Title: Smart Functionality!
Last modified: September 2, 2016

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# Smart Functionality!

 *  [gabrielesque](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gabrielesque/)
 * (@gabrielesque)
 * [13 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/smart-functionality/)
 * A positively perfect plugin for my needs. I used it until it broke. I would pay
   to have it working again. Fabulous backend, sweet dropdown menu for multiple 
   contact form email recipients. Please, Douglas, revive this gem…
 * Gabriel

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)

 *  [Larry](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ljmarik/)
 * (@ljmarik)
 * [13 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/smart-functionality/#post-7740637)
 * [@gabrielesque](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gabrielesque/), I couldn’t
   agree more. I tried posting out here before, but haven’t heard from Douglas. 
   If would be great if someone else could take this over if Douglas is unable to
   maintain it.
 *  [DBAR Productions](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dbar-productions/)
 * (@dbar-productions)
 * [13 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/smart-functionality/#post-7740658)
 * [@gabrielesque](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gabrielesque/) and Larry,
 * What is broken for you? What improvements/changes are needed?
 * I’m just now taking a look at this plugin, as it’s fairly close to what I need
   to integrate into a PTA web site for my son’s grade school. I’m developing a 
   fairly extensive PTA plugin, but always looking for plugins that have done a 
   lot of the work I need instead of doing it all from scratch again.
 * I can’t promise anything, as I’m not sure if I can make this work for my needs
   or not without rewriting major parts of it. I need to be able to add more than
   just 2 officers for each position, as well as include phone numbers. Plus, I 
   would add a switch so that the directory is only visible to certain user levels(
   not the general public), or at least hide emails and phone #s from the general
   public.
 *  Thread Starter [gabrielesque](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gabrielesque/)
 * (@gabrielesque)
 * [13 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/smart-functionality/#post-7740659)
 * Hi DBAR, I’ve moved on, getting someone else to add the multiple recipient function
   I needed to a slide out contact form. What I liked about what Douglas created
   was its more intensive back end.
 * When it broke for me, the contact form just wasn’t pulling the officers info 
   the backend contained for the recipient list. Therefore, the form wasn’t being
   sent anywhere.
 * I don’t know exactly where the system broke down, or what plugin conflict caused
   it to break. As I wrote above, the plugin was over two years in arrears when 
   I plugged it into WP v3.42 where it actually worked to my surprise for a month
   or so.
 * Of course, I’ve upgraded to WPv3.5.1 now. But would certainly be interested in
   testing if you were able to pull all the working parts of the plugin back together
   again.
 *  [DBAR Productions](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dbar-productions/)
 * (@dbar-productions)
 * [13 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/smart-functionality/#post-7740660)
 * Thanks for the reply. Glad you found something else that worked for you.
 * It’s working for me on the most current WordPress and latest PHP/MySQL on my 
   localhost test server (office machine). I just have the 2012 theme and some other
   plugins I’m working on. The only thing I noticed was some undefined index errors
   with WordPress Debug turned on. I was able to fix those pretty quick. I haven’t
   given it a thorough run through yet, though. I’m looking through the code and
   already getting prepared to modify it for my needs.
 * I haven’t programmed for over 25 years, so this is my first venture in PHP/MySQL.
   I was surprised how fast I picked it up again, and the code I’ve done so far 
   for the new PTA site system is quite extensive. I only started trying to do this
   again because this was nothing else out of the all the plugins available that
   would do what I needed.
 * So far, I’ve developed a really nice volunteer sign-up system, which I did find
   a plugin that had about 50% of the functionality I needed, and then I heavily
   modified it and made it work for me. I’ve also made a student/parent/teacher 
   database system with directory for students, but that only “parent” level users
   can view. Plus, a really extensive system to track reading time and prize levels
   for all the students for our school’s Eager Reader system. Probably around 6000
   lines of code so far to do all of that.
 * I think I can make this plugin work for our simple PTA Officer and Committee 
   directory. I’m going to add phone number, and allow multiple people for each 
   position by just typing them all into one field and separating them by semi-colons(
   and then have the display functions split them apart when it sees that character).
   I already tested the email to see if it would work “as is” by entering two emails
   in the one filed using a semi-colon to separate them, which is the way most email
   programs separate addresses anyway, and that worked already. So, just need to
   add some code to handle the separation of multiple names entered with a separator,
   add the phone field (which requires modifying their database table a bit), and
   updating how it displays phones numbers and emails (I’ll add an option on the
   admin side where they can decide whether or not to display the info, and if users
   need to be logged in to see the directory).
 * My only weakness right now is I haven’t learned javascript and AJAX type processing,
   so I can’t do some of the fancy screen updates without reloading a page. But,
   that’s next on my “to do” list once I get this all working without that (which
   is good for people who disable javascript anyway).
 *  [Larry](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ljmarik/)
 * (@ljmarik)
 * [13 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/smart-functionality/#post-7740661)
 * I had moved on as the emails were not going out when using the Contact Us. I 
   switched to Contact Forms. The only thing I don’t like is Contact Forms doesn’t
   work very well with many contacts to choose from. This is why I liked the Officers
   Directory.
 *  Thread Starter [gabrielesque](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gabrielesque/)
 * (@gabrielesque)
 * [13 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/smart-functionality/#post-7740662)
 * Yeah, I’m using Simple Contact Slider by Milan Petrovic on CodeCanyon. I forget
   what I paid, six dollars maybe. Well worth it. It won’t sent to multiple people,
   but will allow the user to pick one of nearly forty possible recipients.
 * So, in my case, my result is a close mimic of the original. I am happy. Client
   is happy.
 *  [DBAR Productions](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dbar-productions/)
 * (@dbar-productions)
 * [13 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/smart-functionality/#post-7740663)
 * I wasn’t too thrilled about trying to rework the Officers Directory code, after
   taking a closer look. Found a somewhat easier solution for me needs by simply
   using a custom post type and some custom taxonomy fields to set up our staff 
   directory, and then a simple function to display it on the public side (and will
   add options on admin side to hide/show contact info, depending on if people are
   logged in or not). Also found a good tutorial on how to do drag and drop sorting
   of fields on the admin side using some jQuery and AJAX, so I’m going to study
   that and add that to what I’m doing.
 * If I want the public to be able to contact someone in the directory, without 
   displaying the email to the general public, that should be easy enough to do 
   with something like Gravity Forms.
 *  [DBAR Productions](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dbar-productions/)
 * (@dbar-productions)
 * [13 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/smart-functionality/#post-7740664)
 * I’ve pretty much finished the first version of my plugin that I wrote to do this
   type of task. Since it’s part of my learning process, and something I’m doing
   for a school PTA web site, I just wrote if from scratch, with the help of lots
   of Google searching to figure some things out.
 * I need to finish prepping it for release on the WP site and then submit it and
   see if it gets accepted, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t.
 * I decided to go with the custom post type and taxonomies for the staff/member
   directory. I made the staff/member positions taxonomies so that each person can
   hold more than one position, and there could also be multiple people for each
   position, since we have committees in our PTA that have several people. So, there
   are no limits to number of people per position or number of positions.
 * For display, I set up something on the back end where the admin user can drag
   and drop a simple list of existing positions to set the order they will be displayed,
   since we list by position on our site, and not by name. Within positions, members
   are ordered by last name.
 * Then I added some simple display options that the admin can set. They can choose
   whether or not the directory is visible to the public. If they choose not to 
   make it visible to the public, they can choose a user level required to be able
   to see the directory.
 * Plus they can also choose whether to show the emails or to use a link to a contact
   form. I built my own simple contact form so that I could pass in the id of the
   person they are trying to contact. However, the contact form also has a drop 
   down list of names/positions of all staff/members that they can choose from to
   send a message to.
 * The member directory and contact form can be used together or separately. They
   can be called two ways. You can either use the “/member” permalink which will
   show the directory listing and will also then generate the contact form if that
   option is chosen and someone clicks on the contact link. OR, you can use shortcodes
   for the directory and/or the contact form (any combination). If you embed the
   contact form shortcode in a page, all you need to do is enter the permalink to
   that page in the options, and the directory will automatically go to that page
   with the correct name already set if they click on that person’s contact link.
 * Got some ideas for future expansion, such as adding a field for “location” or“
   office” which would make it more useful for companies with multiple offices in
   other locations, so they can only show staff in those locations with just one
   web site and one directory.
 *  Thread Starter [gabrielesque](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gabrielesque/)
 * (@gabrielesque)
 * [13 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/smart-functionality/#post-7740665)
 * Wow, DBAR, you stepped up to the plate and hit it out of the park. Congratulations!
   Are you offering it to the public through WordPress?
 *  [DBAR Productions](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dbar-productions/)
 * (@dbar-productions)
 * [13 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/smart-functionality/#post-7740666)
 * Yes, my plan is to offer it to the public through WordPress. It’s my first time
   submitting a plugin, so I don’t know how long that process takes to get approved.
   Hopefully I’ll have it ready to submit by the end of the week.
 * If you’d like to check it out, just let me know and I’d be happy to send you 
   an advance copy. You can contact me privately through my web site:
    [http://www.dbar-productions.com](http://www.dbar-productions.com)
 *  [DBAR Productions](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dbar-productions/)
 * (@dbar-productions)
 * [12 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/smart-functionality/#post-7740673)
 * Just as a follow up, I completed my plugin which I’m using on our school’s new
   PTA web site, and Larry helped test it for me and contributed some great ideas
   that I incorporated. He has a huge directory on his site using my plugin.
 * I put the plugin online here a couple of weeks ago:
    [http://wordpress.org/plugins/pta-member-directory/](http://wordpress.org/plugins/pta-member-directory/)
 * I have some plans for some future features as well, but it works great as is 
   right now.
 *  Thread Starter [gabrielesque](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gabrielesque/)
 * (@gabrielesque)
 * [12 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/smart-functionality/#post-7740674)
 * Thanks, I’ll check it out.

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)

The topic ‘Smart Functionality!’ is closed to new replies.

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 * 12 replies
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 * Last reply from: [gabrielesque](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gabrielesque/)
 * Last activity: [12 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/smart-functionality/#post-7740674)