Want to create User and Content at the same time

AFAIK you can't do that automatically but manually shouldn't be a problem.

The process would be:

• User calls to place add
• Operator creates add
• Operator asks username from user if user is a member already
• Operator changes author of node to user
• If user is not a member yet, operator creates user and then changes author to user

Would that work for you?

- Arie

Hey anything is possible but I would suggest adding a contributed to the core and not hacking the core.

A contributed module could use hook_form_alter to add an email field to the form where you create the add.
Then after submission the module checks if the user already exists and then assigns the add to that user (and maybe sends and email)
If the user doesn't exist yet, the module calls the email registration module and creates the user, assigns the node and sends a notification.

Better?

- Arie

BTW You really should post things like this on the developers mailing list. The guys over there do this kind of thing for a living (well a lot of them...)

Et voilà http://drupal.org/mailing-lists

Good luck and please post a little something about your solution here once you figure it out.

- Arie

If I were better at Javascript, I'd have UI suggestions for you, but you want an autocompleting text box that looks up users by whatever. You would add

#autocomplete_path = 'menu_path_that_calls_your_function'

to the FormAPI textfield element definition, something like

$items['menu_path_that_calls_your_function'] = array(
// menu definition that calls module_userlookup() 
);

in your module_menu() function, and (for example)

function module_userlookup($string) {
  static $results = array();
  if (!isset($results[$string])) {
    $matches = array();
    $sql = ('SELECT DISTINCT i.uid, i.firstname, i.lastname
    FROM {user_name_index} i  // <--- This is not a native Drupal table, by the way
    WHERE (i.lastname LIKE \'%s%%\' OR i.firstname LIKE \'%s%%\') ORDER BY i.lastname');
    $references = $limit ? db_query_range($sql, $string, $string, 0, $limit) : db_query($sql, $string, $string);
    while ($row = db_fetch_object($references)) {
      // Add a class wrapper for a few required CSS overrides.
      $matches[$row->lastname .', '. $row->firstname ." [user:$row->uid]"] = '<div class="reference-autocomplete">'. $row->lastname .', '. $row->firstname .'</div>';
    }
    // Store the results.
    $results[$string] = $matches;
  }
  return drupal_json($results[$string]);
}

The function will return an array, key = The string as is displayed in the text field when selected, value = HTML defining the appearance of the item in the drop down list. The key is what will be returned by the form, so you'll have to embed something in it that you can use to identify the user for processing purposes.

On the processing side, to create a user check out the example from the drupal_execute() documentation (http://api.drupal.org/api/function/drupal_execute/7):

// register a new user 
$form_state = array(); 
$form_state['values']['name'] = 'robo-user'; 
$form_state['values']['mail'] = 'robouser@example.com'; 
$form_state['values']['pass'] = 'password'; 
$form_state['values']['op'] = t('Create new account'); 
drupal_execute('user_register', $form_state);

$form_state['values']['status'] = 1;  // status = Active
$form_state['values']['notify'] = 1;  // sent user notification of the creation of the account

before the drupal_execute() call.

There is an add user action available for the rules module: http://drupal.org/project/rules
Just add a condition that queries if the e-mail is already taken. Then fire the appropriate actions: add user and add as author or just add as author. There is also a token for the generated password, so you can email all relevant account information.
Would be an option I think.

cheers,
criz

@jack_ruby: Did you manage to automate this or are you still using the manual approach?

- Arie

Took a quick look and it looks nice already. A few points though:

• What's the <p> doing in the title?
• In the Create New Ad form you say the phone number is handy for people without email... but that's a required field!
• On the home page you are displaying Most recent ads as the main content and next to it Newest Items in a block. Seems double.
• The design seems a little plain. You might want to add some more color or some images maybe. But I suppose that's a matter of taste

Once you get close to opening up for business (if you aren't already) you should post your site in http://drupal.org/forum/25

Good luck!

- Arie