Options Manager -- Profile Fields

These options are set from the Profiles tab of the Options Manager interface. These profile fields have the potential to affect both new and existing accounts, as noted below.

Display of Profiles

When profiles are displayed in the user interface, profile fields and the supplied answers are displayed. This section allows you to control how fields are displayed if the user has not provided an answer for the profile field, as well to control display in cases where users have opted to hide their responses from public view.

Empty Fields: These are profile fields for which a user has not provided an answer. You can select either "Display field name with no answer" to show the field name and the lack of any response, or "Do not display field name" to suppress display of the field name.

Hidden Fields: These are profile fields for which a user has provided an answer but has selected to hide the answer from public view. You can select either "Display field name with text "(Hidden)"" to show the field name and the word (Hidden) in parentheses, or "Do not display field name" to suppress display of the field name.

Fields - Reference

Enhanced user profile fields allow your users to supply additional information about themselves that becomes part of their profile. By default, Discus Pro comes configured to ask for a home page URL, age, occupation, and the like. It is possible to remove these fields, rename the fields, or add fields of your own. The software supports a maximum of 20 administrator-defined enhanced user profile fields.

The following columns are presented for your configuration:

• Display: You can choose from three options to control whether the profile field will be displayed when someone views the user's profile. The three available settings are:

  • --: No setting. This allows the user to choose whether the field is displayed. When editing the profile, the user can check a "Hide" box to hide a particular response. This setting is appropriate for most fields.

  • Hide: Field is always hidden. The field cannot be viewed through the user interface, although it can be viewed by moderators who look at the user account information through the administration program, and it is also viewable when reviewing a user's profile for a queued application. Note that the user has the ability to see and edit the content of this field when editing their profile. This setting is appropriate for private information, such as membership numbers, Social Security numbers, etc.

  • Show: Field is always shown. The field is always shown and cannot be hidden by the user. This setting is appropriate for information that you require your users to provide and share with others.

• Req: You can choose to require a particular field. If you check the "Req" box, a user must supply information for that field before the profile can be saved (or the registration can be processed, in the case of user self-registration). Note that requiring a field and displaying a field (previous column) are completely independent, meaning that a field could be both required and hidden, or not required and always shown, etc.

• Order: This controls the order in which the fields are displayed when a profile is viewed or edited. If you want to change the order of fields, you should use these ordering numbers (do NOT reorder fields by changing the text descriptions). As with reordering topics, pages, etc., you can use negative numbers and decimals for easy reordering. Discus Pro will choose appropriate integers when the screen refreshes.

• Type: Choose the type of field from among these choices:

  • Text: A plain text field with no special formatting, except for formatting added by the user. This is the most common setting for most user input.

  • URL: A URL to a web page. Discus Pro creates the hyperlink and also adds "http://" to the beginning of URLs if this important prefix was omitted by the user.

  • E-mail: An e-mail address. Discus Pro creates a mailto link to the e-mail address provided. Note that unlike the e-mail address associated with a user's profile, this e-mail address is never verified by the software, nor are automated e-mails sent to this address. In other words, as with all profile field data, e-mail addresses entered in profile fields are for display purposes only and are not otherwise used internally by the program.

  • Yahoo ID: A Yahoo! instant messenger ID. The ID is displayed along with a link to the appropriate status indicator obtained from Yahoo's instant messaging web servers.

  • ICQ ID: An ICQ instant messenger ID. The ID is displayed along with a link to the appropriate status indicator obtained from ICQ's instant messaging web servers.

  • Style Sheet: A URL to a style sheet somewhere on the internet. This style sheet is used to style the individual user's profile page for a greater degree of customization flexibility. This will be used only by the most advanced users and is generally not enabled. If you do choose to create such a field, you should create a maximum of one field with the style sheet type.

• Rows: Choose whether the box allowing the user to edit this field will have 1, 3, or 5 lines. For most fields, you will choose 1 line, which results in a standard text box to type input. More lines are appropriate for fields such as a personal quote.

• Description: This is where you type the description of the field, exactly as you want it to appear on the profile page. You may use Discus formatting tags in your profile description if desired.

Adding a New Field

To add a new field, proceed to the light blue box at the bottom of the "Fields" section. Supply values for display, required, order, type, and rows (generally you will leave all of those at their default values.) Type a description for your new field. Then go to the bottom of the screen to save your options. The new field will now appear at the bottom of the fields list (unless you changed the order).

Deleting an Old Field

To delete a field from your list that you do not want to use, locate the field you wish to delete. Select all of the text in the "Description" box for that field and clear that text. Repeat for any other fields you wish to delete. When you are finished clearing text, save your options at the bottom of the screen. The deleted fields will no longer show up in the list.

Changing a Field Description

You can change a field description at any time by editing the text in that field's description box. You can easily do this to fix any typographical errors or introduce additional formatting as desired.

Beware when making a significant change to a field, however. Internally, Discus Pro stores user data in a sequential block of 20 fields. Say, for example, that you wanted to change "Eye Color" to "Skin Color." If you made this change after people had already entered their eye color in their profiles, previously entered eye colors would now display as skin colors (and your now blue-skinned members may become upset). A better way to remove a field and replace it with another is to delete the field you no longer wish to use, and then add a new field. Of course, if you are setting up your fields before any users registered on your system, you do not need to be concerned about this issue.