[buddypress-trac] [BuddyPress Trac] #6632: User_id based mention API

[buddypress-trac]

#6632: User_id based mention API
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 Reporter:  Tafmakura  |      Owner:
     Type:  idea       |     Status:  new
 Priority:  low        |  Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  API        |    Version:
 Severity:  trivial    |   Keywords:
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 I'm not a developer so please mind the incorrect terminology and wild
 ideas.
 Currently it seems that buddypress mention API uses the username to work,
 which means three things

 1) A user cannot change their username/@mentionname (easily or at all) as
 all mentions use the user login as reference
 2) Users MUST ALWAYS use the @mentionname to mention another user, they
 cant use the display name like facebook
 3) Users are stuck with the username they registered with, this
 particularly sucks for auto generated usernames based on e mail address or
 social login plugins

 Can the mention API not use the user ID to store and reference mentions
 instead of the user login? The mention name can then be rendered
 dynamically as a template tag based on the user's ID across all buddypress
 pages (I'm not sure about how posts would work though) , so that when the
 mention name is changed the user Id will then reference the current
 display name and current profile permalink for  each mention tag, it also
 gives site admins the flexibility to decide the display they like. Display
 name a la Facebook or the user's unique login as the mention name, a la
 twitter.

 An alternative is resorting to good'ol Javascript where the static
 @mention <a> tag has some classes added to it on creation  including the
 user_id, that way on document ready a Javascript function can then find
 and replace all static mention links by class with the latest permalink
 and username dynamically based on the site admin's preference. (it sounds
 like a hack to me)

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Ticket URL: <https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/6632>
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