× Joomla Facebook Connect support forum

Topic-icon Creating Placeholder Users

Active Subscriptions:

None
12 years 2 months ago #18791 by jefvs
Hey Sourcecoast,

We have a custom component and users can do some things like vote on stuff. However, we'd like visitors to be able to use the site too and have the option to do a full registration later.

So when a visitor actually interacts with the site, we'd like to create an empty account for them and log them in so we can associate a userid with their actions. Then, if the user decides to actually register later on via JFBConnect or the regular registration, we can populate the rest of the user fields as normal.

Since JFBConnect will be integral for registering to populate the rest of the user details, I thought I'd ask you all about this first. Is this something you might be able to help me with?

Thank you very much
J
The topic has been locked.
Support Specialist
12 years 2 months ago #18835 by alzander
Replied by alzander on topic Creating Placeholder Users
Sorry for the delayed response. So you know, this post will be moved to the JFBConnect support area (from JLinked) after I post this.. so look for it there.

To do what you're looking for would likely be outside of JFBConnect, and I'm not sure of any great suggestions. When a user navigates your site, there's "session" stored for the user, whether they're logged in or not. Depending on your needs and what actions you want to track, you can use Joomla to store information in that session about the user's actions on that visit. However, the session is deleted after the user is inactive for a certain amount of time, so if they don't login/register, that information would be lost. That would prevent you from aggregating a lot actions from a few days if the user decides to eventually create an account.

With the session, or even the 'blank' account, you'd need to be able to identify the user when they come back. If you simply create a blank user every time some visits the site, you'd have a lot of blank users on your site.. so you'd need something to tie it all together and really do the tracking to make sure everything is in sync.

JFBConnect couldn't directly be used because we have no way of knowing the user's Facebook User ID until after they've authenticated your 'application' (by clicking the Login With Facebook button). At that point, they'd get a real user account created in the system, so the blank user wouldn't be necessary.

So, with all of that said, you'd need to find (or develop) your own code to actually keep track of the user's actions on your site. Once that's done, we could help you modify JFBConnect to associate a 'new' account with the blank account that was created. That part shouldn't be difficult, it's the creation of the blank account that I think would cause the most difficulties, and not something we'd be able to directly help with.

Hope my rambling helps a little! Best of luck, and let us know if you have any other questions,
Alex
The topic has been locked.
Active Subscriptions:

None
12 years 2 months ago #18854 by jefvs
Replied by jefvs on topic Creating Placeholder Users
Thanks a lot Alex, your ramblings were actually very helpful ;-)

I think we have a way to track users fairly well, even over a bit of time, so I will look into creating the blank accounts and let you know how things go!

Cheers
John
The topic has been locked.
Support Specialist
12 years 2 months ago #18905 by alzander
Replied by alzander on topic Creating Placeholder Users
John,
Sounds good. Let us know when you get there, and we'll help how we can. I don't think it should be overly difficult, but of course it depends on how you do the whole 'blank accounts' thing :)

Good luck,
Alex
The topic has been locked.