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WordPress Plugin: User Submitted Posts

[ User Submitted Posts ]

User Submitted Posts enables your visitors to submit posts and images from anywhere on your site via template tag or shortcode. User-submitted posts optionally include tags, categories, post titles, and more. You can set submitted posts as draft, publish immediately, or after some number of approved posts. Also enables users to upload multiple images when submitting a post. Everything super-easy to customize via Admin Settings page.

Update! Pro version of User Submitted Posts now available — check it out »

Let your visitors submit content

User Submitted Posts makes it easy to display a public post-submission form virtually anywhere on your site. Use the USP shortcode to display the submission form in any post or page, or use the USP template tag to include the form anywhere in your theme design. Visitors may then use the form to submit posts to your site. Depending on your preferences, user-submitted posts may include the following input fields:

  • Name
  • Email
  • URL
  • Post Title
  • Post Tags
  • Post Category
  • Post Content
  • Custom Field
  • Challenge Question
  • Google reCAPTCHA
  • Post Images

Using the Settings Page, you choose which fields to display, min/max number of images, min/max image size, redirect location, error messages and more. User Submitted Posts makes it easy to setup just about any type of user-submitted functionality for your WordPress-powered site. Here are some examples of how the USP plugin could be used:

  • Public Submit a Link form with tags
  • Simple Submit News form with post, title & author
  • Use as Contact Form that allows image attachments
  • Use as an Image Uploader, maybe with tags, title or whatever

Once a user has submitted a post, it’s saved as a “Draft” by default, but may optionally be set to “Publish Immediately” or even to publish if the author has “x” number of approved submissions. The plugin also displays a User Submitted Posts button at the top of the Posts Page that lets you filter all user-submitted posts/drafts with the click of a button.

Features

  • Let visitors submit posts from anywhere on your site
  • Use template tag or shortcode to display the form anywhere
  • Includes customizable captcha and hidden field to stop spam
  • Submitted posts may include any/all of the available fields
  • Redirect user anywhere after successful post submission
  • Includes template tags for displaying submitted content
  • New HTML5 submission form with streamlined CSS styles

Image Uploads

  • Optionally allow/require visitors to upload any number of images
  • Specify minimum and maximum width and height for uploaded images
  • Specicy min/max number of allowed image uploads for each post
  • Includes jQuery snippet for easy choosing of multiple images

Customization

  • Control which fields are displayed in the submission form
  • Choose which categories users are allowed to select
  • Assign submitted posts to any registered user
  • Customizable success, error, and upload messages
  • Plus options for the captcha, auto-publish, and redirect-URL
  • Choose form style: Classic, HTML5, or plain (disable styles)

Post Management

  • Custom Fields saved w/ each post: name, IP, URL, images, et al
  • Set submitted posts to any status: Draft, Publish, or Moderate
  • One-click post-filtering of submitted posts in the Admin Area
  • Includes template tags for easy display of submitted images

Installation & Usage

Overview

  1. Install USP just like any other WordPress plugin
  2. Go to the “User Submitted Posts” settings and customize your options
  3. Display the submission form on your page(s) using template tag or shortcode

Displaying the submission form

To display the form on a post or page, use the shortcode:

[user-submitted-posts]

To display the form anywhere in your theme, use the template tag:

<?php if (function_exists('user_submitted_posts')) user_submitted_posts(); ?>

Customizing the submission form

  • To style the submission form, use the included CSS file located at: /resources/usp.css
  • To add custom JavaScript, use the included JS file located at: /resources/usp.js

Customizing user-submitted posts

User-submitted posts are just like any other post, with the exception that they each contain a set of custom fields. The custom fields include extra information about the post:

  • is_submission – indicates that the post is in fact user-submitted
  • user_submit_image – URLs of any submitted images (one field per image)
  • user_submit_ip – the IP address of the submitted-post author
  • user_submit_name – the name of the submitted-post author
  • user_submit_url – the submitted URL

So when user-submitted posts are displayed on your website, say on the home page or single-view, these custom fields are available to you in your theme files. This enables you to customize the user-submitted posts by displaying the submitted name, URL, images, and so forth. Here are two articles for those new to using WordPress custom-fields:

Template Tags

Additionally, the USP plugin also includes a set of template tags for customizing your user-submitted posts:

usp_is_public_submission()
Returns a boolean value indicating whether the specified post is a public submission
Usage: <?php if (function_exists('usp_is_public_submission')) usp_is_public_submission(); ?>

usp_get_post_images()
Returns an array of URLs for the specified post image
Usage: <?php $images = usp_get_post_images(); foreach ($images as $image) { echo $image; } ?>

usp_post_attachments()
Prints the URLs for all post attachments.
Usage:  <?php if (function_exists('usp_post_attachments')) usp_post_attachments(); ?>
Syntax: <?php if (function_exists('usp_post_attachments')) usp_post_attachments($size, $beforeUrl, $afterUrl, $numberImages, $postId); ?>
Paramters:
    $size         = image size as thumbnail, medium, large or full -> default = full
    $beforeUrl    = text/markup displayed before the image URL     -> default = <img src="
    $afterUrl     = text/markup displayed after the image URL      -> default = " />
    $numberImages = the number of images to display for each post  -> default = false (display all)
    $postId       = an optional post ID to use                     -> default = uses global post

usp_author_link()
For public-submitted posts, this tag displays the author's name as a link (if URL provided) or plain text (if URL not provided)
For normal posts, this tag displays the author's name as a link to their author's post page
Usage: <?php if (function_exists('usp_author_link')) usp_author_link(); ?>

For more tags, check out USP at WordPress.org, and/or the source code of the plugin file located at: /library/template-tags.php

Screenshots

Here are some screenshots of the USP plugin:

Note: these screenshots were taken awhile ago. For fresh screenshots from more recent versions of the plugin, check out USP at WordPress.org.

Download & Demo

To download the free version of User Submitted Posts, visit the plugin homepage at the WordPress.org Plugin Directory.

About the Author
Jeff Starr = Creative thinker. Passionate about free and open Web.
WP Themes In Depth: Build and sell awesome WordPress themes.

120 responses to “WordPress Plugin: User Submitted Posts”

  1. Hi! I have a problem with utf-8:
    the category name, in the admin panel and in the form doesnt works.

    How can i fix this?

    Thanks.

  2. i just installed the plugin, because it seems to be perfect for my site.
    create the page to allow users to upload their own images, im all the tests i did, all worked perfect but it cant create or read the image, adding the file and then calling the image via HTML tags in the Post content.
    i’m using WordPress 3.1. php up to date, also it is a wordpress.org and not .com…
    hope to find a solution!
    thanks for this great plugin, do you have translated to spanish?

  3. Shannon Hilker 2011/03/16 7:23 am

    Hi Jeff, are the photos supposed to display when you view the pending posts in the admin. I have gotten mine to show up once approved but we can’t see what we are approving until it posts live. Just wondering if there is an easy fix.

  4. Hi
    At the bottom of the “Plug-in” page there’s a picture of a feature to create custom fields – usp_custom-fields, but I can’t find it in admin?
    I’d like to be able to put more fields into the form so I can call them in the posts page (index.php)
    thanks
    Mike

  5. Hi, Jeff

    The author’s url is stored in custom fild user_submit_url. Can it be anchored in the title of page or somewhere automatically. I saw no place to display the url in the post.

  6. I’d love to use this in conjunction with the plugin “Magic Fields” to allow visitors to a site to fill in posts, and to have custom fields in those posts.

    Do you have any plans to get this plugin working with Magic Fields?

  7. Thanks for the plugin. Is there a way that the plugin will support Hebrew. When I write the name of the post author it come as an X in the admin panle

    Thanks

  8. I just installed the plug-in, but I don’t have the “settings” option available. All I have is “edit” and “deactivate.” Any thing I need to do?

  9. octopus-ride 2011/03/24 7:53 am

    H)i Jeff,
    thanks for tour plugin.
    I added the featured image (it works on 3.1).
    Simply add in create_public_submission when you get attachmentId set_post_thumbnail(newPost,attachmentId);

    Sorry I can’t use dollar symbol.
    marco

  10. Hello,

    I love the idea of this plug-in but am having an issue that doesn’t seem to be discussed above. I have installed the plug-in and customized to only have the persons name and their message, but when I test it, I get the default error message. Am I doing something wrong?

    Much appreciated

    Jeff

  11. This plugin is great. Maybe you should add option to parameters the plugin.

    I’ve modified your code so that I’ll be able to post in any category pages and the content is automatically set up to the corresponding category.

    Also, I’ll be looking to add ajax in the forthcoming days.

    Thank you for your work ! Any git repo ? or SVN ?

  12. Thanks for this awesome plug-in!

    What is the simplest way to add custom fields?

    Thank you!!!!

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