General help

It depends on whether the user is:

1. creating a new account (e-mail authentication), or

2. editing an existing profile.

In case (1), you will need to make (CAREFUL) changes to both signup_form.html and signup.php in the /login directory of your Moodle site.

In the second case, you will need to make (CAREFUL) changes to both edit.html and edit.php in the /user directory of your Moodle site.

While the following procedure applies to new 'sign-up' accounts, I would imagine that the changes to edit.html and edit.php for existing users are somewhat similar.

As an example, suppose you want to add the field 'Institution' to the sign-up form for new users, the following are the steps you would require:

1. Open the file sign_up.html using html editor that allows you to view both design and code (I use Dreamweaver).

2. Near the top of the file, you should see a PHP code block, initialising variables. In this block, include an initialiser for institution (I placed this between the $user->lastname and $user->city initialisers).

   if (empty($user->institution)) {
       $user->institution = "";
   }

3. Further down the sign_up.html, the form fields displayed to the user appear between <tr></tr> tags. The easiest way to add a new one is to copy and paste a complete block and make changes as required; e.g.

<tr valign="top">
            <td align="right">
     <?php print_string("institution") ?>
     :</td>
            <td>
     <input type="text" name="institution" size="40" value="<?php p($user->institution) ?>" alt="<?php print_string("institution") ?>" />
              <?php if (!empty($err->institution)) { formerr($err->institution);} ?>
   </td>
          </tr>

4. Save changes and close sign_up.html.

5. Open your language file; e.g. /lang/en_utf8 and add a new language string:

$string['missinginstitution'] = 'Missing institution';

6. Save and close language file. 

7. Open signup.php and find the function validate_form (near the bottom)

8. Include your new validation clause:

if (empty($user->institution)) {

$err->city = get_string("missinginstitution");

}

9. Save and close signup.php

10. Test