Make other Profile fields parse as URLs?
 

The homepage profile field automatically parses as a URL.

On my site, I have two profile fields that would be dramatically improved if they were automatically treated as URLs (they are entries where a player can put a link to a RL picture and a character picture).

Is there a way to do this?

Thanks!

If they're just URLs, just edit the appropriate templates to include <a> tags...

I don't want *ALL* of the profile fields to be parsed as URLs.

For example, user profiles on my vBulletin have 6 required fields and 9 optional fields.

1 required field is email address, the other 5 are plain text.

Of the optional fields, 1 is a URL (homepage), 1 is signature, 1 is birthday, 1 is custom user text, and the other 5 are plain text.

I want 2 of those last 5 to be parsed as URLs, rather than plain text.

Unless I am missing something, the template just parses through a loop and treats them all the same, thus I cannot edit each individual one. Or am I missing something and not remembering or understanding correctly how the profile template works?

The two fields I want treated as URLs are called "Your Real Life Picture" and "Your Character's Picture."

I just used the Template Search function to look for those, and the search turned up nothing.

Am I just not understanding the way the template functions for parsing the user profile fields?

Ok, from further reading through the various files, everywhere the custom fields are handled (either for changing them or for viewing them), the code always says this:

$customfields

However, I cannot find where it is that I can edit that.

I have done numerous searches to no avail. :(

Look in functions.php for profile[fieldx].

Be sure to replace the x with the profile field number you are looking for.

Even further investigation has found that this is the template that handles the parsing of the custom fields:

getinfo_customfields

To test this, I changed that code to this:
Now, the problem is, that turns *ALL* of my custom fields into URLs. Obviously, that is a bad thing.

Is there any way to only have it change a couple specific ones into URLs?

I don't imagine if() statements work here. :p

Ok, I am looking through that file (admin/functions.php) and when I search for profile the only place it comes up is here:

Line 260: eval("\$post[profile] = \"".gettemplate("postbit_profile")."\";");

Line 283: $post[profile]="";

Ugh. I hate reading code I do not fully understand. It makes me feeling like a programming n00b all over again.

As I read further, could it be THIS that I need to modify?

member.php lines 1379-1399:
Maybe this line (1395):

$profilefield[value]=$userinfo[$profilefieldname];

Should be changed to something like this? ==>

or


???

Problem solved due to something I read in another hack.

Zzed's hack found here had code for making an image show up in a profile field.

It turns out I was looking in exactly the right place, but I just needed to know the proper php syntax to do this properly. I must say that I am shocked to learn that PHP uses "and" and "or" instead of "&&" and "||". What kind of language doesn't use && and || ???????????

Anyway, this is how I accomplished the hack:

I changed this line (1395):

$profilefield[value]=$userinfo[$profilefieldname];

to:

Problem solved! :)

Does anyone see any problems or flaws in my hack?