Shortcode Question

@ Kristy

Actually no shortcode options are necessary as everything can be configured in the settings.

Since you want only registered users to submit and maintain their entry, you should disable the “Submit New Entry” action link and only have the “Add My Directory Entry” action link active.

That is noted in the doc for Form, perhaps this is not clear. Writing docs in not exactly my strong suit. If you have any suggestion on how to improve that not in the Form doc, I’ll definitely take the suggestions!

For what you are wanting, you only need to enable the action links covered in the docs for Link.

The only reason you would want both activate, and some users do, is so unregistered users can still submit entries to the directory.

As for user registration, that is not something that is built into Connections. You could add a link to the core WordPress registration page or you could use one of the many freely available plugins which offer a more configurable user registration process. Many of these user registration plugins offer a feature to auto login and redirect the user on a successful registration. You can take advantage of such a feature to redirect the user to the directory submission page.

If you want, you can use the Login extension to add a login widget to your sidebar. It is quite handy because it also shows the directory actions links (if enabled in the widget settings).

Hope this helps, let me know.

@ Kristy

Here’s the absolute most basic way to set up what you want.

• Disable the “Submit New Entry” link on the Connections : Settings admin page under the Display tab.
• Follow the instructions to configure Link. Only the config section of the docs, when you get the the Shortcodes section, stop.
• Add the Login widget to your theme’s sidebar.
• Enable the “Display the “View My Directory Entry” link?” and “Display the “Edit My Directory Entry” link?” options in the widget under the logged in user section.
• Save the widget.
• Make sure you have the “Anyone can register” option is enabled on the WordPress General Settings admin page enabled.

Now, in your theme’s sidebar you will see the typical WordPress login for. Underneath it you’ll see the registration link which will take the user to the standard WordPress user registration page.

After your user registers and they login in, the will see a link to add their entry if the do not have one and if they do they will see a link to view their directory and edit their directory.

Hope this helps!

@ Kristy

re: my only concern is that my website is open for everyone to register

No matter the solution you use for registration, you will have to allow user registration. How else would you verify the user has permissions? Keep in mind that WordPress “powers” nearly a third of the open websites. The WordPress user security is proven.

re: In the future do you think you will be adding a unique extension which would simplify the registration process?

Well, I have no plans to create a registration plugin because they are so many available. Many of which are very feature rich.

I have considered adding an option to the Link extension to create an entry when a user is registering. However, this would still use the WordPress user account and user registration process. It would likely only add a couple fields for the name, making them required. You know, to keep it simple.

Hope I’ve answered your question!