Membership Plugins - Thoughts & Feedback?

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Tagged: membership plugins

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August 8, 2014 at 3:06 pm #11399

identity
Lifetime Member

Post count: 445

I have no previous experience with these, so was hoping to get feedback from anyone who has/is using a membership plugin…

Why using with GD or what benefit do you think it will provide?

What are you using or have used, and do you recommend?

Thanks.

Cheers,
Brian

August 8, 2014 at 5:14 pm #11405

Simone
Expired Member

Post count: 3515

Hello, used s2member (well just tested), and it works well, I would recommend this, but maybe someone else could suggest you a better plugin 🙂

August 8, 2014 at 11:32 pm #11437

Guust
Moderator

Post count: 29970

I use s2member together with GD on a few sites.
Membership plugins are to restrict access to parts of a site and are built to allow to charge a fee for access, GD is built to allow charging a fee per post.

Some examples I can see (without thinking about their merit):

1. Only members can submit listings: example: charge a fee to become a member and submit as many free listings as you like.

2. You can only allow members to see (some) listings, by restricting parts of your site: example visitors can see all white hat SEO-ers but have to pay to see your black hat SEO-ers 😈

Also have a look at some other posts:
https://wpgeodirectory.com/support/search/?bbp_search=s2member

August 8, 2014 at 11:52 pm #11445

directory
Expired Member

Post count: 1502

Thank you for sharing s2member, Guust. I wonder if you can also have different membership levels linked to different GD price packages.

For example, Basic membership can only have the listings with limited features.

August 8, 2014 at 11:57 pm #11447

Guust
Moderator

Post count: 29970

Mnailaboy, that would require custom coding and integration.
Membership plugins control your users, GD controls your posts.

But while I just wrote that: s2member can restrict some URLs, so you could only allow some members to access /add-listing/?listing_type=gd_place&package_id=2 for example but allow every member to access
/add-listing/?listing_type=gd_place

Have not tried, so don’t believe me without testing 🙂

August 19, 2014 at 5:01 pm #12591

identity
Lifetime Member

Post count: 445

Thanks for the feedback.

Looking at some of those and thinking about this, I’m thinking maybe something even simpler now.

Any experience/thoughts on more of a frontend user profile management plugin, preferably free/low cost?

Thinking basics like upload an avatar, brief bio, social profile links, etc.

thanks

August 19, 2014 at 9:25 pm #12612

Guust
Moderator

Post count: 29970

Brian, the GD author page is on the TO DO list, which should do what you mention. See more at
https://wpgeodirectory.com/support/topic/front-end-author-page/

bbpress and s2member etc will do what you mention (but s2member does not do avatars)

August 19, 2014 at 11:58 pm #12627

purpleedge
Expired Member

Post count: 539

Brian, ThemeMyLogin adds a profile page, there are avatar upload plugins too, but I now prefer to use gravatars.

August 20, 2014 at 1:14 am #12630

identity
Lifetime Member

Post count: 445

Thanks guys, good to know.

On the free-end, this one is looking pretty good, Front-End Users, though I haven’t tried it out yet. But seems pretty straight forward and not overloaded for something like this.

Definitely like the idea of having basic functionality built into GD and avoid loading up another plugin.

TML looked interesting too, but I felt a little skittish with some of the reviews talking about getting completely locked out of the system.

I’ve restyled the login/registration page already to make it unique without needing a plugin and I thinking adding BWS Captcha plugin not only added captcha but email password on registration before commenting/posting…could be wrong, still need to doublecheck that, but I don’t remember that happening prior to adding that one.

cheers

August 20, 2014 at 5:04 pm #12696

identity
Lifetime Member

Post count: 445

Just to follow up…took a look at the Front-End Users plugin I mentioned above. It actually looks pretty slick and easy, but unfortunately, don’t think it will work for GD…it actually creates and stores the users in a completely separate table than the regular WP users table.

That of course might be a really good thing on a “regular” WP site.
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