Joomla website for university student portal!

[neonfish07]

So, I've volunteered to create a "student portal" for my university website. It would be used for news, announcements, events, discussions, class information, ect. (Oh man! What have I gotten myself into!?)

The main issue I first had in this project was to make ensure that only students and faculty can register. (Think Facebook!) In order to limit registration only to students and faculty of my school, I used the [url=http://]DomControl[/url] plug-in to require that you must use the school e-mail (@fiu.edu) to register. It works great!

Since only students and faculty are issued the @fiu.edu emails, the plug-in effectively prevents anyone not associated with the school from registering! 

DomControl:
http://extensions.joomla.org/component/ ... Itemid,35/



Now I am confronted with two more issues, and I could use the help of some Joomla-ers (Joomla-ians?) to resolve: 

• First off, I would like to use the students real names in place of the user name. For instance, if a student comments on a news article I would like it to say "Steve Jobs" instead of "Stevie2038"!
  
  
  
  
• Next, I would like the students to login with their @fiu.edu email addresses instead of their usernames. Something like this for example:
  
            LOGIN                         
                      E-mail:
            [¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯]
            Password:
            [¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯][submit]
  

How can I accomplish these two things? I've thoroughly searched every Joomla resource I could find and haven't found any (simple) resources to aid me... I'm a newborn Joomla-er and relatively new at PHP (I've only been studying it heavily for about a month now) so any guidance would be appreciated!

Help me Joomla! I throw myself at your mercy! 

Thanks,
Andy

[RAGEDBULL]

I have done this before, you need to modify the code in com_register look for @ signs to see which functions evaluate email addresses.

I have done this before with postNuke (another CMS) for a site that does the exact same thing you do, eventually I will be moving it to Joomla once I am done with a much larger project.

Check out what I have for my student portal, for 8 Rochester area schools :-) : [GLOBAL MOD EDIT: Self Promotion Link Removed - ChiefGoFor]

I might be a good resource for you, as I plan in 2 months to start a complete Joomla install which will do all the things neccesary to create a site like this.

[neonfish07]

I have done this before, you need to modify the code in com_register look for @ signs to see which functions evaluate email addresses.

I have done this before with postNuke (another CMS) for a site that does the exact same thing you do, eventually I will be moving it to Joomla once I am done with a much larger project.

Check out what I have for my student portal, for 8 Rochester area schools :-) : [GLOBAL MOD EDIT: Self Promotion Link Removed - ChiefGoFor]

I might be a good resource for you, as I plan in 2 months to start a complete Joomla install which will do all the things neccesary to create a site like this.

Cool site! I'm looking forward to your Joomla port... 

I managed to get the e-mail handling working for registeration (it now only accepts @fiu.edu) domains, but now I need to make it so the users login with only their email/password rather than user/password.

Any chance you can lead me in the right direction? 

[RAGEDBULL]

Yep, you modify the html:

Remove the field for the user to enter a username, instead create a hidden form field with the same name, and set it equal to the field name of the email address. Or simply remove this field, and make sure there is no validation requiring it. Then in the php processing, find the first setting of the username variable and set it equal to the email address you get from $_POST[or is it $_GET?].

Though, in my implementation I still used user names, it makes it easier for users actually, but I can see why you would want only one.


-Eric

[neonfish07]

Yep, you modify the html:

Remove the field for the user to enter a username, instead create a hidden form field with the same name, and set it equal to the field name of the email address. Or simply remove this field, and make sure there is no validation requiring it. Then in the php processing, find the first setting of the username variable and set it equal to the email address you get from $_POST[or is it $_GET?].

Though, in my implementation I still used user names, it makes it easier for users actually, but I can see why you would want only one.


-Eric

Okay, this is the original code (from comprofilier.html.php):

Code: Select all

    <tr>
      <td class="titleCell"><?php echo _REGISTER_UNAME; ?></td>
      <td class="fieldCell"><input type="text" name="username" autocomplete="off" mosReq="0" mosLabel="<?php
      echo _REGISTER_UNAME; ?>"  size="40" value="<?php if (isset($row->username)) echo htmlspecialchars($row->username);?>" class="inputbox" /><?php
      echo getFieldIcons(1,true,($ueConfig['name_format']!=1), sprintf( _VALID_AZ09, _UE_UNAME, 2 ), _REGISTER_UNAME); ?></td>
   </tr>     
   <tr>
      <td class="titleCell"><?php echo _REGISTER_EMAIL; ?></td> 
      <td class="fieldCell"><input type="text" name="email" mosReq="1" mosLabel="<?php
      echo _REGISTER_EMAIL; ?>" size="40" value="<?php if (isset($row->email)) echo htmlspecialchars($row->email);?>" class="inputbox" /><?php
      echo getFieldIcons(1,true,($ueConfig['allow_email_display']==1 || $ueConfig['allow_email_display']==2), _REGWARN_MAIL, _REGISTER_EMAIL); ?></td>
   </tr>

I deleted the "username" table row and placed this after the "email" field:

Code: Select all

<input type="hidden" name="username" autocomplete="off" value="<?php if (isset($row->email)) echo htmlspecialchars($row->email);?>" />

For the value of the hidden username box I just copy + pasted the value of the email box (Since we want username + email to have the same value, righht?) When I uploaded this, the field for username is gone, but when I submit the form a JavaScript warning box appears telling me to complete the username field.

Obviously, my knowledge of PHP is rudimentary, so could you please tell me why this approach didn't work?

This is a great opportunity for me to learn, so your replies are really appreciated!