Not even one response?? :/
Come on guys… There must be something… 🙂
Registration is a wordpress core process witch need a username and an e-mail for security purpose.
BuddyµPress use also usernames (or whatever you name it) and the user e-mail.
I found a few plugins that let users log in with their facebook, google etc accounts. Since facebook and google don’t use usernames, how is it possible for BuddyPress to accept those accounts?
I mean if those plugins can work around usernames, isn’t there a way to disable them completely?
@panoravu,
you asked for any clean solution for my members to register without using a username.
Registering is a WP process who need a username and a email. Those 2 information are provided by the user at his first visit when he decide to subscribe to your site, OK ?
Now you wonder how FB or Google can connect without username ? They use it ! But don’t show it to you, but fill in the username at your place during the login process, which is not the registering process, WP search the stored username and find the accordance between this name and the email provided by FB or Gg.
On the same maner, if you create with help of a plugin a WP account with your FB account, FB provide a username and a email. The username and the email you give on registering to FB. Again, this is made silently in the background.
These subscription tricks have only one target: simplifying user’s life. Don’t imagine because you don’t see the whole process, that some information are not needed. In our case, you don’t see the username, but it is still there.
@chouf1 thank you for your response!
I tried the WP-FB-AutoConnect plugin and now I’ve got a better idea of how things work. If someone registers with their FB account (lets say John Smith), it will automatically generate the username John_Smith. And if another person registers with the same name, the username will be John_Smith2.
I didn’t have time to test it thoroughly, so I have 2 more questions:
1. I saw that in most occasions it shows the Name along with the username. That’s acceptable. Are there any occasions that shows only the username? That would be ugly!
2. Would the users be able to search for one another with their regular names (like FB) and not with their usernames?
On a regular BP install, you have Name (aka pseudonym), used to show the username publicly . The first & last name are WP fields you can see only on the dashboard when you edit a user. At this place, WP gives you some choices between different names to use. Depending on your own BP settings – allow WP & BP members synchronization, this choice maybe work or not (never used this personnaly – i always allowed synchro)
That said, you have no control over what user type into a name field. Nore on WP/BP register fields, nore on FB or any other forms. Using external service such as FB maybe simple for the end user, rarely for site admins, as you experimented already.
You could also use Gravatar, it would be the same principe: one place to fill in a form and use it all over the web for any further subscription.
If you want more control over such things, you have not much choice except to be independant from external devices. And even in this case, some user will enter two names or more into the Name field.
I don’t know if searching by (last)names instead of username is possible. Users must know the real name to search for it. And so far i know, real names are generally not used/showed on public sites, for many reasons. FB is a kind of exception, but who gives you the guarantee that each FB user use his “real name” ?
Why do you absolutly want your user to use FB autoconnect to enter on your site ?
Have your regular user the same possibility when they want to enter FB ? No !
@chouf1 thank you for being so explanatory!
Let me explain what I need/want. I do mind for the looks of the community I’m building. That means that I want my site to be eye appealing and easy to use. In my opinion designing a beautiful UI is one thing and there are many more. How users/members see each other inside this community and how easily they can search and find one another is important to me.
There are three main reasons that I prefer real names over usernames:
1. They are more easy on the eye. It’s better to see “John Smith” than “john_23” or “johnny_s_12”.
2. It is easier to find “friends” searching with real names. When I meet someone they introduce themselves with their names, not with usernames. So, later I can search for them with ease.
3. When registering using usernames, there are many chances that your first 3 or 4 choices to be already taken and you would have to select a username that even you couldn’t easily remember or like. But if the only parameter for uniqueness was the email address, you could use the same name as someone else without any problems.
I know that users might not want to use their real names, but I want them to have the choice…
As for the FB autoconnect, it’s not something I “absolutely want”. In fact it wasn’t even in my original plans. It came to me as idea while I was searching for ways to work around the usernames.
@panoravu,
I give you my opinion and tried to explain you how this is working. Maybe i’m wrong, maybe not. And my english is not the best for explaining such subtilities.
Perhaps others like @hnla or @mercime will give you better advice.
