Centralized Users (CUsers)

[Angryboy]

...Being restricting to the niche of small-business-sites, GetSimple is not considered to be suitable for sites demanding a lot of user interaction and ongoing content updates...

My aim is to make a change to this with a batch of plugins that focus specifically on integrating a user base with one's existing GetSimple site.

Centralised Users (or CUsers) was designed using n00dles001's excellent DM Matrix XML Database plugin. When installed and set up, users can:

• Register accounts
  
• Edit their profile details
  
• Reset their passwords if they've forgotten their login details
  

As the admin of a GetSimple site, you will be able to define members-only and guests only content for areas of your site, be they the sidebar or the main content. The primary benefit of CUsers however (and the reason for the 'C') is that users will only need that one signin to use any of the CU services that you install. You get to have a 'centralised' user base: one that doesn't rely on externally hosted services to supply certain needs (e.g. forum software, an externally hosted shoutbox or comments system). One login does it all, and it starts with CUsers.


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NOTE: THE BELOW INFORMATION IS FOR THE OLD VERSION OF CUSERS. Go to this post to see the new version.


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Setup

1. Download DM Matrix and unzip its files to the /plugins folder
   
2. Download Centralised Users and unzip its files to the /plugins folder
   
3. While logged in to GS, go to Plugins -> Centralised Users
   
4. Click on SETUP and it will go through the setup process:
   -> Creating the tables (CU_users, CU_settings)
   -> Populating those tables (with the data of users already registered on that GS installation)
   
5. After set up you will be told which files have been created.
   -> All users created in this process will have randomly generated passwords that will be sent to their email addresses.

Configuration and use

1. To change a user's display name/email address/password, you can edit the profile from the CU Panel in Plugins.
   
2. To display a sign up/registration form, use the following code:
   
   Code:

   <?php get_CU_form('signup', $captcha=true); ?>
3. To display a signin/signout form, call:
   
   Code:

   <?php get_CU_form('signin', $captcha=true); ?>
4. To show members-only content in the sidebar, use a PHP conditional (e.g. in a component):
   
   Code:

   <?php if(CU_signin()) { ?>
    members only content
  <?php } else {  ?>
    guests only content
  <?php } ?>
    content for all
5. To show members-only content on a page, use I18N Special Pages or Custom Fields to create a field that stores the respective content. Then to output it,
   use a similar conditional to the one shown above in the template file (or in the case of Special Pages, the VIEW tab):
   
   Code:

   <?php
  if(CU_signin()) get_special_field('members-content');
  else            get_special_field('guests-content');
                  get_special_field('content');
?>
6. To give a form for users to reset their passwords (their details will be sent to their email address), call
   Code:

   <?php get_CU_form('forgotpass', $captcha=true); ?>

Notes

• To disabled the captcha, change the $captcha variable from true to false.
  
• This plugin creates separate set of users managed from the ones that can access the back-end. So do not worry - users who register using this plugin will not be able to access your admin panel. The plugins that extend this one will focus on front-end integration, communication and management, so the security of the back-end will not be compromised.
  

Users can also be searched using i18n Search (if it is installed) - add the tag 'cuser' to the search query to only show your users.

The other plugins are almost finished. The message board -- previously MSGBoard -- underwent about 6 different rewrites over the last month and is now nearing completion. Shoutbox and threaded comments system were virtually completed almost 3 weeks ago, but I kept them to the side until I had the core CUsers plugin sorted and functional. Private messages plugin is also finished and configured to fit neatly into the message board, so it will be released once the board is done.

Snapshots of all of these plugins will be coming soon. I'm also hoping to write up some tutorials on the use of DM Matrix for plugin development.

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Changelog

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To-Do List

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Special Thanks

• n00dles001 for creating the fantastic DM Matrix plugin
  
• mvlcek for help with search integration and plethora of utterly extendable i18n plugins
  
• Jay Salvat for the markItUp! jQuery textarea editor which will be integrated with most of CUser's textarea content (for BBCode and HTML editing)
  
• Famfam for their beautiful web icons
  
• claviska for the Captcha script