and/or other plugins available – there is no reason the basic user needs to use wp-admin at all.

Shortcodes: https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/bbpress-20-shortcodes

[@jamieskella Member 12 years, 10 months ago]

This still isn’t clear.

Let me rephrase, for a specific example: in the top WP bar, how can I change the user’s “Edit profile” link to use their bbPress profile page?

[@jaredatch Member 12 years, 10 months ago]

You would want to disable the admin bar site-wide for “Subscribers”.

Then you would have a link in your site/theme that takes your members to the bbPress profile page where they can edit their profile.

If you disable the admin bar and use login/registrations forms via shortcodes there is really no reason for the users to ever use /wp-admin unless the specifically went to it.

[@jamieskella Member 12 years, 10 months ago]

So I suppose the issue here is that I then have to link to the pages – e.g. the registration page, the login page and so-forth.

Except these links would be static, so even if they had logged in that link in the header would still say “login”?

I’m not a coder, so creating dynamic user links in the header area isn’t something I can do.

Is there a plugin or code available to implement a dynamic login/user area like what is seen on this site?

[@jaredatch Member 12 years, 10 months ago]

Just use the bbPress Login Widget that is packaged with bbPress

[@jamieskella Member 12 years, 10 months ago]

I would like the login in the header as my first widget location is below the fold. Is it possible to use the widget code elsewhere?

[@jaredatch Member 12 years, 10 months ago]

Yep, but not without editing the theme and getting dirty with a little PHP.

[@jamieskella Member 12 years, 10 months ago]

And you’re not aware of any plugins that perform a similar task that also have a php drop-in facility to put it anywhere in the theme? I didn’t find any with a search.

Ultimately I’m back to where I began. I want to continue using the WP top bar but have the edit account option link to bbPress’s account page.

[@jaredatch Member 12 years, 10 months ago]

Ultimately I’m back to where I began. I want to continue using the WP top bar but have the edit account option link to bbPress’s account page.

No, I am not aware a way to easily keep the admin bar but filter the user link so that it goes to the bbPress profile page instead of your wp-admin user.

Something like this would need to be a custom plugin.

I mentioned various things you can do, without touching virtually any code, that would help keep users from hitting /wp-admin – unfortunately hacking the admin-bar is not one of those things.