the problem

When subscribers log into WordPress, they are sent to the Dashboard where they can modify their profile. Chances are, this isn’t exactly what you had in mind.

To have subscribers sent to the home page, you might tack a query string onto your login links:

?redirect_to=http://mysite.com

Problem is, you won’t catch them all. What if they register and then login, or click the login button on the registration page? Those are part of wp-admin in the core of WordPress.

That led me to changing the default redirect_to in wp-login.php. It works, it’s in one place, but changing core code makes upgrading a hassle.

the solution

This morning I was pleased to find that a login_redirect filter was added in the just released WordPress 2.6.2, providing a much cleaner solution.

Here is the code to add to your themes’ functions.php:

// redirect subscribers to the home page (WP 2.6.2)
function change_login_redirect($redirect_to, $request_redirect_to, $user) {
  if (is_a($user, 'WP_User') && $user->has_cap('edit_posts') === false) {
    return get_bloginfo('siteurl');    
  }
  return $redirect_to;
}
 
// add filter with default priority (10), filter takes (3) parameters
add_filter('login_redirect','change_login_redirect', 10, 3);

We check the capabilities for edit_posts, if not present, we force the redirect to the home page. The other approach would be to look into the $user->roles array for ’subscriber’, but capabilities are more exact, say, if you add another subscriber-like role using Role Manager.

Sometimes $user will be a WP_Error object, so the code handles that case by ensuring it actually is a WP_User.

And that’s all it takes. Happy WordPressing.