Hide a nav menu item based on get_user_meta results

Question

I'm trying to hide a navigation menu item under certain circumstances. Specifically, if a user is logged in AND has already registered their product bar code, I want to hide the 'Register Kit' link (which has a class of 'ac-regkit').

Below is the PHP I've added to the head section of header.php, just before wp_head();.

/* If User is loggied in, hide LOG IN and SIGN UP links */
<?php if ( is_user_logged_in() ) { ?>
    <style>
        .ac-login { display: none; }
        .ac-signup { display: none; }
    </style>

    /*If user has not yet registered their DNA Test Kit, show link */
    <?php
        $current_user = wp_get_current_user();
        $user_id = $current_user;
        $key = 'redeem_code';
        $single = true;
        $ac-barcode = wp_get_user_meta( $user_id, $key, $single);
        if ( $ac-barcode = '' ) { ?>
        <style>
            .ac-regkit { display: inline; font-weight: bold; }
            .ac-regkit a { color: red; }
        </style>
    <?php }; ?>
<?php } ?>

And this is the error I'm getting:

Server Error The website encountered an error while retrieving http://athleticode.com/. It may be down for maintenance or configured incorrectly.

I'm not an expert in PHP, so I'm sure it's a syntax error or something like that -- and there is probably a better way to achieve this result -- so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

I'd have 2 menus, and show the 2nd only if the user meet criteria. Then, use CSS to show both menus like its only one.

I think it's the easiest way. And you have the benefit that the items aren't really there, not just hidden.

Answer 2

wp_get_current_user() returns the complete user object, so your next line should not be $user_id = $current_user, but $user_id = $current_user->ID.

I understand you can't enable WP_DEBUG on a live site, and this might be the reason you get a "generic" error message when something goes wrong, but have you looked at the options to write PHP error messages to a log file instead? This way the user won't see the errors but you can. Developing without seeing error messages is almost impossible.

Answer 3

In case this was your real code and not just an example, replace it with the following one. Btw: <!-- this is a html comment --> and <?php /* this is */ # like this or // that a php comment ?>.

<?php 
// Note: I moved all php-Comments inside the php tags. 
/* If User is loggied in, hide LOG IN and SIGN UP links */
if ( is_user_logged_in() ) 
{ 
?>
    <style>
        .ac-login { display: none; }
        .ac-signup { display: none; }
    </style>

    <?php
    /* If user has not yet registered their DNA Test Kit, show link */
        $current_user = get_currentuserinfo(); // THIS IS THE FUNCTION YOU NEED
        $user_id = $current_user->ID;
        $key = 'redeem_code';
        $single = true;
        $ac_barcode = wp_get_user_meta( $user_id, $key, $single);
        if ( empty( $ac_barcode ) ) { // YOU COULD TRY if ( ! $ac-barcode ) TOO
?>
        <style>
            .ac-regkit { display: inline; font-weight: bold; }
            .ac-regkit a { color: red; }
        </style>
<?php 
    } // removed ";"
}?>