I am not sure if I should have posted this here or in the modules help forums. As the Profile modules is a core component, I chose here. I've posted before about some issues that I think need to be addressed in the Profile module, without getting much response, although Ghia did help me solve one of those problems (items 1 & 2 in my previous post). These are the issues or problems that I've had on my installation at http://www.aka.org. They relate to the search utility.

1. Every search item has * after it, implying that it is required, which is not true.
2. Dates are auto-entered both in core fields (like last login date) and fields that I've added (like member renew date). These auto-entered fields are a real nuisance. For example, for the member renew field that we use, the renew date is later than box on the search form auto-enters 1969-12-31. To use the calendar drop down to enter a useful date is painful, as you have to click repeatedly to change the year. Alternatively one can enter the date manually. Such a long ago date is just not useful for real searches. Similarly, the Renew Date is earlier than box auto-enters the current date. This is also not useful as it excludes many of our members whose expiration is some time in the future (that is most of them, in fact). It would be MUCH better to have a NULL value entered into these fields such that for many searches the field can be ignored and for those where one wants to limit by dates, they can be entered.
3. You cannot make all date fields not searchable. If you do, the search function breaks. You have to include at least one date field. This should not be the case.
4. There seems to be no way to specify the order of results. For me the results fields come up in no particular order and certainly not a logical order.
5. If you do a search and get more hits than specified per page in the results, you will see links to additional pages at the bottom (i.e. 1, 2, 3 >>). If you click on a subsequent page, such as 2, the resulting page includes all results (on my system some 41 pages of results. The links generated to subsequent pages appears to be broken. The only way I can get to a full set of results for a search that generates, say 45 hits, is to enter 50 or some higher number in the Users per Page box.

I appreciate everything that programmers do for XOOPS and all the help I've received here. I would just like to know if these problems are on the radar and, if so, an approximate time line for a fix.

Barry Cooper

Hi Barry, I'll take a look on this and also on the registration steps bugs. I'll try to have this fixed until the weekend. Thanks.

trabis,

thanks very much for your response. I realize that not every issue can be fixed instantaneously. I am happy to know that these issues are being recognized and I'll eagerly await news about possible fixes. If there is anything I can do to help clarify the issues or to test possible fixes, please let me know.

Thanks again,

Barry

Thanks Barry.
I cannot reproduce bug #1, look at xoops.org
I'm aware of bug #2 but did not worked out a solution yet.
I cannot reproduce bug #3, I make all fields(including 2 extra datefields I've added) not searchable and form works has expected.

What order you sugest for number 4#
uname?

Bug #5: Did not look into it yet.

trabis,

thanks for your efforts so far.

After receiving this report from you I realize that the insertion of the asterisk (*) after the search term name is theme-specific. If I use an alternative theme, it does not appear. I'm sure now I can find the solution in the theme and fix it.

For bug #3 I'll have to try again. I'll report back.

#4. The search form respects the weights set for the module fields. When one does a search for a last name, for example, one gets a list of hits. For me these include username, email, Last Name, Join Date, Renew Date (these two are custom fields), Member Since, Last Login. It would be nice if what appears on this results page were user customizable. For example, I would like to specify that First Name, City, State, and AKA # (all custom fields) appear. I realize that this may have to wait for the next version of Xoops.

If one clicks on a username in that hit list, a list of the visible fields comes up. These are not in the order specified in the field weights and that's what I'd like to see fixed. That is, the fields displayed for the individual found user should be in the same order as specified in the module field weight settings.

If it were useful, I could provide you with a registered user name on my site (aka.org) and give you whatever level of access is required to see these things. We would have to do that by PM of course.

Barry

Barry, you need to make a draw to me!
Quote:

If I click on a username I go to user profile. Is user profile not respecting weights?
Is the problem on search.php columns header or in userinfo.php fields?

Quote:

i also used to have this problem with some theme last time

what line actually in theme that results the asterisk * in every XOOPS form ?

hope this can be fix

The asterisk (*) is specified in the file modules\profile\templates\profile_form.html.

You can eliminate the asterisk by commenting out the line as follows:



What I don't understand is why the asterisk appears in some themes and not in others. Perhaps trabis can help explain that. The theme I use that it does appear in is zen-ocean (which I have modified slightly and called aquarium on my site.

[Edit] I think that template file is used for other forms, including entry forms, in the Profiles module. If so, a more elegant solution might be to change the code such that the asterisk only appears in forms where the element is required. I'm not a programmer, but the code appears to include an "if" statement to insert "-required" in such a case. Trabis, would the following be legitimate, rather than commenting out the line?

Change:



to:



I still don't understand the difference in behavior between different themes.

Barry

trabis,

my main point relates to the result that one gets when one clicks on the link to a particular user after doing a search. This is most easily illustrated by going to my site. I have given you a user name and password, which I'll send by PM. Log on to http://www.aka.org, click on Find Members, then search for, say, Last Name begins with Cooper. You will get a number of hits in the resulting page. Click on bcooper (which is me) and my profile results will come up. You will see that the order of the results does not match the order in the search form, which is the order specified for the field weights in the profile module admin pages.

If you need temporary admin access to look at this, let me know by PM.

I still have not had a chance to go back to try again to make all date fields unsearchable for some groups.

Barry

Sorry, I did not understood yet.
Can you reply to my question? What is the page?