User Profile Fields permission issues

[JarkkoL]

Hi,

I posted this thread to vBulletin.com forums, and was adviced to post it here instead:

I have created a plugin for forums which uses User Profile Fields. I have a problem with permissions of the fields though. I like these fields be only visible to the user and some to be editable by the user while others require admin to set the fields.

Problem #1:
If I set a field to be "Private Field" in user profile field settings, it wont be accessible through $post[fieldX] in php of the plugin either, so I can't use it.

Problem #2:
If a field is private but isn't editable by the user, then it's not visible to the user either. Private fields which are also editable do work fine, but I can't allow users to change some of the fields but only display the value.

Problem #3:
I tried to create a User Profile Field Category, but while $post[fieldX] works in this case the problem is that you can't set default privacy option for the category (the default is "Everyone") and there is no "None" option in the privacy settings for the category (only "Everyone", "Registered Members", "Your Contacts" and "Your Friends").

So, how can I create private fields which are accessible through $post[fieldX] and so that all the private fields are also visible to the user regardless if those are editable or not?

Thanks, Jarkko