As a beginner, you're better off using plugins to extend forms.

There're some plugins that can help you with this:

• Profile Manager (maybe what you need)
• Forms

Note: Use those releases that are compatible with your Elgg version.

Thanks, I'll give that a bash

If you mean the Elgg community. We're still running 2.3 (shame on us).

We're looking into upgrading, but it'll take some work ;)

We could gain so much if we update (performance, UI, features, etc)

hm, our LTS version is 3.3.24. it'll takes some work, but I saw it's about three years behind.

What's chat plugin?

If you mean this plugin, you can make it compatible with Elgg 4 using documentation