The profile application comes as part of the default FastFrame install. It allows user’s to save information about themselves and their FastFrame settings.

By clicking on “My Profile” in the left-hand menu you will have access to your profile. From there you can change your preferences and personal information. Your administrator can choose which fields are available, but common fields you can update are:

• Your name
• Your email address
• Your phone number
• Your address
• Your password
• Your image (the image associated with your profile)
• Your list mode (allowing you to see the Advanced or Simple search box by default)
• Your list length (allowing you to change how many items are shown on list pages by default)
• Your language
• Your initial page (the initial page you are sent to after logging in)

Administrators are those who have been set as “superusers” in the permissions application or who have been given the appropriate permissions to administer the profile application.

Administrators have the ability to create, edit, and delete user profiles. You can access the list of user profiles by clicking on the “Profiles” link in the left-hand menu.

An administrator can log in as another user by clicking on the yellow buddy icon next to each user’s name. This will log you in just as if you were that user (including permissions). You can return to the profile list by clicking on “Logout”.

Administrators can set what permissions each user has by selecting different permission groups. Permission groups are created using the permissions_app and can be thought of as keys. Each group acts as a set of keys by giving access to different applications. When editing a user profile you can select multiple permission groups to give to a user by holding down the CTRL key.

The profile_app is the default authentication method in FastFrame. This means users who have a profile (either created by themselves or an administrator) will be able to log in to FastFrame (unless the profile_app authentication method is disabled).

However, even those users who log on via another authentication source (i.e. a mail server) can use the profile application to store information about themselves. By default, when a user logs in using an external authentication source a blank profile will be created and they will be forced to fill it in. These settings can be overridden in profile’s conf.php file.

Tip: It is also possible to fill in a user’s information, using an external data source, automatically by using the hooks file.

Each field that a user sees when editing their profile can be disabled or renamed. In profile’s conf.php file you will find an array called [’profile’][’fields’] which lists each available field. Each field has the following attributes:

• list: This turns a field on or off in the list page.
• required: Turning this on forces a user to fill in the field when updating their profile.
• locked: Turning this on means the field is not editable by the user, thus hiding it from the update page.
• value: This is the default value used if the field is empty or locked.
• desc: This is the description of the field that the user sees.

Note: Other applications, such as Mayday, automatically extend a user’s profile, allowing the user to set additional fields. These extra fields can be customized in the same way by editing the application’s conf.php file.