Create a Table Style Layout for the User List Extension

Glad you are liking the plugin Jason!

I made a change in the last version to some of the logic that involves setting certain fields for search, filtering for meta values, etc. This change was implemented to provide additional functionality that was a user request.

It appears that the change I made actually broke some basic functionality involving filtering by meta key/values.

I’ll need to take a look at this block of logic and come up with a fix that correctly accommodates all the possibilities.

I think the change will be as follows:

In the file wp-members-user-list.php at line 154, you will find the following block of code:

/** add search/meta elements to the user query */
if( ! $search_by ) {
	$the_user_query['search']         = $search_term;
	$the_user_query['search_columns'] = array( 'user_login', 'user_nicename', 'user_email' );
} elseif( $search_b == 'user_login' || $search_b == 'user_email' ) {
	$the_user_query['search']         = $search_term;
	$the_user_query['search_columns'] = $search_b;
} else {
	$the_user_query['meta_key']   = ( $search_b )    ? $search_b    : ( ( $meta_key ) ? $meta_key : '' );
	$the_user_query['meta_value'] = ( $search_term ) ? $search_term : ( ( $meta_val ) ? $meta_val : '' );
}

Change that to this:

/** add search/meta elements to the user query */
if( ! $search_by ) {
	$the_user_query['search']         = $search_term;
	$the_user_query['search_columns'] = array( 'user_login', 'user_nicename', 'user_email' );
} elseif( $search_b == 'user_login' || $search_b == 'user_email' ) {
	$the_user_query['search']         = $search_term;
	$the_user_query['search_columns'] = $search_b;
}

$the_user_query['meta_key']   = ( $search_b )    ? $search_b    : ( ( $meta_key ) ? $meta_key : '' );
$the_user_query['meta_value'] = ( $search_term ) ? $search_term : ( ( $meta_val ) ? $meta_val : '' );

Please report back on how this performs.

(Also, after you let me know about that, I will break this conversation out to a new thread for the support forum – it’s kind of off-topic where it is now – not a big deal; I just want to let you know in case you need to find it later.)

Actually, this sounds like “Show labels” is set to “Yes”. It should be set to “No”.

I didn’t mention this in the original post, but I’ll update it to reflect that.

I’ve added them to my user list table but they’re appearing out of order

Actually, there is always an order, so it’s just not being ordered by the field that you think it’s being ordered by.

The default for the WP’s User Query (and thus, the User List extension) is to order by the user login field (regardless of whether you are displaying that field or not).

In the User List settings tab, there is a set of selectors for “Order by”. The first one allows you to select the orderby parameter. Only if you select “User Meta” from this list will the next two dropdowns apply.

If you select “User Meta”, then you need to select which meta field from the second dropdown to indicate which meta field you will order the list by.

It is important to note that if you are filtering your list by a meta field, you cannot order it by another without implementing a custom query filter as mentioned above. Applying a custom query via a filter function does allow you to use more complex queries.

While the association members need to be WP users to be displayed in the list, that doesn’t necessarily mean they have to be “users” of the site. But yes, you’ll need to import them.

For displaying the list, you can display all users or just activated users. It sounded like you want to display non-activated users? I’m sure that can be done, but I’ll need to look at how to filter the query for that. So maybe if you can clarify things on what exactly you want to display in the list.

Then, to view the list, if you put it on a page that is blocked, to view it the user would need to be activated (and logged in).

Hope that helps.

Actually, if you want to develop a mobile responsive layout, the CSS table display is the way to go. HTML tables are rigid and cannot reflow text. If you want something for a moble display such as on a phone, you’ll most certainly need to reflow the layout for smaller screens.

Let me see what I can come up with.

If you’re adding a field to be displayed, that’s part of the “fields” attribute. “meta_key” is only used if you’re filtering or ordering the list by a meta key value (which would require also the order_by or meta_val attributes).

Unless you’re setting up multiple instances of the list, all attributes can and should be set in the User List tab. So in this case, if what you want to do is add a field to be displayed, that should be checked in the “List” column in the “User List Display Fields” section.

Hope that helps.

The ‘wpmem_ul_user_list’ filter does accept the list ID argument.

The ‘wpmem_ul_style_path’ does not. ‘wpmem_ul_style_path’ runs in the document head, so any instance of the list is not yet known, so it wouldn’t be possible to identify a list ID for that. So if there are style issues in a site that is running multiple list instances where not all would apply these custom styles, then an alternate method of handling styles would be required.

Hope that helps.

I think you understand what I would like to do. I also could be getting too fancy too

You’re not getting too fancy. You’re actually moving the direction you should be.

Doing it the best way adds an extra function and that confuses a lot of people, so most of the time I’m showing a full URL. But you should use get_stylesheet_directory_uri() to get the URL to your stylesheet. That will give you the http or https URL for your current theme directory (even if it’s a child theme). If you change your theme later, it will change (so you don’t have to update the code). And if you change your site settings to https later, it will change with you.

Here are some examples:

get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/mystylesheet.css';

get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/directory/stylesheet.css';

Hope that helps.

No problem! I probably should use it more on the site as it’s definitely a “best practice” to use that instead of a full URL – it makes your custom code more portable.