Miscellaneous Hacks - Preferred Name (Display Name)

This minor template edit will enable your users to have a "Preferred Name" instead of their username showing on their posts and navbar. Users would still log in using their username and password just that their preferred name would show up instead of their username.

This will not change the displayed name in the "Who's online" box.

This would be a good protection against cases where an admin from another site steals passwords. Meaning they try to log in with the password of a username they recognise. But in the end, it isn't really the right username. Regardless .. this is a feature that would be useful to some members.

Step 1.

Go into your Admin CP
User Profile Fields
Add New Profile Field
Single Line Text Box

Name: Preferred Name
Description: What would you like to be known as on the site? you will still use your username to log in.
Required: Yes, Always
Private Field: No
Field Searchable: No
Show On Member List: No

Leave everything else the same.

Make a note of the user field number that is assigned to this field (for this example, we will use Field5)

Step 2.

In Styles & Templates

Open Navbar (Under Navigation Templates)

Search For:

$bbuserinfo[username]

Replace With:

$bbuserinfo[fieldX]

Where X is the field number from step 1.

Save.

Open up Postbit / Postbit Legacy (Depending on which one you use.

Search For:

$post[musername]

Replace With:

$post[fieldX]

Where X is the field number from step 1.

Save.

Step 3.

Click Language & Phrases.
Search For Phrase.
"Thank you for logging "
Click Edit.

Replace with:

Thank you for logging in, $bbuserinfo[fieldX] .

Where X is the field number from step 1.

Done. No more template edits.


THANKS TO

• Kirk Y
• DJ RREBEL

REMEMBER TO CLICK INSTALL

[Faltzer]

Personally, this needs to be a hack, not a template edit.

[auteejay]

Where would this condition need to be inserted, before or after $bbuserinfo[field5]? I tried to modify my code but no luck.

Originally Posted by Kirk Y

You might want to consider changing the replacements to:

<if condition="$bbuserinfo['fieldX']">$bbuserinfo[fieldX]<else />$bbuserinfo[username]</if>

Otherwise people who haven't set a "Preferred Name" won't have a Username.