MB User Meta

Overview

MB User Meta is an extension for the Meta Box plugin which allows you to add custom fields to user profile like user address, user billing info or custom avatar. With MB User Meta, you’re able to add and edit a lot of additional information for users or customers.

See this screenshot for a demo:

user meta

Please note that the extension works only on the back end. If you want to edit user profile on the front end, please see MB User Profile.

For more information about the extension, please see the extension page.

Installation

Before installing the extension, you need to install Meta Box plugin first.

Go to Plugins → Add New and search for Meta Box
Click Install Now button to install the plugin
After installing, click Activate Plugin to activate the plugin

The extension is just a WordPress plugin, you can install it like a normal WordPress plugin.

Go to Plugins, click Add new, then click Upload plugin.
Choose the .zip file you downloaded and click Install now
After finishing upload, click Activate to finish.

Adding fields to user profile

Registering custom fields for user is similar to posts. See this documentation to know how to create a meta box, and this documentation to know how to define fields. The only difference here is when you register a meta box for user profile, you need to specify a parameter 'type' => 'user'. That’s all!

Example

The code below register 2 meta boxes (sections) for user profile:

add_action( 'rwmb_meta_boxes', function( $meta_boxes ) {
    $meta_boxes[] = array(
        'title' => 'Contact Info',
        'type'  => 'user', // Specifically for user

        'fields' => array(
            array(
                'name' => 'Mobile phone',
                'id'   => 'mobile',
                'type' => 'tel',
            ),
            array(
                'name' => 'Work phone',
                'id'   => 'work',
                'type' => 'tel',
            ),
            array(
                'name' => 'Address',
                'id'   => 'address',
                'type' => 'textarea',
            ),
            array(
                'name'    => 'City',
                'id'      => 'city',
                'type'    => 'select_advanced',
                'options' => array(
                    'hanoi' => 'Hanoi',
                    'hcm'   => 'Ho Chi Minh City'
                ),
            ),
        ),
    );
    $meta_boxes[] = array(
        'title' => 'Custom avatar',
        'type'  => 'user', // Specifically for user

        'fields' => array(
            array(
                'name'            => 'Upload avatar',
                'id'              => 'avatar',
                'type'            => 'image_advanced',
                'max_file_uploads' => 1,
            ),
        ),
    );

    return $meta_boxes;
} );

Result:

User meta screenshot

Data

WordPress provides an identical way to store values in the meta tables for post / term / user. This extension utilizes that API and stores field value in the user meta exactly like post meta.

Getting field value

You’re able to use helper function rwmb_meta() to get field value:

$value = rwmb_meta( $field_id, array( 'object_type' => 'user' ), $user_id );
echo $value;

The code is very similar to getting post meta. The differences are:

In the 2nd parameter, you need to pass 'object_type' => 'user', and
In the last parameter, you need to pass the user ID

Other parameters are the same as for posts. Please see this documentation for details.

It requires the extension version 1.1+ to use the helper function. If you’re using an older version, please update now.

In case you use an older version than 1.1, you can get the field value manually:

$meta = get_user_meta( $user_id, $field_id, true );
echo $meta;

// Or use this code if field has multiple value
$meta = get_user_meta( $user_id, $field_id, false );
foreach ( $meta as $value ) {
    echo $value;
}

Note that the code above returns only raw data of user meta value. It doesn’t return meaningful information for images, file, etc. To do that, please add a small piece of code as follow:

// Getting images
$image_ids = get_user_meta( $user_id, $field_id, false ); // Media fields are always multiple.
foreach ( $image_ids as $image_id ) {
    $image = RWMB_Image_Field::file_info( $image_id, array( 'size' => 'thumbnail' ) );
    echo '<img src="' . $image['url'] . '">';
}

These are some helper functions that you can use to retrieve more info:

Field type	Helper function(s)
`image`, `image_advanced`, `plupload_image`, `thickbox_image`	`wp_get_attachment_image_src()`
	`wp_get_attachment_image_url()`
	`RWMB_Image_Field::file_info( $image_id, $args );` (where `$args` is an array and accepts only `size` attribute)
`file`, `file_advanced`	`get_attached_file()`
	`RWMB_File_Field::file_info( $image_id );`
`oembed`	`RWMB_OEmbed_Field::get_embed( $url );`
`taxonomy`, `taxonomy_advanced`	`get_term()`
`user`	`get_userdata()`
`post`	`get_post()`