Membership Site With Free and Paid Levels

I am a brand new user to s2member and am having trouble setting up the plugin properly. I’m sure it’s something that I’ve overlooked as a newbie and nothing wrong with the plugin, but I’m getting so frustrated so I hope someone can help me.

My site is here:

http://cleanslatewebs.com/bc/

My Membership Options page is called Join in my menu. My and my Member Login page is called Login in my menu. I am trying to set up the membership portion of my site so that anyone can access the site without registration, but there is a certain portion of the site that should only be accessed by those who have paid the yearly membership fee. I don’t think I’m doing this properly at this time.

Right now, when someone clicks on Login, they aren’t being taken to the login page, but rather directly to the Membership portion of the site.

Another question I have is whether s2Member will keep track of when the subscription expires?

Thanks

S2member keeps track of membership expiration using the EOT (End of term) for each user and will automatically suspend access for expired accounts.

The first thing I noticed is that your link is being re-directed to your membership options page (join page).

That means that you probably have it “protected.”

If you let people “sign-up” without paying, as well as have paid members, they will all see your “members home” page, when they log in. ( you can add some shortcodes to filter that out though, but I can walk you through that later if necessary).

Your members home page, or login welcome page as s2member calls it, is auto protected. (that may be part of the confusion and why your “login” link is being re-directed… maybe… lol).

S2member’s “user login welcome page” really means the page that the user sees after they log in. So you don’t want to put your login form there.

Then any page or post you want to restrict to paid members can be done easily when you create the page.

In the upper right corner of the new page or page edit screen should be a box with s2member options. Select the level of access that should be required and you should be good to go.

Let me know if something doesn’t make sense or if you have more issues.

Dave

First, let me say how pleased I am to receive such a quick response. I’ve been trying to figure out how to use S2member for a year now and have had trouble, but I decided to upgrade to the pro version so that I could receive tech support and I’ve not been disappointed. :)

I think I have fixed the problems with the Join and the Login Pages, but not sure. If a person signs up, should they see the form on the Join page? Shouldn’t it tell the user that they are already a member. Same thing with Login, shouldn’t it tell the user they are already logged in?

The other thing I’m not sure about is how to give the user the option to upgrade for paid content. Once I set up the paid membership, is there a way to test it out with PayPal without actually spending money?

Thanks.

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by  Michele Wong.

In my opinion, they shouldn’t see the form. The problem is, though, that s2member doesn’t check to see if the user already has the level and custom capability access listed in the form. So it presents the form no matter what, since it uses the same basic form inputs for all the registration forms. It’s assuming they are trying to upgrade something I think… so you would have to filter that out yourself.

You could try something like:

[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)]
put some text here saying they are already logged in...
[/s2If]

[s2If !current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)]
put your registration form shortcode here.
[/s2If]

I think you can use sandbox mode for testing though I just always set the price to the minimum amount $0.01 or whatever it is and test it live. (just my way of doing it) so I don’t know how to do the sandbox testing. Then I replace the price with the actual price when I go live.

To add an upgrade button, simply create the button in s2member button generator, then put in in a “protected” page that ensures the user must be logged in to click on it. This makes sure the user’s info is transferred with the payment info so their current account is upgraded with the level change or custom capabilities addition you are charging them for.

Also, make sure the page you put the upgrade button on is not protected higher than the user’s access who will be upgrading. :)

Hope that helps!

Dave

I want to try your suggestion, but I’m not really sure where to place the code. Can you clarify for me?

Hello Michele,

You would place these s2Member conditional shortcodes in your membership options page, or the login welcome page, whichever you prefer. :)

– Eduan