[Craig]

I love the new features and integration of both new versions, but unfortunately there are a few little bugs that prevent them from being easy to use and manage.

I followed the instructions for updating both, and now the ability to add or edit a user listing is severely restrictive. With the new way of doing things, the option to even see the “Add my Directory Entry” only appears if the user is already registered, even if you allow people to add listings without being registered.

So the user now needs to create an account first, which is fine, but then to login he is thrust back to the dashboard with no easy or obvious way to add a listing. The options to add or edit your listing are still in the dashboard, but they no longer function properly as they still point to the deprecated links for doing so which are no longer functional.

If I can somehow manage to direct the person to the new submit Directory entry page, I’m not sure how to customize it now with shortcodes as I was able to do on the previous form version. And when they do finally complete the form, they are left with no real way to follow up. They can’t see the entry to edit it or see it’s status, The links to edit your listing are gone, and you don’t get a confirmation e-mail stating what is happening. The only links left are the legacy links in the dashboard, but they are still pointing to the old /wp-admin/users.php?page=connections_link links which are now strangely still there but contain arbitrary and useless information that makes it appear as if the entry is broken.

A similar situation happens if a person tries to edit their listing when they have moderated edit rights. The edit submits, and the user receives no indication of what happened, their existing listing has now vanquished and they are sort of stranded with no idea what happened to the entry and that it’s gone until it’s been moderated. A better solution would be to keep the old entry alive until the changes are approved, or at the very least send them to a status page stating what happened and when the entry might reappear and why it disappeared in the first place. What would be great is if users could receive an e-mail instructing them that their listing is under review, and then lead them to a page that always has the links for submiting a new listing, editing a listing and the status of existing submisssions all in one place. Now that these functions are embedded, it would be helpful if we could get the shortcodes that point to those links so we can make a sort of admin page for the users that lists all of their options and status and doesn’t require that they use the dashboard. And of course, the dashboard entries should either be removed from their view or at the very least fixed to point to the correct functional locations.

The new functionality of Forms and Links 2.0 is great, but it seems to be in a state of being half finished.

To consider the flow of events as perceived by a new customer looking to add a listing, try to add a listing to my connections database. The old static page link is still listed at the bottom of the page so you can start with that, but if I didn’t leave that legacy link there would be no way for a user to even see an option to add a listing with the new method because he does not have an account.

http://www.travelhub.com/travel_agencies/

Even assuming I add text explaining that they need to register for an account and login first, they will be logged into the dashboard which is no longer functional for adding listings, and there is no easy way to direct them to the correct new location to add a listing. And finally, if they somehow do get through all of these steps and do finally enter a listing, when they try to edit it if they have full edit rights they are dumped right back to the edit screen instead of the listing itself, or even worse if they have edit with moderation privileges they are simply left lost in a limbo where their entry has vanished into the void.

Again, I love the new features, and I know these are relatively minor problems, but they effectively make the new versions non functional for real worlf usage.

As always, I know these problems will be addressed quickly as always, so my comments should in no way reflect anything but the fact that I love this plugin, and as an early adopter of new features I happily take on the risks of updating to new versions that may not be as stable as the older, more battle tested versions, and I happily await each new update so I can find more stuff to ‘break’.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Craig

I think this qualifies as the longest post ever here on Connections, lol! Let’s see… I do my best to address everything.

re: With the new way of doing things, the option to even see the “Add my Directory Entry” only appears if the user is already registered, even if you allow people to add listings without being registered.

Actually, this is the way it has always been. I’m just making it more discoverable with the action links. Ideally, I recommend using one of the many freely available registration plugins to handle user registrations.

re: So the user now needs to create an account first, which is fine, but then to login he is thrust back to the dashboard with no easy or obvious way to add a listing.

Most of those user registration plugin offer a method to redirect the user after a successful registration. You could set up the redirect to point to the to the add new entry page.

re: The options to add or edit your listing are still in the dashboard, but they no longer function properly as they still point to the deprecated links for doing so which are no longer functional.
These should function exactly as before. What are you seeing?

re: I’m not sure how to customize it now with shortcodes as I was able to do on the previous form version.

For the most part, every setting that was available to the shortcode can be configured on the Connections : Settings admin page under the Form tab.

re: And when they do finally complete the form, they are left with no real way to follow up. They can’t see the entry to edit it or see it’s status.
Depending on how you have the role configuration setup, the user should see one of two messages when adding an entry:

1. Your submission has been posted. (shown to users who can add entries which do not require moderation)
2. We will review and approve your submission soon. (shown to users who can add entries which require moderation)

You are not seeing these?

re: They can’t see the entry to edit it or see it’s status.
If the submission is in the moderation queue. That would be true, I think. I’ll have to test and possibly add a message alerting the user their submission in under review in the front-end.

re: The only links left are the legacy links in the dashboard, but they are still pointing to the old /wp-admin/users.php?page=connections_link links which are now strangely still there but contain arbitrary and useless information that makes it appear as if the entry is broken.
These links work just like before, no change. The user should still be able to edit their entry regardless if their entry is in moderation or not. They will receive a notice stating they can continue to make changes while the submission is awaiting review.

What are you seeing?

re: What would be great is if users could receive an e-mail instructing them that their listing is under review, and then lead them to a page that always has the links for submitting a new listing, editing a listing and the status of existing submissions all in one place. Now that these functions are embedded, it would be helpful if we could get the shortcodes that point to those links so we can make a sort of admin page for the users that lists all of their options and status and doesn’t require that they use the dashboard. And of course, the dashboard entries should either be removed from their view or at the very least fixed to point to the correct functional locations.

Thats what the list actions and entry actions are for. Do you have those configured? Maybe I can add a widget which will only show when a user is logged in that can be placed in the themes sidebar? It would be a handy place to show the links as well as a message indicating if their entry is in the moderation queue.

I added the suggestions of the email notification and shortcodes to my feature request tracker… I am trying to move away from shortcodes because they seem to be too difficult of a concept for many. I spend a great deal of support time on them. btw, the [connections_form] shortcode and its options still exist. They were not removed, so you could still use it. However, the list and entry action links would point to the integrated solution. So using it would complicate things and making it confusing which is why I have not documented it existance.

re: To consider the flow of events as perceived by a new customer looking to add a listing, try to add a listing to my connections database. The old static page link is still listed at the bottom of the page so you can start with that, but if I didn’t leave that legacy link there would be no way for a user to even see an option to add a listing with the new method because he does not have an account.

I suggest pre-registering the user first using one of the many freely available user registration plugins. Many support redirection on a successful registration. You could set up that redirect to point to the add entry page; the Form front-end or the admin.

re: when they try to edit it if they have full edit rights they are dumped right back to the edit screen instead of the listing itself

The user does receive an onscreen message that the submission is being save and then the page refreshes to the edit screen. This is pretty much how every “profile” editing process is in anything I’ve ever used, including WordPress. Where should the user be directed to?

re: or even worse if they have edit with moderation privileges they are simply left lost in a limbo where their entry has vanished into the void.

There is a onscreen message indicating that their entry is in the moderation queue after they submit it. The message should be:

“We will review and approve your submission soon.”

You’re not seeing this?

I think I’ve addressed everything, please let me know if I missed something.

After addressing everything, I think it boils down to you’re not seeing the onscreen messages for some reason. And the workflow could be improved by using a frontend user registration plugin [something I want to add basic support for in Form]. Is that a fair synopsis?

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