Give your users a new website address!

[James Cridland]

Just a bit of fun, really, but this bit of PHP allows each of your users to have a website address of their own. It looks for a username's profile - if that username has set a homepage, it'll forward off there. If not, it shows their user profile.

As an example...

http://james.cridland.users.mediauk.com/ is me - but I've set my homepage to Virgin Radio so it'll go there instead.
http://paul.easton.users.mediauk.com/ is Paul - but because he's not set a homepage in his control panel, it just shows his user profile.
http://olly.benson.users.mediauk.com/ is Olly's own site.

This is an ideal way of giving your users something extra - a redirectable website address.

Code is enclosed. Have fun with it.

[Erwin]

Very cool. :) I may use this. The only problem is that some users may have questionable sites that uses this, and it would take forever to go through thousands of profiles. This hack has no approval system. But it's cool nonetheless.

[Goldknight]

Nice hack but I agree with Erwin about approval system, if it does and I will install.

But still, good job with hack

[Abbas]

Yeah, an approval system is definetely needed for this.

Excellent idea though!

[Floris]

Approval system in the form of what everything else uses on vB - moderation.

[ManagerJosh]

I'm thinking also perhaps the number of posts a user must have before getting such a page. No sense having blank pages for users who only post once or twice, then forget about your forums.

[James Cridland]

This hack only sends a redirect. It doesn't "frame" the information (though it could): there's therefore no obvious editorial link.

In any event, there's no difference between this link and the link you already give to all users in the form of their homepage: and you have been moderating those, haven't you? ;)

ManagerJosh - I can easily add a "number of posts" addition into this hack if it would be useful. Better would be a check when the user last visited (which is also easy to add), so that it only works, say, if the user has been to your site in the last three months. I don't like encouraging people to post rubbish or "Me too" just to keep their account active: just visiting should be enough.

[MarkB]

Is this easy to set for just a specific user group?

[James Cridland]

It is now. v1.1 (in the top message) lets you only switch on redirecting to "external" websites for one particular usergroup. It's also easier to configure.

[Erwin]

Originally posted by James Cridland
This hack only sends a redirect. It doesn't "frame" the information (though it could): there's therefore no obvious editorial link.

Someone can still put a link from your site on a separate page and people will click on it thinking it's going to your site, but it redirects to a porn site or something. :) You're right, it should be monitored definitely. Having a separate usergroup is a good idea.

[slideboxer]

Is there a way to edit this so that it integrates with vbJournal Lite? If a user creates a journal then the web address simply points to their journal page?