[Resolved] View of Users – Filters, Pagination and distance data

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[Ian]

Tell us what you are trying to do?
I'm using Toolset Views and Types. I've got a custom user role "member" and I want to display users on a public directory. I've created a view that displays users. But it looks like I can't have pagination or any filters. Is that the case? I was confused when I looked through the documentation and other support tickets.

Can you tell me if there is a way to use Toolset to do the following?:
- Display users with pagination
- Display a map at the top of the page showing all the users
- Allow users to search for users in or near a location
- Have a custom filters box that will only show users that match the data in the custom fields
- Allow users to search for users by name

At this stage, I just want to know if I can use Toolset for the above. Then could you help me know what the workarounds are?

[Shane]

Hi Ian,

Thank you for getting in touch.

- Display users with pagination

Yes this is possible to do as you're able to create a user view with the classic views setup and add a pagination to that view.

- Display a map at the top of the page showing all the users

This is also possible to do when you've added an address field to the user's profile and add the map to the user view.
- Allow users to search for users in or near a location

Now because you're not able to create a search view for a user view then you won't be able to add a search to the user view. What we recommend here is that each user creates their profile under a custom post type and this way you can create a view that can search through the user's profile. My above comments also apply to this profile view as well.

- Have a custom filters box that will only show users that match the data in the custom fields
- Allow users to search for users by name

These are also possible to do when you're creating a view to search the user's profile.

Here is some additional information on creating the searches for users.
https://toolset.com/course-lesson/how-to-create-custom-searches-and-relationships-for-users/#support-for-users-in-toolset-and-wordpress

Please let me know if this helps.
Thanks,
Shane

[Ian]

Thanks.
That's a bit frustrating. I have all the custom feeds for each user ready to go. It's already synched with an external database.
I don't want to have to create yet one more table of duplicated information for the user's data.

But if this is the only way, is there a way to automatically populate the users' information into the custom post type? The users are not very technical, and we don't want to have to ask them all to log in and post the form. Also, we don't want them to be able to change any of the information. It has to be the exact information that is in their profile. Is there a way to do this?

[Shane]

Hi Ian,

But if this is the only way, is there a way to automatically populate the users' information into the custom post type?

You can export the data as a csv and import it into the custom post type and just map the column name to the respective wordpress fields.

One plugin that you can use is the WP Ultimate importer plugin.

It has to be the exact information that is in their profile. Is there a way to do this?

If you're referring to maintaining a sync between wordpress and your external user database then it would need to be done using some form of custom code to update the wordpress database directly.

Thanks,
Shane

[Ian]

Thanks, Shane.

This sounds like a huge amount of work. Toolset is an amazing set of plugins to allow you to create custom fields, posts and taxonomies. And to display them on the screen.

But I don't understand why there is this huge missing feature when it comes to not being able to have filters for user data or pagination. If Toolset doesn't do this, can I create some custom code to do it? Or is there some other plugin?

I just think having a 3rd set of duplicate detail of users that I need to keep in sync is just not a great idea here.

[Shane]

Hi Ian,

But I don't understand why there is this huge missing feature when it comes to not being able to have filters for user data or pagination. If Toolset doesn't do this, can I create some custom code to do it? Or is there some other plugin?

This is because there isn't a robust API made for the filtering of users, as mentioned only Posts can have custom searches.

It is possible to have Pagination with the user view, however with the filtering you will need to create your filter parameters manually as well as to setup the filter hook to manually filter the user data to be returned.

You can use the hook below.
https://toolset.com/documentation/programmer-reference/views-filters/#wpv_filter_query

This allows you to modify the filter query for the view to request specific data from the database.

If you create a field like this below on your view.

<form  method="post">
  <label for="fname">First name:</label>
  <input type="text" id="fname" name="fname">
</form>

Then you should be able to filter your view. However any issues that may arise would need to be sorted through custom code because this would be outside of the view scope.

Essentially our recommendation is that users have a profile separate apart from a user object given that Post objects are far more flexible than user objects.

Thanks,
Shane