A WordPress Strategy Question - Author Profile Customization WordPress
- SOLVED
This is more of a strategy question than a code question -- not sure if it's OK to approach this here, but hopefully you bright WordPress minds can give me some guidance.
I'm in the early planning stages of a directory of sorts driven by WordPress. It's for a vertical market.
The idea:
Each member would have a user account on the site (Contributor with some role restrictions) and they'd be able to add content of various types: posts, images, video -- all would be moderated by Editors.
I was thinking the best strategy would be to customize (highly) the author profile pages and use these for the directory -- where each member's contact info, logo, posts, images, etc. would be visible in one place from a directory listing -- but I need to figure out some strategy for somehow categorizing the authors, or linking to the profiles from a categorized directory built from custom content types??
I'm trying to wrap my head around how this might be (best) accomplished with WP and/or if there might be a better strategy.
I put a bigger bounty on this in hopes that two or three savvy WP strategists might offer some insights and the bounty could be equitably shared.
Let me know if this isn't OK to do in this venue.
Answers (3)
John Cotton answers:
BuddyPress is certainly an option - you get a lot of functionality out of the box and it's straightforward to extent.
My one issue with it is the effort required to get a really good visual customisation if you want something that doesn't look and feel like BuddyPress. The functionality is very heavily tied in to the HTML and although you can child theme it's a slog (I've done it several times and it never gets easier...). It does have the hooks like WP itself, but they don't always help when you want something radically different.
So if design is important and the extra functionality that comes with BuddyPress (messaging members, tracking additions etc) not crucial to the project, then I'd go the custom route.
WordPress neatly supports infinitely extensible user meta and - from what you say - most, if not all of the extra stuff could be stored there.
A few custom HTML layouts could handle the front end and you'd be well on your way to achieving what you want.
JC
Scott McIntyre comments:
Hey John,
I agree with your assessment -- I've taken a hard look at a BuddyPress approach and the Multisite option -- and I've come away with the same issues you have. Our project is going to be highly visual in nature and BuddyPress just seems to make the design layer that much more difficult.
We may layer on some social networking functionality at a later date - at which time BuddyPress might be something we can look at.
So essentially (without me going into too much unnecessary detail) you think we can extend the user meta data with custom fields, etc. etc. to get info like company logo, address, blog URL, FB, etc into the presentation layer?
I guess my underlying question is -- If I use custom post types to manage the actual directory listings -- taking advantage of hierarchical taxonomies, etc. -- how do I get the visitor from the listing in the directory to the "detail" page (aka user profile archive page) where they can come in contact with all the content the user has posted.
Probably a dumb question(s) -- I'm just having trouble envisioning this aspect (I'm a convert from Coldfusion where I'd just clank this all together -- but I'm really loving working with WP -- it's changed our approach to client work.
John Cotton comments:
<blockquote> If I use custom post types to manage the actual directory listings -- taking advantage of hierarchical taxonomies, etc. -- how do I get the visitor from the listing in the directory to the "detail" page (aka user profile archive page) where they can come in contact with all the content the user has posted.</blockquote>
Take a look at this:
[[LINK href="http://www.golfbusinessnews.com/good-directory/adderley-barker/"]][[/LINK]]
It isn't exactly what you propose (since the content is not authored by the company themselves) but it's the beginnings of it. If they were a registered user, using this:
global $post; $author_id = $post->post_author;
would get the author id and allow this kind of thing within your layout:
echo get_user_meta( $author_id, '_date_of_birth', true);
echo get_user_meta( $author_id, '_favourite_food', true);
// Get a list of their posts
$query = new WP_Query( array('author' => $author_id, 'post_type' => array( 'post', 'page', 'attachment' ) );
// Loop on $query outputting list with links etc
// Get a list of their images/videos
$query = new WP_Query( array('author' => $author_id, 'post_type' => array( 'attachment' ) );
// Loop on $query outputting list with links etc
You could also set up some custom permalinks (eg http://www.a.com/user-profiles/john-smith) to allow access directly to profile pages. The hook 'template_redirect' is your friend for this.
Regarding using custom post types over standard one - CPTs definitely the way to go. I note Theo is having issues, but all those are fixable (particularly with some advice from WPQuestions!).
JC
John Cotton comments:
Not sure what happened to my link at the top:
[LINK href="http://www.golfbusinessnews.com/good-directory/adderley-barker/"]GolfBusinessNews.com[/LINK]
John Cotton comments:
Trying again...
[[LINK href="http://www.golfbusinessnews.com/good-directory/adderley-barker/"]]GolfBusinessNews.com[[/LINK]]
TheLoneCuber answers:
I've got a business directory built on WordPress (using standard WordPress post format --no Custom Post Types). But your strategy is very interesting and I like the idea a lot.
I'd be sure to investigate the Pros V's Cons of Custom Post Types, as they certainly have some pitfalls (namely permalinks, breadcrumbs, excluded from standard feed, etc). I read this post from Otto often! http://ottopress.com/2010/wordpress-3-0-and-custom-post-types/
I'd also be sure to consider the SEO powers of tags and custom taxonomies in the argument for standard posts.
Scott McIntyre comments:
Hey Thao,
Thanks for the info from Otto -- will definitely read.
That's been part of my hangup -- trying to determine if a custom post type structure for the directory side can still provide the seo entry points that we're needing as part of this strategy -- envision each category and subcategory of the directory essentially an optimized landing page of sorts.
Any other thoughts?
Scott
TheLoneCuber comments:
I have hang-ups on CPT v's Standard Posts every day Scott. Not sure I understand them well enough to decide for sure. But I do know that every time I play around with them I run into something that makes me thank myself for sticking with Standard PTs until I understand CPTs better. And until I find some work-arounds to some issues which really gripe me. Like the breadcrumb/URL mismatch (screenshot attached) which seems to be a common one. There might well be a solution to it, but I haven't found it yet. (Nor have I had the time to investigate it much).
But I just can't live with breadcrumb navigation and URL navigation displaying differently . Users don't know where there are, or what to believe.
I also know that custom taxonomies work very well for SEO, as do tags, and both are still a little more standard than CPTs.