Additional user account field

I am doing a networking site for some one that is targeting college students. It is important that they have a campus associated with their account. I need a little advice as to how best to approach this.

I have a database table of campuses that includes a state field. My first take was to add some JavaScript in the registration form. Users select a state from a select list, which uses AJAX to populate a div with a list of links for that state. Choosing a link then in turn gives a visual indication that a campus has been chosen and populates a hidden input value which was empty, etc. etc. This was not too tough using jQuery and what have you.

I used something like this:

function campus_validate($form, &$form_state){

      if($form_state['values']['campus']==""){

            drupal_set_message(t('Please select a state and campus'));

            return false;

      }

      return true;

}

function user_form_alter(&$form, $form_state, $form_id) {

      if ($form_id == 'user_register') {

            $form['Personal']['campus'] = array(

              '#type' => 'hidden',

              '#default_value' => "",

              '#required' => TRUE        

);

// the following are not correct, but the idea is I need to validate the extra fields I am adding. I can muddle through these.

            $form['Personal']['campus']['#element_validate'] = array('campus_validate');

            // $form['profile_sex']['#element_validate'] = array('sex_validate');

      }

}

So I think you can see where I am going with this although it isn’t complete.

The next thing I want to do, is I prefer to add a tab for editing the users’ campus. I prefer this to adding to the user/edit form. Once again, I will need to have a state select that will use AJAX to query and provide a list. Fortunately, I can probably reuse a lot of the code from the registration form. Can someone please suggest how to add a tab to /user, and if you have any suggestions as to making this less labor-intensive, that would be super! J

If the whole thing should be tossed, and go with multi-step submissions, please point me the right way on that.

Thank you so much.

Kindest Regards,

Dayton Perkins

Good News Design

Interactive  Web sites for business

dayton@...

http://goodnewsdesign.com

Phone:  616-399-5617

Cell: 616-405-6360

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Holland MI 49424