seems like most agree #2 or a variant of #2 is the way to go. Which is cool with me. I think it would be easier to implement.

If we do go with #2, I want everyone's usernames to be updated as well to be consistant with the url. I'll figure out some sort of algorithm for how to deal with special characters. Or I could just manually change those with funky usernames. That might be what I end up doing just to ensure no one ends up with a stupid username.

I'll likely make the username updates soon and change the signup process to only permit url safe characters. the actual setup of the urls themselves will be a few months off as I need to do a lot of prep for it.

I plan to spend some time rewriting all of the code that handles user accounts and profiles. The code is so archaic. It's currently the oldest most disorganized code on PD. Probably something like 4 years old. It needs to be rewritten from the ground up. I'd also like to use it for other projects so it will need to be more exportable.

I like the idea...  I also like shorter urls.  :yes:

On Jun 17, 2008 3:48 pm, BogusRed said:
[quote]

 Hello PD members. I know one thing that sucks about PD is that you get a lame url like this for your profile page:

http://www.paperdemon.com/profile/52

And that a lot of other sites like DeviantArt have your username as a subdomain:

http://arkillian.deviantart.com

There are a couple of reasons why we don't have it at PD. #1, because I didn't know how to implement dynamic subdomains (but I just learned how to). And #2, our username restrictions here are different. Firstly, we allow spaces and all sorts of special characters in our usernames that would not be permitted in a URL.

So now that problem #1 is out of the way, how do we solve #2?

Solution idea 1
My thought was to handle it similar to myspace. Everyone by default will be some number like 285032.paperdemon.com until you setup your url. Your URL will not necessarily be the same as your username. So your username could be "Jimmy Rox" but your URL could be cooljimmy.paperdemon.com.
The problem with this though is that someone could end up registering their URL as the same thing as someone elses username. So lets say Arkillian was late to find out about the whole URL thing and someone else snagged the URL arkillian.paperdemon.com.

Solution idea 2
I could run some sort of script that strips out any special characters in everyone's username and then that result would be your new url. So "Jimmy Rox" would then become "jimmyrox.paperdemon.com." Also if I take this approach I actually would like our usernames to be updated to not have special characters. new users who sign up would not be able to add spaces and other special characters.  The good thing about this is that your url will be consistant with your username keeping others from snagging your url. The down side is you are stuck with whatever your username is. But hey, its better than paperdemon.com/profile/268447

Does anyone have any opinions on this or ideas for other solutions?

I like the idea, it looks nicer and I wish I could help but I'm 'duh' with computers..I'm still trying to figure out how to add color to drawing with gimp..I don't know how use the art program i"m learning it on my own. blah[/quote]

I'm fine with either way, as long as I get to keep the dash in my username. :)

Having a friendlier URL here would make it easier to direct people to my PaperDemon account. Right now, I have to tell them my username and let them search, or else give them my ID number... which is annoying.

Thanks for considering this!