New Association Website with User Directory

[micahgodbolt]

This is my first CMS Show off, but I think this one is certainly worth it.

http://www.wwib.org is a woman's business networking group that my boss is a part of, so we thought it would be great to update their old table based site.

I'm quite happy with the little homepage slider, and the easy access to their RSVP form.

And their member gallery was quite a bit of work. Notice the facebook integration for each member. And once members start writing blogs, each of their blog posts will show up under their profiles. And using User Directory also means that each member can log in, update their profile, which updated the members page.

User Directory doesn't support short URLs, so I ended up making a redirect page for each member (only 30 or so, but it was worth it). So going to http://www.wwib.org/printcopyfactory will redirect right to my boss's profile.

The redirect entry also helps with sitewide search and cms_selflink.

CMS Version
1.9.4

Installed Modules

FormBuilder
0.7
Gallery
1.4.4
CGSimpleSmarty
1.4.8
CGExtensions
1.24.2
Banners
2.5.1
Guestbook
1.3.2
CGBlog
1.7.2
CGFBApp
1.0.3
FrontEndUsers
1.12.13
FormBrowser
0.4
SelfRegistration
1.6.8
CGUserDirectory
1.2.4

[pixelita]

Very curious about the redirect page. Nice work ... looks like you squeezed every last drop of functionality out of CMSMS here!

[micahgodbolt]

One of my annoyances with User directory is that each user URL was something like user/76/40/username.html

I was wanting to make it really clean, as this was an association website and I wanted to give the most value to the user as possible.

I wanted a facebook style vanity URL like wwib.org/printcopyfactory....not wwib.org/user/69/74/printcopyfactory.html

So after creating all of the users I just went back to content/pages and created a new page, chose Redirecting Link as the content type and connected a page called "printcopyfactory" with "wwib.org/user/69/74/printcopyfactory.html"

So as you can see, wwib.org/printcopyfactory redirects to its original page name. It also allows for searching for 'printcopyfactory' in the main search box.

Hope that adds more clarity than confusion

If I were to do it again, I might use Company Directory, but User Directory is a great tool as well.

[nyandres]

Try removing the "text shadow" from the side menu on the left. I think it looks classier that way. Also remove the the alpha of .8 in the main div. It will give your menu a sharper tonality.

I really like it, and feel removing those two things shows more of the sharpness in your design.

Also on the photo gallery use the galleries cover feature.

[elkman]

Very nice website. I have used Company Directory multiple times now but hadn't tried the user directory. Can I assume correctly that you used this for the member's directory?

Elkman

[micahgodbolt]

Yeah, I ended up using the User Directory instead of company directory for this site.

I'm currently setting up a site with Company Directory, and there are certainly many similarities. UD does have a nice alphabetical directory feature so you can click on a letter and it brings up people with name starting with that letter.

Both modules get the job done. Looking back I might have done CD for this site instead as some people actually had multiple businesses.

[elkman]

You did a nice job. I'm on a school board and active in 3 local, rural chambers and always looking for a better or nicer way to display content. I donate my time and there seems to be less of it all the time.

Thanks for your reply!

Bill

[paulbaker]

I was looking for examples of the User Directory in action and yours is a great use of the module. Thanks for sharing.

For me there is a layout issue with pages like http://www.wwib.org/users//95/AliciasBridal.html

I can post a screen shot if you would like.

[micahgodbolt]

Hey Paul. There was some strange bug with the summary template after a search that messes with the detail URL. I have actually changed my summary template to use the shortcuts I created for each profile. So this should work now.

I set up a dummy redirect page for each profile connecting wwib.org/{username} to their actual URL. Its a big clunky, but it gets the job done, and lets me fix the search bug.

[paulbaker]

Just to confirm I can't reproduce the error now. Good job.