Extended Profile for Kunena

1. Short overview

Kunena forum has standard profile fields and in some cases people want to add more fields to user profile. Extended Profile for Kunena provides additional fields for Kunena profile to make it looks similar to a social network. New fields can be edited from Kunena profile directly. Also there is a nice feature displaying icons with contry flags in topics and profile that make forums looks more social.

This extension comes with two plugins: profile plugin to extend standard Joomla profile and Kunena plugin to display new fields on Kunena side.

2. Installation

Extended Profile for Kunena can be installed as a typical Joomla extension. You must go to Control Panel (Joomla back-end), then go to Extensions > Extensions Manager > Install. Choose .zip package and install it.

Installation package is shipped with two plugins:

  • Profile plugin that extends standard Joomla plugin
  • Kunena plugin that dispays new profile fields in Kunena profile layout

There are two localisations included by default: English and Russian

Please do not forget to enable both plugins after installation.

3. Configuring the extension

After installation new fields are available as a part of standard Joomla profile. It means user must to fill new fields when he is registering on the website. New fields will be displayed on the user's profile page. Also new tab "Extended profile" will be appeared in Kunena profile edit mode. So, a user can edit it there. Extended profile is a part of core Joomla feature which provides webmasters to construct profile with custom fields.

By default our profile plugin comes with the following fields:

  • Land phone
  • Mobile phone
  • Address
  • State
  • City
  • Country - a list of countries grouped by continents appears in profile edit mode
  • Education
  • Year of graduation
Flag icons packby GoSquared (http://www.gosquared.com/) and distributed under MIT license. You can examine full package by following to author's URL and take extra icons (if required).
Github repository: https://github.com/gosquared/flags
Extended Profile for Kunena - list of countries
Extended Profile for Kunena - list of countries

Profile plugin has no parameters to edit from the back-end.

Kunena plugin has two parameters which can be configured in back-end:

  • Display country flags (Yes / No) - display flags in topics in sidebar below users' information.
  • Flag icons size (select 24x24 or 32x32 icon pack)

4. How to add custom fields to profile

It's possible to add custom fields to user profile or remove existing ones. To make this you must open FTP and edit following file:

root/plugins/user/extendedprofile/profiles/profile.xml

...
<field type="spacer" name="Contact Information" label="PLG_EXTENDED_PROFILE_CONTACT_INFO" />
    <field name="landphone" type="text"  label="PLG_EXTENDED_PROFILE_CONTACT_LAND_PHONE" />
    <field name="mobilephone" type="text"  label="PLG_EXTENDED_PROFILE_CONTACT_MOBILE_PHONE" />
    <field name="address" type="textarea"  label="PLG_EXTENDED_PROFILE_CONTACT_ADDRESS" rows="3" cols="30" />
    <field name="state" type="text"  label="PLG_EXTENDED_PROFILE_CONTACT_STATE" />
    <field name="city" type="text"  label="PLG_EXTENDED_PROFILE_CONTACT_CITY" />
...

Here you go with the customisation. So, you can add a new field or replace the existing with the new one. Localisation should be placed at language/en_GB/en-GB.plg_user_extendedprofile.ini

PLG_EXTENDED_PROFILE_CONTACT_LAND_PHONE="Land Phone";
...

If there is another language besides English in use, you can provide its localisation according to this example.

5. Editing the list of countries

If you want to edit the list of countries, you have to open the following file: root/plugins/user/extendedprofile/profiles/profile.xml

Let's consider adding Monaco to Europe. Here is the structure:

...
<field name="country" type="groupedlist" default="" label="PLG_EXTENDED_PROFILE_COUNTRY_LABEL">
    <group label="PLG_EXTENDED_PROFILE_COUNTRY_EUROPE">
        <option value="mc.png,PLG_EXTENDED_PROFILE_COUNTRY_MONACO">PLG_EXTENDED_PROFILE_COUNTRY_MONACO</option>
...
Please do not forget to link new country with flag icon. You should use abbreviation with two symbols related to your country or ogranization whose icon is stored here: plugins/kunena/extendedprofile/icons/ (with folders 24 and 32)

Now it's time to add localisation. Open te following file: language/en_GB/en-GB.plg_user_extendedprofile.ini and add a new string there:

PLG_EXTENDED_PROFILE_COUNTRY_MONACO="Monaco";

You also can remove unnecessary countries or groups or construct own list according the forum idea. It can be grouped according language, geography, business, political interests and etc. Examples: Francophone countries, Game League, Scandinavia, Asian Economical Club etc. So, you can construct the list of countries that match your requirements.

6. Localisation of the plugin

The plugin comes with several language localisations by default. You may need to provide localisation of profile fields to your language. There are two ways to do that:

  • Create new localisation .ini file
  • Use language override feature in Joomla


Create a new localization file

To create a new file with localisation you must open original file: language/en_GB/en-GB.plg_user_extendedprofile.ini

Now you can translate it to your language and save the file according to local settings, i.e. de-DE instead of en-GB.

Language override

You should open original en-GB file language/en_GB/en-GB.plg_user_extendedprofile.ini

Search for the names of langauge strings. For instance:

PLG_EXTENDED_PROFILE_COUNTRY_AUSTRIA="Austria";

Now you can go to Administration panel > Extensions > Langauge manager > Overrides

Click on "New" and fill in the fields.

  • Language constant - i.e. PLG_EXTENDED_PROFILE_COUNTRY_AUSTRIA
  • Text - translation in your language. I.e. Österreich