Hi and thanks for the FANTASTIC! WP plugin!

I am just getting started on setting up SPF as an integral part of a homepage and marketing plan for a client. Check back sometime to see how I am developing it. I will post this in “Show Us Your Stuff” after we get some action going

http://www.optorehab.net

MY SUPPORT QUESTION:

(WP2.6.1 SPF313 dreamhost)

How do I display the first and last name instead of user name?

After I created the forum, ad the “admin”, I created my client account “laurie” in WP with the “Role” of editor. Then in SPF, I included her as a moderator in the two forums I had created.

I then read the SPF help and went to WP “General Settings ” “Membership” and checked the box   ”Anyone can register”

That did not help.

Logged in as “laurie”, I went to the user profile and changed the name display to first and last name.

that did not help

Now, within the WP application and on her posts in the blog, she is identified Correctly with her full name with first letter caps “Laurie Chaikin”. On the forum as you can see at the bottom of the forum in the stats she is identified as a Moderator with her username “laurie”.

I tried to remedy this by going to SPF “manage user groups”, deleting her as a moderator and then adding her as a member again but that did not work.

fun,

http://radicalism.us

Ooooooh. Sorry. I am a n00b to working with forums.

You kick ass! This support forum (unlike other places I try to get support) is fast, you read and understand my post and answer it, and you are not insulting like some other support forums I won't mention. And this plugin is A+++!

You can see the logic of this display name: her moderation, posts and the bottom of the forum assert credentials to a community of medical specialists she seeks to atrack to the forum and potential clients.

http://www.optorehab.net

fun,

http://radicalism.us

Well It took me a second to figure this one out.  (not more than a second though)  I was having a similar problem.  But contrary to the one above my display name was set to the correct name nevertheless did it came out as the login name.  I had Collect and Display Extended Profile: turned off since my users need to register directly on WP and I don't want to confuse them with 2 places to register and login.  I was thus looking in the WP profile and not the Forum profile.  Changing the display name with the WP admin does not affect the Forum Profile.

Why are those not connected?  My users are requeried to use their real name on the forum but do not get the forum profile button (again I don't want to confuse them with 2 profiles)  So basically if they have registered with a nickname they are not capable anymore to show their real name in the forum (even though they change the display name in the WP profile) unless I turn the Collect and Display Extended Profile: on.

Does this make sense?

Cheers,

Lizzy

No  - I think you just about covered all of the facts accurately!

This has it's basis in a little history coupled with a popular user request from the early days of the plugin. So - the history: I am not sure what WP does these days as I have not checked but certainly in the first few versions in the life of the forum plugin the WP 'display_name' field would remain empty unless the user specifically dealt with the 'display name publicly as' option in the WP profile. And if it was empty it would load the login id into the user object that the forum uses. And a lot of people, including myself, do not want the login name exposed in this way. They also do not want their users accessing the inbuilt WP profile which is why we did our own login/registration forms etc.

Our first step was to ensure, if nothing else, that the WP display name, at the very least, was filled - defaulting to the login id. I would bet that on most forums people do not bother to fill their profile.

There were enough requests and discussions with some users at the time to warrant 'doing our own thing' and so it was, (with 3.1.2 I believe it was) that we introduced our own, separate display name data item.

I can honestly state that in the life of this suport forum I have only been asked twice about an option to display the name against posts as 'first name/last name'. And I have no easy answer to how you can achieve this short of asking your users to complete their forum profile record.

What I can suggest is that we could build this as an admin option - 'format for members name: (1) Use display name (2) Use login name (3) Use first name/second name - for example. This would still always trickle down to login name for thos eusers who do not fill in their profile but it would give you the option you require.

No - 2 users only. You were the second!

It doesn't sound to me like a bad option to include. Someone else will ask sooner or later.