Assign specific default Profile Photo to a User Role

Hello Ultimate Member Users & Developers! In this tutorial you will learn how to add multiple default profile photo for different roles.

Let’s look at the code snippets below before I explain each code line:

  add_filter("um_user_avatar_url_filter",function( $url, $user_id, $data  ){
	
	um_fetch_user( $user_id );
	$role = um_user("role");
	if( $role == 'subscriber' ){
	   return "https://via.placeholder.com/150/0000FF/FFFFFF?text=Subscriber";
	}else if( $role == 'administrator' ){
		return "https://via.placeholder.com/150/FF0000/FFFFFF?text=Administrator";
	}else if( $role == 'bbp_spectator' ){
		return "https://via.placeholder.com/150/FFFF00/FFFFFF?text=Spectator";
	}

	return $url; // default URL

 }, 999999, 3);

Ultimate Member has a setting for adding a default profile photo in WP Admin > Ultimate Member > Settings > Appearance > see Default Profile Photo. As you can see it, we are only allowed to add a Default Profile for global usage – there’s no additional options to add and assign a default profile photo to specific user roles.

Let’s see how the code works.

add_filter("um_user_avatar_url_filter",function( $url, $user_id, $data  ){
	// do something
    return $url;
});

Above, we are using a filter hook to retrieve the default Profile Photo and modify it with our own source of Profile Photo. There are 3 filter hook parameters:

$url – this passes the default Profile Photo URL added via the settings page.

$user_id – a reference for the current user in the member directory loop or profile form.

$data – Profile Photo data which we won’t use in this tutorial but you might use it for your own purpose.

    um_fetch_user( $user_id );
	
    $role = um_user("role");
	if( $role == 'subscriber' ){
	   return "https://randomuser.me/api/portraits/men/80.jpg";
	}else if( $role == 'administrator' ){
		return "https://randomuser.me/api/portraits/men/50.jpg";
	}else if( $role == 'editor' ){
		return "https://randomuser.me/api/portraits/men/50.jpg";
	 }

	return $url; // default URL

To retrieve the current’s user role in the Loop or Single Profile page, you can use the um_fetch_user function to retrieve the user’s data. These data includes the role value.

$role = um_user("role");
if( $role == 'subscriber' ){
	   return "https://randomuser.me/api/portraits/men/80.jpg";
}

The above shows that when a user has a subscriber role, it swaps the set default profile with the custom Profile Photo URL.

Ensure that the role slug is correct. You can check the Role slugs in WP Admin > Ultimaet Member > User Roles.

Now, you can use the first code snippets above and add it to your theme’s function file or via Code Snippets plugin.

I hope that you find this helpful. Please feel free to leave a comment, feedback and some goodvibes. Don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter!

Champ Camba