[Plugin: Pie Register] Suggestion: Replace username with email, add public display setting

I am working with a site where the intention is to never use any usernames, only the email to log in. This is an increasingly popular way to build communities nowadays, and Facebook uses the same to name one.

Adding two new settings to Pie Register makes this possible:

• Use email as the login. This would disable the default field on the login form. The default registration form would the only ask for the user’s email. Sites could then use additional profile fields like First Name, Last Name, or Nickname (which would be just like Username but affects only the user display name). On registration the plugin would save the email as both the email and username in WordPress database, and the user would always log in with that email and the password. The plugin would modify the login form so that the first field would be called Email instead of Username and that accounts that were created before enabling this feature in the plugin could log in by both username and email.
• Choose the default Display name publicly as setting. Currently all users have to alter it themselves if they want to be displayed as Firstname Lastname, for example. A sub-option for this: Users cannot change this.

To have a completely Facebook-like user registration a site would apply these settings: replace username with email, require a first and last name, display name publicly as First Name Last Name and users cannot change the display setting. This is the desired way for most online communities where people are encouraged to get to know each other in real life.

Some sites would choose to have the settings otherwise the same but to display users as First Name “Nickname” Last Name. This way a forum-centered WP site can have users posting as for example William “Super-Bill” Smith.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/pie-register/