User Meta Overview

The WordPress plugin User Meta is a lightweight, powerful plugin that allows you to add additional custom fields to your user profiles.  Additionally, it provides for frontend registration, login, profile viewing and editing.

These are great features that allow your users to manage their profiles without giving them access to the backend of your website.

You simply create new Pages (not Posts) with the appropriate User Meta shortcodes to replace existing WordPress pages to handle new registrations, logins, profile viewing and profile editing.

Setting Up User Meta

1. Create Your User Profile Form

After activating the plugin, the first thing to do is create your custom profile form.  Give your form a unique name, which will be used in the User Meta shortcodes.  We’ll name our form my_user_form for demonstration purposes.

2. Add Fields To Your User Profile Form

Begin adding fields to your new form.  You can use existing WordPress profile fields as well as create Extra Fields, which are available in seven different formats (textbox, rich text, drop down, checkbox, paragraph, hidden field, and radio).

3. Create Pages For Your User Profile Form

You will need to:

• Create a profile page (which will be used to display a user’s profile on the frontend)
  • Add the shortcode for your form [user-meta-profile form=”my_user_form“]
• Create a registration page (which be used on the frontend to replace the standard WordPress login page)
  • Add the shortcode for your form [user-meta-registration form=”my_user_form“]
• Create a login page in settings (which be used on the frontend to replace the standard WordPress login page)
  • Add the shortcode for login [user-meta-login]
• Activate the password reset page in settings (which be used on the frontend to replace the standard WordPress reset password feature)

4. Settings

Under the Settings option for User Meta, you will link the pages you created to each of the different categories (General, Login, Registration).

If you want to be able to administer your users’ profile pages as admin, you will need to activate (check) the box next to Show profile link to Users administration page. This provides a convenient link in your Users listing on the backend.