WordPress MU

It should be possible to replace "User" in email notifications with the new member's full name or first name; the new member has already given his name in the registration form. Does anyone know how?

This is a late reply, but if you want to be able to use their full name (assuming you added this option yourself in the registration process), you would need to modify wpmu_welcome_notification in wpmu-functions.php. Specifically, add a new str_replace (string replace) that replaces for example FULLNAME, with their actual name.

$welcome_email = str_replace( "FULLNAME", $fullname, $welcome_email );

You also need to make sure to retrieve their name first (from wherever you stored it), and set $fullname to that.

That's the problem, by default the Full name isn't in the registration form so you'll have to put a condition in to send to User for those that don't have a fullname entered and use the name for those that have.

Hey look:

http://trac.mu.wordpress.org/changeset/1765

Now you can write a plugin to do this.

You could before :)

Well, you could if you're a PHP programmer. I'm not. I have no clue what to do with that bit of code. (OK, I guess there are hooks hidden in there somewhere, but they're for blog_notification. Is that the same as signup on Buddypress without blogs? Buddypress points all registration questions back to WPMU...)

Why is WPMU's registration process such an ugly half-assed mess?

Because there's one dev guy working on it in his spare time with little to no feedback in trac.

@andrea_r, that guy is you? ;-)

Or probably donncha, right?

I have a lot of respect for the core developers, but it looks like their focus is mostly on features and doing interesting PHP things. They are clearly not usability or UI people.

Lack of feedback on trac is probably for the same reason. People who know what trac is - I don't... - apparently have other priorities.

But you don't need feedback to figure out what the current standards/best practices are. Just have a look into the registration processes on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. WP/WPMU/BP is miles removed from those.

Programmers can have weird ideas about usability if left to their own devices. Buddypress' main developer Andy Peatling for example, god bless him, refuses to consistently support real name as firstname+lastname in BP because "it does not work for a lot of international users".

So if you want consistent firstname + lastname in your BP site, like every other website on the planet, you have to go through a lot of painful custom hacking.

"Or probably donncha, right?"

that's correct. :) When MU gets rolled in with WP, then you can complain about the UI to Jane. :D