Question about "@" names (Community Account Names)
Shahjahan Jewel I've found something that's super-confusing and alarming for the user. (And for me--haha!)
On the Fluent Community Edit Profile form, FluentCommunity gives the user the option to change their “@“ username, but then when the user tries it, FluentCommunity throws a popup that says, “Warning. Are you sure you want to change username?”
This "warning" alarms the user (which is bad), but then....
If the user confirms that they do want to change their “@“ username, FluentCommunity instructs the user to “Please choose a username matching with your first/last name or full name”.
Why does does FluentCommunity first alarm the user with a "Warning" and then insist that the user use their real name as their FluentCommunity @username? (Especially when the user is given the option to change it to something else anyway!)
If the user chooses an “@username like, “computerbrain” or "bigman" or even “john” (assuming their real first name is John) instead of their full name, will that cause any sort of problems?
Melynda Andrews changing a WordPress username is a critical security measure that is why there is a warning (its a good practise to warn a user in this case).
There is only one set of WP users (wp-admin user is the basic entity) and everything else is glued to that user profile.
UserName is a basic/core entity in the WP Users directory.
When you mess up with a userName then all related user data can be corrupted but also there are some cases where somebody else will take your previous userName and pretend that is you.
Example: when your userName was King and you change it to Queen then any new user can register your previous: King userName with a new User. Here in the community other users can mention that old userName but somebody else will be tagged etc.
When it comes to a user naming convention its up to the user to choose the right one and Admin can only suggest that its better to use related userName to the real person so it will be much easier for other community users to mention that user in a future instead of thinking what is the userName that should be used after the @AT sign etc.
ps. there could be also potential issues related to UserName changes like: caching, other plugin conflicts, database issues when data is not properly sync etc. So keep in mind all aspects like: confusion for other users, loss of reputation for a BrandName UserName, Typos and other security concerns (account hijacking).
Note: by default a wordpress doesnt allow to change any UserNames and you might know why.
Mat Thank you for your reply, Mat.
I am/was aware that changing the Wordpress username isn't a good idea. But that's not what happens when the user changes their FC Display Name on their FC Profile page.
The FluentCommunity username (the "username" field that's found in the fcom_xprofile and that's shown by @name under the display name) is different from Wordpress's username.
When a user first joins FluentCommunity, their Display Name is concatenated from their "First Name" and "Last Name" from the Wordpress usermeta table. The input boxes for "First Name" and "Last Name" that the user can edit on FluentCommunity's "Edit Profile" form also show their Wordpress First Name and Last Name--but only at first.
The user can change their First Name and Last Name WITHOUT changing their Wordpress username (or even their first and last name that Wordpress stores in usermeta!). Instead, the Profile Page First Name and Last Name are stored within the fcomxprofile table (again, not in the Wordpress usermeta).
For clarity, I'll explain my original problem(s) again:
Problem 1) When the FC Display Name is first shown on the site, it is made up of the user's First and Last name that FC gets from the WP user meta table--rather than from the fcom_xprofile table. (Though it's probably more proper to say that it comes from the fcom_xprofile table, which is initially poplulated from the Wordpress usermeta.
Problem 2) Even if the user changes their First Name and Last Name on their FC Profile page, the placeholder text does not change and always shows the First and Last name from the Wordpress meta table. (!!!)
At least it did when I first wrote this post 5 months ago. 🤣 I've not checked it today, and I do note that the FC roadmap has moved something about this subject to its "launched" column since then, so my efforts to correct these problems may have been needless, but correct them I did. :-)
To fix this, I wrote a plugin that
1) Forces FluentCommunity to use only xprofile.display_name.
2) On the /update screen, shows one “Display Name” box (which is really the "First Name" box, relabeled.
3) Hides the adjacent “Last Name” box.
4) Prefills the Display Name box from fcom_xprofile.display_name.
5) Saves what the user inputs in this new "Display Name" box to fcom_xprofile.display_name.
6) Caps the display_name at 40 chars on save.
7) Hides the username hint text
8) Changes the “Community Account Username” label to “@name”.
9) Rewrites the username-change confirmation popup text.
10) Prevents reserving/reusing any @name ever used by another user (but the original owner can reclaim it),
11) Disallows digits in @names and in display names.
I'll go check out what FC has done about this since I dinked around with it and come back here to report. 🫡