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Customizing Gravity Forms User Registration Activation Page

Last updated | Written by 240 Comments

  • October 18th, 2013: Updated custom_maybe_activate_user() function to not rely on rgget() function.

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This article (and associated code) has been updated for Gravity Forms User Registration 3.0. If you have previously implemented this functionality and have upgraded to GFUR 3.0, please update your code with the latest versions below.
Want to customize User Activation emails? We’ve got you covered..

If you’ve checked out the latest beta for the Gravity Forms User Registration add-on, you might have noticed one of the awesome new features is “Pending Activations”. Here’s how they work.

When the user signs up, instead of automatically being registered as a user on your WordPress site, an activation email is sent to the email address they signed up with. The activation email contains an activation link. When the user clicks this link and visits the activation page, they are “activated” and their user account is registered.

One of the first things you’re probably going to want to do with this new feature is customize the activation page. This is the page where users land after clicking the activation link in the activation email. This walk-through aims to demonstrate how this activation page can be completely customized.

This process can be broken down into two simple steps:

  1. Create a custom activate.php template
  2. Override default activate.php template

1. Create a Custom activate.php Template

At the most basic level, all you need to do here is find the activate.php file in the GF User Registration plugin folder and place a copy of this file in your theme folder.

  • Path to GF User Registration activate.php file
    <root>/wp-content/plugins/gravityformsuserregistration/includes/activate.php
  • Sample path to your theme folder
    <root>/wp-content/themes/<your_theme>/

The issue with this is that the activate.php template really isn’t easy to customize. There are a lot of nested conditionals and special variables that you probably won’t understand without really digging in.

GW Activate Template

To alleviate some of this burden, I’ve created a special version of the activate.php which you can download and include in your theme which is much simpler to customize. The primary benefit is that it takes 99% of the HTML output that lives in the activate.php template and moves it out to easy-to-edit template parts.

GW Activate Template on GitHub

Just click the “zip” button to download all the template files. Once downloaded, unzip the gfur-activate-template-master.zip file. Inside you will find a gfur-activate-template-master folder. Rename this to “gfur-activate-template” and move this folder into your theme folder.

github-download-zipDownload GW Activate Template Files

The Different Views of Activation

There are several different “views” or “parts” of the activation page.

activate-success
Success
This is the default view that a user will see after clicking the activation link in the activation email. This view is handled by the activate-success.php template part.
activate-error-already-active
Error: Already Active
Occurs when a user attempts to activate an activation key which has already been activated. This view is handled by the activate-error.php template part.
activate-error
Error
If anything goes wrong during the activation (i.e. bad activation key, username already registered, etc), this view will handling displaying the error. This view is handled by the activate-error.php template part.
activate-no-key
No Key
It’s quite unlikely that users will see this view since the activation key is passed in the activation link; however, for the sake of completeness, this view is what the user will see if no activation key is passed in the activation link. This view is handled in the activate-no-key.php template part.

2. Overriding the Default Activation Template

With the template files in place, you’re ready to override the default activate template files to point to your custom files. Doing this is actually pretty simple. Just add this code to your theme’s functions.php file:

Download Code
<?php
/**
* Gravity Forms Custom Activation Template
* https://gravitywiz.com/customizing-gravity-forms-user-registration-activation-page
*/
add_action('wp', 'custom_maybe_activate_user', 9);
function custom_maybe_activate_user() {
$template_path = STYLESHEETPATH . '/gfur-activate-template/activate.php';
$is_activate_page = isset( $_GET['page'] ) && $_GET['page'] == 'gf_activation';
if( ! file_exists( $template_path ) || ! $is_activate_page )
return;
require_once( $template_path );
exit();
}
view raw gw-custom-activation-template.php.php hosted with ❤ by GitHub

In plain speak, this code says: “Here is a path to the template file I’d like to use for my activation page. If this file exists and we’re on the GF User Registration activation page, go ahead and load my custom activation page file.”

If you’re using the GW Activate Template files and followed the instructions above, you won’t need to change this snippet at all. It’ll just work. Otherwise, you will need to change the $template_path variable to point to the location of your own custom activate.php file.

Is it possible to customize the activation email sent to the user?

Yup! We’ve written a tutorial with step-by-step instructions on how you can customize the user activation email. Check it out.

Anything else?

That’s it for now. Give it a go and let me know how it works out of you. I’m eager for any feedback you have!

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Comments

  1. So I have followed all the instructions, but the activation page keeps opening as my homepage and I can’t figure out how to change that. I’m using BuddyPress and Gravity Forms User Reg on a MultiSite installation with the theme Kleo (sorta popular theme) and I can’t seem to change the page that the activation goes to.

    I really wanna buy the GW Perks, but I sadly can’t afford that right now, so I’m trying to find a way to make it point to another page.

    Reply

    • That is correct. I was editing all the files and the only one that let me change the heading was the one inside of the GF registration folder/

    • Hm, if you’re confident you’ve configured everything per the instructions in the tutorial and it’s not working, there is probably a theme/plugin conflict. You can try testing for that. Unfortunately, there just isn’t much else we can do via free support. This is an issue that would require a WP login so we can dig into your configuration and see what’s going on.

  2. i have an order form where the client inputs details of the product and also personal details that should be captured by user registration addon.the client submits the order and they should be registered. when the user logs in at a later time, they should be able to see their order details also show pending orders or something close to that..

    Reply

  3. David, I’m considering getting your Gravity Forms Better User Activation plugin and have a question: on a multi-lingual buddypress site, I’m creating user registration forms in different languages. Can different custom activation pages be assigned to different user registration forms? (So that the activation pages appear in the appropriate language)? Thanks in advance!

    Reply

  4. This is really useful, just what I was looking for! Are there any related instructions on getting this code to use theme stylesheets?

    Reply

  5. our users dont like login first , just disable this error. for example if user already registered then just update their posts and if they dont registered automatically, register now automatically.

    Reply

  6. hi i read ur article but i have question plz. i made form for advrtisement system. users fill form and fields and automatically register by user registration. they dont need to register and i dont want but for some field and repost their ads (by custom post type) they need to have email and phone information and login automatically to see their ads posted. how can i disable this error when rhey post new ad : this email already exist. thank u

    Reply

  7. I am struggling getting this to work. I think that it is probably a path error. I duplicated all of the empty directories in my child theme and placed your downloaded files as directed. I prefer identical file structures when I am troubleshooting issues at a later date.

    I copied my activate.php file to my child theme at:

    /public_html/wp-content/themes/virtue_premium_child/wp-content/plugins/gravityformsuserregistration/includes/gfur-activate-template

    The three php files are also in the above directory: activate-error.php, activate-error.php, and activate-success.php

    I have tried every possible path without any luck, I keep displaying the default account activation page.

    I simply placed my name in theprintf line in activate-success.php file to eliminate any possible errors.

    <?php printf( __('Craig – Your account is now activated. View your site or Log in‘), $url, $url . ‘wp-login.php’ ); ?>

    I am using the Virtue theme by Kadence Themes but I cannot see how the theme would inferfere with the default account activation page.

    I am at a loss. Any guidance would be sincerely appreciated. CraigM

    View Related Code

    Reply

    • A little more information I place the code below in my functions.php file as directed.

      My functions.php file is located at:

      /public_html/wp-content/themes/virtue_premium_child

      This is where I have been changing the $template_path by trying every possibility of the full path to my activate-success.php file.

      Thanks for your help! CraigM

      View Related Code

    • This is a continuation of a previous request.

      I have tried the original supplied path without success. I have also tried all the variations on the path by adding the directories in front of ‘/gfur-activate-template/activate.php’.

      Could my failure to get your code to work for me have anything to do with it being used in a child theme?

      $template_path = STYLESHEETPATH

      I’m not sure about this because I do not know how to inspect it. I think STYLESHEETPATH is returning the path to the main theme not the child theme.

      I could be WAY off course, your help would be greatly appreciated as I am still learning.

      Thanks, Craig

      View Related Code

    • I have tried to hard code the path to my child theme all the way down to the acrivate.php file without success.

      $template_path = ‘/public_html/wp-content/themes/virtue_premium_child/templates/wp-content/plugins/gravityformsuserregistration/includes/gfur-activate-template/activate.php’;

      Still no joy, I cannot get it to work.

      I have changed the printf statements to indicate that I have successfully activated your module as follows:

      <?php printf( __('Craig-Success – Your account is now activated. View your site or Log in‘), $url, $url . ‘wp-login.php’ ); ?>

      I simply cannot get the module to work, I know I am doing something wrong. I just don’t know what to try next.

      CraigM

    • What is happening is that we never override the Gravity Forms activate.php. That file is located at: /public_html/wp-content/plugins/gravityformsuserregistration/includes

      There are no other activate.php files in the child theme.

      I have included my child theme’s functions.php contents in the code section.

      I have been playing with replacing STYLESHEETPATH with get_stylesheet_directory()

      I have had no luck with that either.

      I am a complete loss. I’ve tried everything I know but I’ve gotten nowhere.

      I really could use some direction. I am completely confused. I have been working on this the best part of the day and I have not gotten anywhere.

      CraigM

      View Related Code

    • I would expect that code to work. If it’s not working, we’ll have to dig in. There are two ways we can do this, a) you can use our installation service or b) we have a perk coming out soon that handles this functionality without any code. If you’d like to be the very first user to try this, pick up a copy of Gravity Perks and drop us a request.

  8. Hi, I’m not a coder, Gravity support sent me to this tutorial as my activation page is broken, it ignores our Avada theme. I have placed the files folder to the theme folder, then replaced the functions.php code with the short code supplied, but the website goes blank, showing no content at all. Had to place the original functions code back. Adding the code does nothing (without the first line of code, otherwise I get error). So, our activation page is still a mess and gravity support simply told me to contact you. Could yo help, please? Thank you.

    Reply

  9. Hey,

    I am using the Divi theme and although your customisation code works well (thank you!!), I am having an issue adding the header. When I echo the template type, it is giving me ‘Blank Template’ (divi has that template and one other with header/footer) which by default gives pages without header/footer as you would expect. What I am not really sure of is why it thinks it is that template. I tried various ways to add a template name to your activate.php file e.g. by adding a custom name as a comment at the start of the file, but ‘template type’ always comes out as ‘Blank Template’.

    Any idea how I can override this so that our activate pages do have the header and footers?

    Thanks for all your very great work.

    cheers david

    p.s. sorry for posting this on another page of yours, it has been a long day!

    Reply

  11. Hi,

    Thanks for the script I eventually got it working…

    but I’ve a few questions:

    1. How can I change the page title of activate.php – it seems to pull in my blog home as the pages title. Any chance of making activation as standard word press page-templatename.php ??

    2. On – activate-success.php How do I email the user their password? Could it be included in the activation email? or sent by email to the user after activation?

    Thanks for any pointers…

    Cheers

    Reply

    • Hi Nat, you should be able to change the title via the wp_title filter. I don’t have ready solution for sending the password to the user on activation.

      We do have plans to make this available as a perk in the future. That version would allow you to configure the activation page as a standard WordPress page and give complete control over the contents of each possible scenario (success, failure, etc).

    • Hi David,

      thanks a lot. I was able to get my site working again, but the snippet doesn’t work on my site. I will contact the theme support today and see if they can help to fix it, hopefully, they can (I use Total Theme). The problem was – I have added the snippet into the functions and the site handles some extra hooks for added code. Additionally, as the snippet doesn’t work I thought the code placed wrong so I was trying to dig deeper and place the code in some crazy variations 😀 that’s why the site crashed at the end.

    • Glad you were able to fix your site. 🙂

      In regards to the snippet not working still… this snippet won’t make anything look different when it is installed by default. Try changing the templates (like activate-error.php or activate-success.php) to make sure that you aren’t seeing your changes.

    • Hi David,

      this is so LOL, somehow I didnt know it – I was all the time trying to change the activate.php to get that code running and it looked ugly of course. I have been trying to add some styles to the php file etc… Ok, the code is running now (I was able to add some echos into the new path and those are now displaying) Now I will try and customize the file you mentioned 😀

    • But wait a min you are writing above that the default view should look like this, but in my case its still ugly, it is definitely doesn’t look like this. So I am again doing something wrong I guess.

    • What I mean is that it will look like however it looked before you installed the snippet. It just provides the ability to change the look. It won’t suddenly look like the screenshots above unless you’re using the TwentyTwelve theme. But if you’re using the TwentyTwelve theme, it will look like the screenshots above even without the snippet.

    • Thanks David,

      then I have to work on the CSS so it will look better. I’m at the same pos like the guy below. Trying to get that running on a specific site. But in my case you $url = website etc doesn’t work.

  13. Hi,

    I followed the instructions and implemented the custom registration on my website But when I click on the registration page I get a blank page and no error. The error i get is: Fatal error __clone method called on non-object …ocs/wp-content/plugins/sitepress-multilingual-cms/sitepress.class.php 282 which gives me no information on how to fix this.

    I think the issue is on the activate-success.php I am using WPML on Kleo Theme with Gravity forms registration addon. Is there a way you can help me on this?

    Reply

  14. I am using gravity-forms-user-registration and the above code to modify the activation screen. I have been trying to modify the activation page so that the password is not shown. I just want to show a password reset link similar to this:

    http://mySite.com/wp-login.php?action=rp&key=myActivationKey&login=myLogin

    I have been able to show the link but when I click on the password reset link, I get an login error

    Your password reset link appears to be invalid.

    Does GF user registration work with the password reset option? How can I solve this issue?

    Reply

  15. Hi David,

    does this work with a childtheme as well? I followed the steps above but still have the WordPress standard page when following the confirmation link sent via email.

    1. I have a folder named ‘gfur-activate-template’ in my childtheme folder

    2. In that folder I have the files ‘activate-error.php’, ‘activate-no-key.php’, ‘activate-success.php’ and ‘activate.php’

    3. Into the ‘functions.php’ that´s placed in my childtheme folder I copied your snippet.

    Where am I going wrong?

    Thanks for helping

    Sascha

    Reply

    • Hi Sascha, it sounds like you understand how this should be configured. It’s not clear to me what would be going wrong. Are you seeing any errors?

    • Hi David,

      sorry, it´s been a couple of month. I am still working on that project and still have the issue but concentrated on other problems to solve. And I must have missed the notification that you sent an answer. Funny thing finding my own post when googling for this issue again 😀

      I do not see any errors. What happens is that simply the WP standard activation page is showing up. Please see this screenshot: http://www.quult.com/screenshot.jpg

    • Me again…

      everything works fine! Because the text on the activation page appeared in german I thought this must be the WP standard page. My fault. After editing the GF activation page I found out that the template is used like it should. Thanks for your time.

      Sascha

    • Yes 🙂 But there´s one more thing… I customized the php-files but no CSS does take any effect!? How can I achieve this?

      Thanks again

      Sascha

    • Isn´t there a way to simply redirect to a page I can create with WordPress? It would be great to lead the user directly to the website including the menu, sidebar and all that stuff instead of displaying a link saying ‘Activation successful. Please log in here’ or something. Is there a way to achieve this?

    • Sure, it’s possible, you would just need to developer a custom solution to handle it. This is more or less how the perk version of this snippet will work. No ETA on that, however.

  16. How would I direct the success response to a page that wasn’t my front page?

    I have a large slider on my front page and I’d rather they saw the success message on a page without my slider.

    I have tried changing the url in the activate-success file to

    $url = is_multisite() ? get_blogaddress_by_id( (int) $blog_id ) : home_url(‘/new-registration/’, ‘http’);

    But it doesn’t seem to work.

    Reply

  17. Hopefully this helps anyone else having issues where it appears their custom html in the activate-*.php files isn’t working.

    Basically, the theme name is getting included in the $this->template_folder variable so every get_template_part() was failing in activate.php.

    If you don’t have your activate php files in a folder you can just fix the get_template_part calls.

    David – I also submitted an issue on github.

    Reply

  18. Hey Dave, I’m seeing a few errors since the latest GF update. All views of the activate.php are throwing this: Strict Standards: Non-static method GFAddOn::get_base_path() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context in /////wp-content/themes/f4d/gfur-activate-template/activate.php on line 27 and Notice: Undefined property: GWActivateTemplate::$_full_path in /////wp-content/plugins/gravityforms/includes/addon/class-gf-addon.php on line 4645

    I see they updated get_base_path method to public from protected. Does this require us to declare this now in activate.php? Any ideas?

    Reply

  19. This works great BUT as you mentioned in above comments it looks like default template. How and where should we modify the code to include our active theme header and footer?

    Reply

    • Hi Vainucleo, it sounds like you might not have included this correctly. It should automatically pick up your theme’s header and footer.

  20. Sorry if I go OT but I really don’t know where to find help, ’cause I can’t believe I’m the only one with this issue… How do you all handle the User activation thing? With GF user registration addon and activation required, once the user submit the form he receives an email from WP with the activation link but he also receive the GF notification. What I really need is to make GF send the notification ONLY once the user has been activated. Any ideas? Tnx

    Reply

  21. Thanks for this snippet! Quick question- how exactly do I go about modifying the new templates now. I can see them in my editor, but I’m not sure where to put the HTML to actually style them.

    Thanks!

    Reply

    • Hi Bryant, the files you’ll want to modify are activate-success.php, activate-error.php, and activate-no-key.php. Just start making changes and experiment. 🙂

  22. Hi there,

    Thanks for this, it works like a charm!

    I would like that a user already be ‘logged in’ when they arrive on the activation success page. While I think this is happening, I have to refresh the page for any conditional outputs based on is_user_logged_in () (for instance conditional menu items based on whether a user is logged in or not.

    Do you know how this might be accomplished?

    Thanks in advance!

    Reply

  23. Hi David, I had to update the theme of one project I was working on 2 years ago. I am usin grafity forms and user registration. I updated also the user registration plugin.

    I followed the steps you wrote above and recognized, that I already have done this 2 years ago.

    Now if I register on the website and click the link in my activation email, the site with the information of user account with username and password is shown. E.g. http://www.xyzdomainname.com/?page=gf_activation&key=14d82de87ftde44895ea1

    This page looks horrible! Everything is widescreen, no CSS is working and I do not know how the style it. Can you perhaps give me a hint?

    The other question:

    My welcome email is also telling me that after clicking the link, another email will be sent with my password and username. But this never happens. I read that WordPress made here some changes and passwords were no longer sent in emails. Is this correct? Where can I edit the text of the welcome email? I use a plugin – SB Welcome Email – but this part does not work anymore.

    Thanks, Eva

    Reply

    • I could figure this out. You have to check your page.php and see where the content starts, check the code, hooks, div tags etc and paste it into the file.

      I changed this:

      <

      div id=”content” class=”widecolumn”>

      In my case to this (I work with a Total Theme):

      And closed it all with this:

                  <!-- #content -->



        <!-- #primary -->

      Don’t forget to adjust the code. The end should be directly above the javascript code snippet.

      Hope it helps you guys.

  24. OK. I’ve just tried integrating this with a theme based on Sage (http://roots.io/sage). It was a bit tricky because they use a theme wrapper which basically puts all the header and footer stuff into a standard template.

    My code to get around that looks something like this:

    add_action(‘wp’, ‘custom_maybe_activate_user’, 9); function custom_maybe_activate_user() {

    $template_path = STYLESHEETPATH . '/gfur-activate-template/activate.php';
$is_activate_page = isset( $_GET['page'] ) && $_GET['page'] == 'gf_activation';

if( ! file_exists( $template_path ) || ! $is_activate_page  )
    return;

\Roots\Sage\Wrapper\SageWrapping::wrap( $template_path );
require_once(STYLESHEETPATH . '/base.php');

exit();

    }

    Oh, and you’ll need to:

    use \Roots\Sage\Wrapper;

    too.

    Reply

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