I fully understand why this happens, but in my opinion the implementation of this should be reconsidered. Please hear me out.

I want my users to keep their First and Last Names separate, both at registration and in their profiles. This allows me to sort data exported from my comprofiler_users table based on last name, which I do using other tools that directly query the database. So I have CB configured with Name Style set to First and Last Name Fields. This forces the system field "name" to not be published, which is what makes it unavailable as a field when creating a userlist. I think name should be available for userlists regardless whether it is published. A userlist is not an input form, which is mainly why I believe this CB configuration option exists in the first place. When I build a userlist, I don't want to have to put the user's first and last names in different columns or one below the other. I want their full name displayed.

As a workaround, I successfully got my desired result by creating the userlist using the lastname field, then editing the comprofiler_lists table directly and simply changing the field ID in the applicable list to that of the name field. This proves that name is a viable field even if unpublished. The problem is, if I ever change ANYTHING about that userlist, I either have to redo this step, or do all my editing directly in the comprofiler_lists table.

Please consider making the name field an always-available field for userlists.

Thanks!

My point is that the format name field is not available to add to a userlist if the Name Style is set in CB configuration to "First and Last Names". This is because the format name field is only published if you set Name Style to "Single Name Field", which is not what I want.

I don't see any Custom HTML option for userlist columns. Had that been available, I would likely have chosen it instead of hacking the database to get the result I want. Because Custom HTML (in this case) would involve multiple fields (firstname, lastname), I'd expect it to be selectable from the field names list. But it isn't there.

Thanks,
Bruce

The "formatname" field is always available and it doesn't care what the name style is set to. This is separate from the "name" field.

No it isn't, even though it is showing as published.

You can have to create the Custom HTML field in CB > Field Management first. Then substitute in first and last name. See the below substitution tutorial for substitution usage information, but you shouldn't need to do this as the formatname field should be sufficient.

I tried creating a Custom HTML field, which I named cb_fullname. Verified it correctly displays the full name of the user via "[firstname] [lastname" by temporarily including it in one of my profile tabs. Published it. Put it into a tab I don't use. But as you can see in the attached image, that field is also not available to use in a list column.

I am using Joomla 3.7.2 with CB 2.1.2+build.2017.05.04.16.30.55.c67734e1f

Thanks,
Bruce