I need to create a “name registry” in WordPress (either Gutenberg or Elementor Pro) that will allow users to input their own information and create a new “name registry” listing. Trying bbpress.

The

alphabetical

listing of names should be presented and when a name is clicked, the supporting information is displayed.

Albert
Andrew
Agnes
Charles
Charles
David

There will be lots of duplicate names, but usually, the date, country, or some other info is different.

Supporting information example (when “Andrew” is clicked) is Date of entry, email, info:

Andrew Loftus – 1818
Australia

Do you have any knowledge of Andrew Loftus (Coachman) who was transported to Australia in 1818 after a trial in Co Mayo. He lived in Ballina but his wife Elizabeth Murphy, later lived in Crossmalina.

Peter Kenny
Sydney, Australia
pk@somehost.com

I have looked at forum plugins, directories, posts and cannot find a way to do this in WP. Most times the entry field descriptive text cannot be modified. Currently using the bbpress plugin but don’t see how I can modify the field text to ask users specific questions. I initially did it in html using a doku. But I want to covert this to WP and add the self-entered capability.

Any suggestions or pointers? Is bbPress a viable route for this?

[@robin-w Moderator 1 year, 8 months ago]

ok, for input, try

bbp profile information

which lets users add profile information.

[@robin-w Moderator 1 year, 8 months ago]

or maybe this if you don’t actually want bbpress in itself

https://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-add-additional-user-profile-fields-in-wordpress-registration/

[@loftus49 Participant 1 year, 8 months ago]

Robin W – thank you. I’ll explore both options but I think the first suggestion is close to what I’m looking for. I’ll install and experiment.

[@loftus49 Participant 1 year, 8 months ago]

The plugin “bbp style pack” seems to get me closer to what I’m trying to achieve. But it is daunting!

[@robin-w Moderator 1 year, 8 months ago]

for daunting read ‘full of options’

You need do nothing in style pack and bbpress will still work fine. you only need change what you want to

[@loftus49 Participant 1 year, 8 months ago]

LOL .. yes, “daunting” = “full of options”.
I’m getting there but lots of tweaking yet.

Then I need to find out if there is a way to import all the previous listings into the new “Registry/forum” without having to do them one at a time. They are in text files that look like:
—————————————————-
**Albert Loftus**

February 22, 1996

My name is Albert Loftus and I’m originally from Albany, New York. Ambassador Curley [U.S. to Ireland during Carter Administration] said Loftus is a Mayo name. County Mayo, Ireland. My father was William Francis Loftus. I’ll check out your page from time to time. Good luck,
Albert Loftus,

Dallas, Texas

[[start | Return to Registry Listing]]
——————————————————

I’ll need to use the name with the **Albert Loftus** to create a “Topic” subject then use the entire text to populate the Topic text field. The “list” looks somewhat like this:

——————————————————

Agnes Loftys Started by: loftorgadmin 15 hours ago loftorg

Albert J. Ward Started by: loftorgadmin 15 hours ago loftorg

Albert Loftus Started by: loftorgadmin 10 hours ago loftorg

Albert Loftus Started by: loftorgadmin 10 hours ago loftorg

—————————————————————————

[@robin-w Moderator 1 year, 8 months ago]

how many do you have?

[@loftus49 Participant 1 year, 8 months ago]

There are about 100 old listings from the early 90’s on. Some have email addresses and many do not. I’ll have to flag those that don’t somehow and encourage the original contributor (if still alive) to add an email address.

[@loftus49 Participant 1 year, 8 months ago]

BTW – I have this working up on a test site that you can view – if I’m not breaking any forum rules by supplying a URL. It’s merely a test site – go to the main page and click the button at the bottom of the page and it’ll take you to the design (in progress) of the bbpress “Registry” attempt.

Let me know if you want me to send you the URL.

[@robin-w Moderator 1 year, 8 months ago]

so is this one text file with around 100 entries or around 100 text files?

[@loftus49 Participant 1 year, 8 months ago]

Each entry is a text file – so about 100 text files. Each one is similar to:

**Albert Loftus**

February 22, 1996

My name is Albert Loftus and I’m originally from Albany, New York. Ambassador Curley [U.S. to Ireland during Carter Administration] said Loftus is a Mayo name. County Mayo, Ireland. My father was William Francis Loftus. I’ll check out your page from time to time. Good luck,
Albert Loftus,

Dallas, Texas

[[start | Return to Registry Listing]]

[@loftus49 Participant 1 year, 8 months ago]

In case you missed this:

BTW – I have this working up on a test site that you can view – if I’m not breaking any forum rules by supplying a URL. It’s merely a test site – go to the main page and click the button at the bottom of the page and it’ll take you to the design (in progress) of the bbpress “Registry” attempt.

Let me know if you want me to send you the URL.

[@loftus49 Participant 1 year, 8 months ago]

OK .. I re-read the forum rules and apparently it’s ok to put in a URL. This is the test site. There is an image on the home page with a button that says “Click Here” at the bottom. Click it and it’ll take you to the bbPress “Name Registry” attempt. https://loftorg.com

[@robin-w Moderator 1 year, 8 months ago]

thanks for that, now totally understand.

Given that you have about 100 to do and they are in separate files, it would take longer to write the code, transfer the files and then run the code through them, than to just manually copy/paste into topics.

sorry, I know it is boring, but it is probably the best way.

do 10 in the morning and 10 in the evening each day, and in a week it’ll be done

[@loftus49 Participant 1 year, 8 months ago]

Ok .. I sorta guessed that .. no problem doing them manually. I’m still testing lots of different things on the test site before I move it all to the live URL.

How would you suggest I handle the email addresses? Ideally, they will be required for new entries but not be displayed (malware harvesters). I could use something like Mailchimp to maintain a list of submitted addresses and keep private.

Also, I need to put a notice on entries that have NO email address (old ones I manually copy) that an address is needed.

Thanks for the help you’ve given. I really appreciate it.

[@robin-w Moderator 1 year, 8 months ago]

if you users are registering, you’ll capture their email address in that part of the process.

If you are allowing anonymous posting, then the ‘create topic’ form has an email field which is not shown apart from to you as admin.

[@loftus49 Participant 1 year, 8 months ago]

Your help and suggestions were terrific. Thank you.

Now, once the bbpress site is completed, manipulated, and refined in the “test” sub-domain, how do I move it over to the active domain? I have it in ‘test.domain.com’ and will move it to ‘domain.com’.

[@robin-w Moderator 1 year, 8 months ago]

ok, moving bbpress between sites can be complex.

Is the test site a mirror of the live site?

[@loftus49 Participant 1 year, 8 months ago]

How do I move the last two entries herein to a new topic?

At the moment, both sites are essentially empty. I’ll be unpacking a “cPanel” backup of an old HTML site to the “test” site then somehow converting all the HTML pages to WP pages. I will be replacing the old dokuwiki with bbpress and manually populating the bbpress forum with about 100 entries (topics). Once all is beautiful and operative with the “test” site I’ll move it from “test.mysite.com” to “mysite.com”.

Will the bbpress forum move with the website transfer to the new site or does anything proprietary to bbpress need to be done (e.g. new SQL Database) ?

[@robin-w Moderator 1 year, 8 months ago]

ah, ok that should all be fine.

bbpress just uses the wordpress posts and postmeta tables (with ‘custom post types’) within your website sql database, so if you move the whole site it will move with it.

No need to split this topic since it is all one logical issue 🙂

[@loftus49 Participant 1 year, 8 months ago]

Guess I should stop bugging you with so many questions. Really appreciate your responses. OK .. one last one:

As you know from the link (https://loftorg.com) I am using “Topics” in the “Registry” forum as the means to list individual names. How many topics can I list in bbpress before website responsiveness becomes affected?

[@robin-w Moderator 1 year, 8 months ago]

well this site has 7 forums with 131,555 topics. The ‘fixing wordpress’ support forum itself is powered by bbpress and that has over 700,000.

Measured in nano-seconds every topic adds to performance, but I’d suspect you’d struggle to measure any meaningful site slow down with 99.9% of sites with forums.

Ultimately it does depend on server performance and site configuration.

[@loftus49 Participant 1 year, 8 months ago]

700,000 topics. OK .. I guess my few hundred (expected) topics should not be a problem. Geesh. Thanks for the information…. again!

[@robin-w Moderator 1 year, 8 months ago]

no problem, glad to have helped 🙂

[@loftus49 Participant 1 year, 7 months ago]

OK .. the wheels fell off the cart. All of a sudden, the “Forums” are not showing up through the menu links on the homepage. https://test.loftusweb.com – then click either Forums or Registry in the top menu. Interesting that when the “magnify glass” in SEARCH is clicked, the Forums and Topics are displayed but not accessible.

The HTML pages (links on left side-bar menu) still work.