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BusinessOnlinePh
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I do not need to protect any content, I just want a way for members to register and manage payments. I want two levels, free and VIP. the VIP members would not be shown adverts. Can this be done with the whoseesads plugin you provide?
How would I setup what people can view when there is nothing for them to view? Should it be everything or nothing?
I have setup the plugin and created pages. When I view the registration page, it has no methods whatsoever for the user to register, but does say "We have the following subscriptions available for our site. To join, simply click on the Sign Up button and then complete the registration details.". When I logout and view the page, it is entirely blank.
How does anyone register when there is no way to register?
122 pointsCommunity rank #457El PresidenteJust Getting Started
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I stand corrected, the levels were not active. They are now active and display, but the description of the level fails and strips all formatting, making it a single, massive, line of text.
122 pointsCommunity rank #457El PresidenteJust Getting Started
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Hello, it was my fault as I had not activated some of the options. It now seems to be working ok. The only issue that I have at the moment is that the descriptions do not allow paragraphs and all the text is slammed into one line.
How can I upgrade multiple users. For example, I want all my current users to become Free Members.
Also, I do not want to protect any pages, so do I need to add any items to the levels? I want all content to be available to everyone. I know this is an odd setup, but we do not need any content protected as our prime aim is to allow VIP members to view our site with no adverts displayed. Will this be possible using one of your plugins such as the who sees ads plugin?
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Hi BusinessOnlinePh,
I have a site that offers extra content ad-free to subscribers (in other-words, non-paid members, which is exactly what you are talking about).
What I do is use the membership widgets to offer this extra content. You can create one set of sidebar content for members, and another for non-members. As most of my ads are in the sidebars, this is pretty much effortless. I simply put the ad code only in the non-member sidebars.
If you need to add this type of content to other areas of you site beyond traditional sidebars, may I suggest learning to create custom sidebars?
I did have to place a few ads that required more area than the traditional sidebars of the template offered, so I created a few extra sidebars for my site (imagine being able to create a new area for clients to add widgets to pretty much anywhere on their site, and you'll get the idea).
The Membership plugin also offers some creative coding to mask and unmask this type of thing. I like the whole widget thing better myself (far more simple for a client to do w/o help), but, check out the fine-print.
This plugin isn't terribly intuitive, but the more you work with it, the more you'll come to love it!
If you want to check out my not quite finished example (in other words, please be kind) you can check it here. Check out the sidebar content on recent updates, and then scroll down the page, pick a link, and click on it to go to the login page. This guy is a business pro - so don't stress on spam. He doesn't send out anything - just likes to know who is reading his stuff.
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Thank you. However, our adverts are in 3-4 locations that are prime value locations. We use the sidebar for other info.
I understand that the shortcodes will work within the loop, but only 2 of our adverts are within the loop, 1 is above. Even then, the 2 in the loop are added by a plugin, so I do not know if it will work.
I will test it and report back. Thank you for your suggestions.
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Nope, it does not work. It displays the shortcode as text. The only other option is to edit the theme, but the shortcodes will not work in there.
I need a more fluid solution, something that will do it for the two ads in the posts and the ad in the header.
Thank you for your suggestion.
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Another issue is the way it presents the subscriptions. I have to have 3 subscriptions for VIP and each will need its own subscription type. Why cant it be listed under the membership level?
So we would have:
Free
VIP; Monthly, half yearly or yearly
Instead, we are forced to have it like this:
Free
VIP Monthly
VIP Half Yearly
VIP Yearly
It is confusing and really looks horrific. How can I have multiple options for one membership level when users subscribe?
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and on top of this, the descriptions for each are stripped of all formatting, so it looks even worse. Can we have this addressed please? Why use a wysiwyg editor when you do not get what you see?
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Greetings BusinessOnlinePh,
Sorry to see that things seem to be spinning out of control on this project.
Instead, we are forced to have it like this:
Free
VIP Monthly
VIP Half Yearly
VIP Yearly
You are not forced, the code is GPL and open source, change it how you want.
However, the outcome or the way you are trying to currently use the plugin with one level and several payment schedules, the plugin was never intended to be used this way.
It was meant to be along the traditionally accepted membership configuration level 1, level 2, level 3, not payment options 1, 2, and 3.
But we can certainly submit this function as a feature request if you want.
Can we have this addressed please? Why use a wysiwyg editor when you do not get what you see?
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Hello and thank you for your reply, even if it was slightly insulting. I have been using wordpress for many years and have ran 2 companies that offer wordpress services. My point is that it is not wordpress stripping the format, it is your plugin that is doing this, or at the very least, it is your plugin that is not enforcing the formatting.
If I can not format the description, it really makes it very poor quality as I have no way to format it and it will and does look a complete mess.
Why you are sending me a link about format within wysiwyg editors on wordpress.com when we are using the self hosted version is beyond me.
I am indeed forced by the plugin to use the format. The norm is not to provide entirely seperate membership levels. Almost all subscription systems will allow broken down options within that would allow for weekly, monthly and so on.
Ok, if this is the way the plugin is and these are no bugs, so be it. What about the other issues I mentioned which have not been addressed?
I honestly do not mean to come over as nasty and I am sorry if that is how it sounded, but what the hell does it have to do with anything how long I have been using wordpress? I have many plugins that use the wysiwyg editor and they DO NOT STRIP THE FORMATTING....
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"It was meant to be along the traditionally accepted membership configuration level 1, level 2, level 3, not payment options 1, 2, and 3." Have you even seen other membership plugins? They do indeed offer multiple subscription options for one level. I know, I have many sites that use other membership plugins.
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The link you provide (although irrelevant) states "Some embed code will not work because we remove JavaScript, Flash, iframe, form, and input tags for security reasons. " yet that has NOTHING AT ALL to do with what is happening with me. You call this SPECTACULAR SUPPORT? I dont think so...
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Hello! Stepping in to see if I can be of help here. :)
I honestly do not mean to come over as nasty and I am sorry if that is how it sounded, but what the hell does it have to do with anything how long I have been using wordpress?
The plain truth is you do come off as being nasty and carrying a huge chip on your shoulder, in this and the following two replies you typed out of frustration.
Have you even seen other membership plugins?
There are indeed many membership plugins out there and they all offer different features. If ours does not offer what you are needing then you should definitely check out one that does, we like to help any way we can, however you need the best tool for the job. If ours does not fit the bill for you then that is just how it all pans out.
As a side note: we are here to support the capabilities and functions of the plugins, as they stand, that WPMUDEV provides. We, the support group, do not code or have any input in the development process when the developers create these projects.
I will ask that we all take a deep breath and move on. We can sling "mud" all day both ways, but that really won't get your issue solved will it?
Why don't you type a reply that includes the issues you are still trying to tackle, without any flowery remarks or jabs, which I can promise will prove to be a waste of your time if you insist on including, and I will do my best to help you solve them with the best humor and patience allowed here. (I have two toddlers, so I'm pretty sure I can hold up my end of the bargain :) as I get alot of practice!)
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Hi there! OK, I'd like to just to travel way back into the past and address your shortcode comment in reference to sidebars. You are right, shortcode does not work in sidebars. Not unless you add a bit of code to your 'functions.php' page! Just add this bit of code and shortcode will work just fine.
add_filter('widget_text', 'do_shortcode');
OK, now, on to the formatting issue. Not to step on anybodies feet here, but Membership is not my favorite plugin as far as the actual look goes. As the plugin functions perfectly, and is quite simple after you get a bit of practice working with it, it is by far, my favorite Membership plugin.
On some sites I work on that use Membership, I do go to the trouble of adding quite a bit of custom CSS to give the login and membership form a look that 'matches' my sites' design.
As I am, um, kind of anal, I edit most of my plugins anyway, so I never really had any complaint about this. You know, let someone else handle the programming, and then I'll make it look pretty.
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Oh, and just quick reminder of past conversational point: You can add custom sidebar areas anywhere on your site. Then, you add that bit of code there to your 'functions.php' page, and you can have this work in headers, in your footer, anywhere on your site.
An example: client wanted each page header to be a different slideshow, so I replaced the headers with sidebar widgets, added the plugin 'custom sidebars' and tossed the shortcode into the widgets. Where you can place these is really is only limited by your imagination.
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@KimberlyL I agree that I do come across as angry in that reply because I am. The member of staff claimed that the formatting was being stripped by WordPress and to prove it, he provided a link to a thread on WordPress.com (not .org) that mentioned that wordpress would strip certain items, none of which were items that I had entered or mentioned. This claim, I am afraid, is entirely false. WordPress has not been known to strip formatting of paragraphs.
On the matter of multiple subscriptions, almost every membership plugin available allows multiple subscriptions for each membership level.
What annoyed me was the tone used in his reply and his attempt to pull rank by asking how long I had been using WordPress. Neither myself or any of my staff can see what use a question of this nature would have, except to try and show a lack of experience in the customer.
Let me tell you who I am. I created WP-Member (I created the idea and hired a team to create the product), one of the leading WordPress Membership Plugins and it was one of the top ranking results within almost all search engines for the entire time that I ran the business. Late last year I sold the business. As I already had a subscription for your site, I opted to use your plugin as it seemed to have the features required and looked like it would work as anticipated. So I guess I do have a chip on my shoulder when someone has the nerve to talk down to me and attempt to pull rank.
After I left my replies last night, I was worried that I may have done so in the heat of anger, so I asked my staff (who provide support for our wordpress services) to have a look. All of them were shocked at the reply that had been left to which I was replying.
I am not a programmer, I am the managing director of two businesses.
The "flowery remarks or jabs" were only made after the truly awful reply I received which made me very angry. This was in no way the support that I should have received.
If I did say something that was not acceptable or was a jab prior to the angry reply, please point it out so that I can see what section you mean as it may have came across completely different to how I had intended. Prior to that reply, your support had been truly amazing.
Let us start over...
Hi, I am David. I will itemise the issues I am having below:
1) I do not want to protect any content. Do I still need to add items to the level as "positive", or can I just leave all levels blank. If I do need to add items to "positive", can I do so in a manner that all future content will automatically be added so that the user can access it.
2) The descriptions for the levels (shown on the register page) are stripped of all formatting. 3 paragraphs become a single line of text. This limits me to only one line within the description which looks horrible. It does not seem that this is being stripped by wordpress as I have not seen or heard of wordpress stripping basic formatting. I did not know how it operated and if the wysiwyg editor required html coding to be input so that it would generate the formatting desired.
When I experienced this issue, I went through the manual and saw that in the screenshots, the developer had entered two paragraphs that were stripped of formatting, yet no comment was made about it. I did not know if it was an issue that they were aware of or an issue that had been missed.
3) Will this plugin work with the who sees ads plugin? My intention is to display adverts to everyone except VIP members. However, the post left and middle adverts are added to the post via a plugin.
The reason that it has been done this way is so that the updating process is easier, cheaper and more effective. Instead of editing the theme, which would mean it would need to be re-edited every time a new release was made of the theme.
@camparoo Thank you so much for your suggestions. I had added the shortcode to the wp-insert plugin that we use for the adverts within posts as I wanted to see if the shortcode would be respected as it was likely to be within the wordpress loop. I am not sure if the plugin is altering it and preventing it from showing or it may (somehow) be out of the loop. The problem with creating a sidebar is that I would need to do so within the theme and that is what I am ideally attempting to avoid. However, if no other options are available, it will likely be the best route to select.
@KimberlyL Toddlers are pretty hard to control. I have 6 year old twin boys, a 9 year old girl and a 18 year old adopted girl. The boys are by far the hardest to control as they are twins and bounce off each other, so I know where you are coming from. Thank you for your help, I have been very impressed with the replies made by other members of staff, it was just that one reply that really made me mad.
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And just as I add that reply, our marketing agent contacts us to say that they have a new advertiser who wants to use a bar in the footer of the page, so the theme will indeed need to be edited after all!
However, this raises further questions as I will need to hide the adverts from VIP members. Maybe adding sidebars is the way to go, but even then, we would need to add 4 separate sidebars, the 5th advert being link adverts which can not be added to a sidebar. If there is a way to use template tags instead of shortcodes, it would be a lot easier. If there a method to do this? Do any of your other plugins such as who sees ads or simple ads have features that would allow this?
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I have been doing some further testing with wp-insert and the shortcodes do indeed work. When viewing the site as admin, all the shortcodes were displayed, but when I use a different computer (i hate having to logout to test and login again etc) I can see that when I am a visitor, ads show, when a free member, ads show and lastly, when a VIP member, no ads show!
So that is the two adverts within the post that are working correctly. the footer advert seems to work, but as the advertiser is not live yet, we can not fully test it.
This leaves the advert in the header which can be fixed by using a widget as camparoo had suggested (thanks camparoo).
While issue #3 is not fully resolved, it's in hand and can be ignored for the time being. I just need a reply to #1 and #2.
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@BusinessOnlinePh,
I skimmed through your posts - lots of reading and i am a little short on time, but to answer your questions.
1) You don't need to use any rules. In fact in the past versions that caused the most issues for people for because of the logic behind it.
I prefer, and this should solve most of your other points to use conditionals statements.
For Example:
if ( current_user_on_level($levelid) ) {
// He does have access to this level
}
else { // He does not have access to the level }
Here is a list of conditional statements I use:
Note: You could code up almost anything using these checks.
To get more of them, check membershipincludes/includes/functions.php file ;)
For example this should suit you perfectly current_user_has_subscription()
And you could use this to filter out who sees ads - I don't know how he hooks it, but you could override where ads appear based on the user checks above.
Hope that helps.
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BusinessOnlinePh - quick question. I have scanned through all of the previous content (but not thoroughly). What theme are you using?
I have added custom sidebar stuff to multiple themes and most are pretty obvious and simple to work with, but, if you are messing with a completely hook-based theme like Thesis, for example, well – it's a whole new ballpark.
If your theme is Thesis, or is similar to Thesis (as in, all hooks and such), please let me know! I can save you a great deal of time and trouble. An example of a hook based theme I have worked with: New Frontier's Market. The slideshow below the header is a custom widget, as is all of the footer content.
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Hello, we can consider #1 complete based on the answer from Jonathan. If I do not need to set any items for protection, that is fine.
With issue #3, I have found that when wp-insert injects adverts into the post, shortcodes can be used and will work. For the header, I have created a sidebar and added it as a widget, which has worked. For the footer, I have added the code, but we are waiting for the advertiser to go live so we can test it. Based on the source code being generated, it seems to be working fine.
We are just left with issue #2 where the plugin strips the formatting of the description. A member of staff had previously claimed that it is somehow due to wordpress.com stripping iframes, javascript etc, but as it is not on wordpress.com and uses none of the items listed, I can only assume it is down to the plugin.
I have also noticed that when I go to signup and am shown the paypal "subscribe" button, it asks me to select a subscription option, but there can only be one present, so why does it ask me to select a subscription option when there will only be one present. For that matter, why does it even show this page when all that can be done on this page is click on one button, surely this page should not exist as the only thing that can be done is clicking on a button.
At the moment, the registration page can be found here: http://discoverph.com/account/register/
Firstly you will see that the text description is stripped of all formatting.
When I click on "signup" next to vip membership, it states "Please check the details of your subscription below and click on the relevant button to complete the subscription." but there is only one button to check. If I can not have multiple subscription options (such as weekly, monthly, yearly etc) then why does it say this and why does it show me a page where we are essentially asking the user to click on another button as there is nothing else to do on this page? It seems odd to have an extra page where the user is expected to click on a button (which they have just done to enter this page).
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Hello, the formatting has been changed. What you see in the images you provided is a single line of text, but that is not what was entered. Every item that is bold should be an entirely new paragraph. Unfortunately, when I read the manual, I can see that this happens to the developer too.
First, lets start with the Access Levels and Subscription Plans. The way it seems to work is that first the user selects the subscription plan that they would like and the subscription plan is assigned to an access level. However, they are asked a second time to select a subscription which makes no sense.
Below is a screenshot of the WYSIWYG editor and the description that I have entered. As you can see, this is entirely stripped of the paragraphs and everything is squashed into a single line. This can not be due to wordpress.com stripping js, iframes etc as had previously been suggested.
So, lets say that we want to register for one of the subscription plans. We click on the "sign up" button which takes us to a second screen where the only option available is to click on another button. At the top of this page, it states "Please check the details of your subscription below and click on the relevant button to complete the subscription.". It seems rather pointless as you can only have one subscription and the user has ALREADY selected their subscription on the previous screen. I fail to understand why the user is asked twice to select a subscription plan and why it asks them to "click on the relevant button" when there is and only ever will be one button. This seems to be doubling what the customer has to do as they are selecting their subscription twice, unless I am mistaken.
This is why I had assumed you could have multiple options per subscription plan (such as weekly, monthly, yearly etc) but I have been told that it does not work like this as that is not the norm.
Can someone please explain why it strips the paragraphs, why the customer has to select their subscription plan twice and why it seems to suggest there is more than one option when it says "click on the relevant button" when there is only one option and nothing else that could possibly be selected.
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No reply in over 24 hours? I expected a reply sooner. Do you work set hours? Then I know when the best time to check my tickets.
A new problem has been found. Every single image within a post on the entire website is now showing the name of the image instead of the actual image. When I right click on an image, I can see that it seems to be an image as I can copy the image or image location. Even if you try to view the thumbnail in a new window, it just shows absolutely nothing...
This is horrific as all of the images within posts are gone. I will likely have to remove the membership plugin as we can not have our site in this state due to the volume of visitors we receive every single day.
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Here are the images.
I will focus on just one section of the post I mentioned where we have a header, image and text. Below I will show you a screenshot for each membership level and as you will see, every single membership level including visitor is being blocked from viewing images when that is not what I set as nothing has been protected as per the earlier advice.
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The first time a user clicks to "sign up" to a specific membership plan they are selecting the membership plan they want. The second screen that you reference above is to confirm the Subscription. As you can see the Subscription Button is a PayPal button style, this is where the Subscription is created for the membership plan. The membership resides in your site, the subscription is created in PayPal when they pay. So the second screen is like a confirmation of sorts (re: the "please check the details below and click to complete" text portion above the button). Every checkout I've been to asks me to check my info and confirm my purchase before actually charging me, so this is why I personally don't find the confirmation screen excessive.
I'll look into the next issue and pen a reply in a moment :)
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OK next up, formatting.
I know it's a pain, however I did find a workaround. If you enter html formatting in the html tab you can get the formatting to stick. I will put a note into the developer to see if there is any reason in particular this can happen while the visual editor won't make it happen.
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Upon clicking your reference link to the thumbnail I get an error screen, will add screenshot of that image.
Upon visiting the site and clicking the link to actually see the pic I get another error message. Second screenshot showing this one as well.
How are you adding your images? Are you using an external link or are they in the media library? Perhaps there is a file permission that is gone awry? It does seem that your file path is from your downloads folder, which is permission-ed much differently than your media files, for your protection.
the preferred path should be something like wp-content/uploads/youpicture.jpg
I think that covers everything for now, looking for your response :)
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Oh Lookie! Did a quick test using firebug... I changed the url (only locally, didn't change anything on your site) to the preferred wp-content/uploads/yourpicture.jpg and look what popped up :)
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Hello and thank you for your replies. The problem is that it is not as simple as selecting the level, then selecting the subscription as both are single. If I want to offer weekly, monthly and yearly plans, I have to have each listed separately. Such as Vip Weekly, Vip Monthly and Vip yearly. When a customer clicks on one of those, they are then asked to select the appropriate subscription, but there is only one. The customer is asked when they go to paypal to confirm their order, so what we are doing here is as follows:
1) select subscription
2) select subscription (you said this was like an order confirmation)
3) confirm order (on paypal)
#2 is entirely pointless as the customer is being asked to do one thing and only one thing (click on the button) which seems broken. Now, if I had other gateways, it would be logical as it is asking the customer how they should pay, but that is not what it does as I only have paypal activated. Also, the wording is very confusing as it asks them to make a selection when there is only one thing to select.
Formatting
Awesome, that is a great solution. However, I assume this is a bug as it is a WYSIWYG editor and yet we do not get what we see. Naturally this formatting is not being stripped by wordpress.com as was previously claimed. Hence my anger at such an absurd claim.
Invisible images
Thumbnail: http://discoverph.com/downloads/1304478695-vikings-4-150x150.jpg
What an idiot! Why didnt I see that. You are absolutely correct it is showing the download folder. However, this seems to be happening on all of our posts.
I assume that the file is being added to the downloads folder by the membership plugin as we have not created that folder or knowingly uploaded images to that folder.
I have checked the post and can see that the link used for the image is our uploads folder and not the download folder. Therefore, it must be the membership plugin that is changing the address and causing this issue. The post was created before the membership plugin was installed and all of the image paths are entirely correct, but are being altered to point to the download folder when membership plugin is active.
As I previously mentioned, I do not want to protect anything and as such, I have not added anything to the levels. Could that be the issue?
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@KimberlyL It seems that the downloads folder is not an actual folder, but a rewrite that is part of the Membership plugin.
The membership manual states "Anyone with the direct url can bypass our download protection. You must only use Masked Download URL if you wish to ensure your content remains protected from the prying eyes of non subscribers.".
In reality, what is happening is that the link is automatically being masked and as you are a visitor, it is processing the request through the Membership plugin. For some completely unknown reason, it is showing the name of the image which can not be highlighted (shown in previous screenshot) and not the image or the usual browser icon you would see when the image is incorrectly linked or does not exist. When you visit the direct address being used, it shows no errors, just a blank page.
I find this very odd and can not find any reference within the manual about this type of behaviour, unless I have overlooked it.
The following usernames can be used. The passwords are the same as the username.
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The Second button that the user presses is created by the plugin to make the Payment Gateway fire. We can't recode the initial signup button to act as a gateway button, as that would create issues for anyone with more than one gateway.
However, I can ask to see if there is a hack workaround since this seems very important to you. I do not see the developer changing this behavior as it is required to fit the many instances of use for the plugin. There really is no other way to get the payment gateway to fire other than clicking the button it creates I'm afraid.
I will see about getting the developer to comment here while I dig a bit more into the folder issue.
Barry: Is there a quick hack we can provide this member to use the Signup Button as the PayPal. Perhaps replacing the Signup Button with the PayPal Subscription Button?
Also, is there any reason that the HTML editor will hold manual formatting input but the visual editor will not use them?
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Okay,
After looking I do notice there is an issue with not protecting anything. I think your folder issue is that membership is trying to protect your folder structure by hiding it in the /downloads/ folder because it does not consider the pics in the post viewable by visitors. I'll explain:
I have a visitor level and could not see the pic in my post when I checked out the post when not logged in. My visitor level had no rules, so it must be that the membership plugin checks for logged in/out by default, as there are no rules created. (which makes sense, to me anyway, as use of this program would normally imply having members only content, which would be viewed by members who would be logged in).
Anywho, I went in and created a Negative rule restricting access to Admin content and it worked like a charm. I was able to see everything on the front end as a visitor without actually restricting anything I would want them to see in a normal circumstance.
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Make sure you don't select any protection for images when inserting/uploading/creating them.
And in your options menu - stranger settings, make sure you select a level (I create a level called 'guest')
which has zero rules attached.
This allows everyone/anyone to access the content of your site. Now, you can do your magic with what ever tickles your fancy with ads, etc.
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@Jonathan I think this is a unique case for the visitor level here as he is protecting NO content on the site. That is what is confusing membership :) Adding a negative rule that doesn't actually affect the users front end access seemed to solve it for me.
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I have never used the membership rules for protection - too many variables for error - lol.
I just think it strange that it isn't working here. Perhaps latest version/ new wp release etc etc has created a small glitch. Oh, well - knowing you guys, you'll be right on top of it ;)
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@ KimberlyL Thank you for your reply. I do agree that the second page is useful when you have more than one gateway, but I also imagine that the majority of users only have one gateway. Maybe I could create my own registration page so that I can structure it properly and then link to that second page.
This would be ideal if on the first page the user could select "VIP Membership" and then on the second page, they could select a subscription/payment method for weekly, monthly, yearly etc.
I have a visitor level and could not see the pic in my post when I checked out the post when not logged in. My visitor level had no rules, so it must be that the membership plugin checks for logged in/out by default, as there are no rules created. (which makes sense, to me anyway, as use of this program would normally imply having members only content, which would be viewed by members who would be logged in).
But As I have shown, this happens on ALL LEVELS and not just the visitor. Login and you see no image also.
I went in and created a Negative rule restricting access to Admin content
By admin content, do you mean wp-admin? I had not wanted to block that as I assumed that it was used when the user logged in or possibly for some other user interactions. Is this what you mean? What level would I add it to? Why would adding a negative rule for the admin area fix an issue with images in posts not showing? Sorry, I am not quite sure I understand. Surely we should be looking at this issue and seeing how it can be fixed instead of playing with settings to see if any fixes the issue as it could create further issues for the future, unless I am looking at it incorrectly.
@Jonathan Images were added to the post and published before the plugin was added. This is happening on all of our posts, new or old. We have a visitor level used for guests and we do not have ANY content protected on any of the levels.
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Hi, I'm not sure of the status of this thread as I've only been pinged after 38 replies already - but I'll have a read through and see if I can work out where we currently stand and see if I can help - if you want to post under with a summary of what's working / not working then that would help *hugely*.
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Hello, not a problem. I will list the issues below with a number next to each so that we can both just reference the number in our replies and know exactly what issue is being referred to.
1) The registration process
If only one gateway is used, the user is asked to select twice which plan they would like. First they would select VIP Monthly and then on the second page they would select the same again by clicking on the paypal subscribe button. This makes it look like it is broken, especially due to the wording used on the front end for customers. While I know this is designed for sites to have more than one gateway, I would bet that most customers only use one gateway. It would be lovely to see something done about this as it would increase our conversion rate. For example, you could have some simple code so that if only one gateway is active, the subscription buttons automatically replace the "join now" button on the first registration page. Less pages means more registrations :D
Alternatively, you could have it so that the two screens are:
1- Select membership level
2- Select payment plan (such as weekly, monthly etc)
The problem at the moment is that everything is on the first screen and it looks messy and confusing.
2) Description formatting
The description formatting is entirely stripped and ends up as one line. A work around has been suggested and I have not yet tested it, but I wanted to make you aware as this issue is a pain and I am sure many other users are experiencing this issue.
3) Invisible images
Images within all posts are not displaying. Instead, the name of the image is displayed. It seems to be rewriting the address of the image and using the /downloads/ folder.
All posts are effected and no images were protected.
No membership levels have any protection added.
Do I need to add any protection when I do not want anything to be protected? It seems odd that images are being protected when the plugin was not instructed to do so.
4) IPN
I have asked this in another thread, but they seem to be very confused. First they said that the user has to return to the site for the payment to be confirmed. They they said that it uses IPN and I should probably use some software to ensure that I can use more than one IPN address. Lastly they said that the IPN address is sent using the notify_url.
Can you clarify this please? I checked the manual and could not find any mention of "IPN". Will all future subscription payments from our users automatically notify the plugin of the payment so that their details can be updated within the membership plugin?
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Thanks
I have asked this in another thread, but they seem to be very confused. First they said that the user has to return to the site for the payment to be confirmed. They they said that it uses IPN and I should probably use some software to ensure that I can use more than one IPN address. Lastly they said that the IPN address is sent using the notify_url.
Can you clarify this please? I checked the manual and could not find any mention of "IPN". Will all future subscription payments from our users automatically notify the plugin of the payment so that their details can be updated within the membership plugin?
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Barry, very sorry. Seems my summary got buried. I did create one when I flagged you. You can check the time-stamp.
I'll post it again.
Barry: Is there a quick hack we can provide this member to use the Signup Button as the PayPal. Perhaps replacing the Signup Button with the PayPal Subscription Button?
Also, is there any reason that the HTML editor will hold manual formatting input but the visual editor will not use them?
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@Barry Sorry, I put it all in one place, I did not know that you had already replied to my other ticket. Thank you, I will check it in a moment.
I couldn't see any references to the other 3 issues in your reply. May I have an update please, just so I know what's happening.
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@KimberlyL I assume barry saw the items you mention in the numbered list I provided as well as your message which was a few messages above the recent ones. I was not aware that an answer had already been made on the other ticket I had about IPN. I figured that if I could get the answer, I could post it on the other ticket to save time and so future users would have the answer too.
Thanks so much for your help Kimberly. I appreciate all the work you are doing to get these issues answered.
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Let me take a stab at both of these.
Barry: Is there a quick hack we can provide this member to use the Signup Button as the PayPal. Perhaps replacing the Signup Button with the PayPal Subscription Button?
Also, is there any reason that the HTML editor will hold manual formatting input but the visual editor will not use them?
So, the registration/subscription forms are really meant for the average user to be able to get up and running quickly and easily. There's a balancing act between that and providing every ounce of customization.
The auto-created registration form itself is pretty great. But obviously, you'd like more control over it both in terms of the steps and the display. Fortunately, we had users like you in mind when the plugin was written.
Membership provides custom shortcodes which you can drop into any WordPress page or post from the dashboard and will then give you the corresponding membership component.
So: [subscriptiontitle subscription="2"]
Will display the subscription title for the 2nd subscription in membership. Other options are subscription details, subscription price, and the subscription button. You would structure them the same way:
Now, you don't want to just have your subscription description in plane text, but something with awesome line breaks and paragraphs? Just don't use that shorttcode and style your text within the WP editor however you like.
Also, it's worth noting that you can use any process you like to to get the person a username in WordPress. Several folks use gravity forms for example.
This way, you can collect any information you like in whatever way you wish, then just drop them off wherever you want them (by using the notification URL in Gravity Forms). So if I wanted to bypass the initial pricing selection, I'd instead send someone to this: http://domain.com/REGISTERSLUG/?action=registeruser&subscription=2
That would send them straight to the membership page where they will see their gateway payment button.
Hope that helps. Membership has the hard task of being flexible for power users, but still easy for newbies. We've tried to strike that balance as best we can, but there's always the chance you'll need to pay for custom development if the solutions don't meet your needs 100%.
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Hello, I am sorry, but you answered #4 and then took 9 hours to reply to the other issues. A member of staff had to ask my questions also to chase up an answer (TWICE). Had you replied to #4 and said you were busy and would get back on the other issues later, it would not have been a problem. But I was left in the dark and other staff had to chase after you to try and get my other questions answered.
So, the registration/subscription forms are really meant for the average user to be able to get up and running quickly and easily. There's a balancing act between that and providing every ounce of customization.
I understand and agree. When you have multiple gateways, the process can become drawn out and confusing if only one gateway is activated.
Membership provides custom shortcodes which you can drop into any WordPress page or post from the dashboard and will then give you the corresponding membership component.
That's an absolutely awesome solution. It will work brilliantly as we can format the structure so that it seems like we have a VIP plan and under it we have weekly, monthly and so on. You may want to put this in the manual so others can see it as this ticket may be a bit too long for them to read through to get this answer.
However, surely it is an issue that the formatting is being stripped in the wysiwyg editor as it should not be getting stripped.
So, thats #1 and #2 sorted. Any chance someone could address #3? I am not sure how it was overlooked, but it is a fairly serious issue. I am sorry to say this, but it feels like I am having to fight you to get you to address these issues. How was #3 ignored?
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@KimberlyL would you mind chasing up on #3? It seems that it has been ignored and as you have been trying to address it in the past, maybe you have some insight or can explain it to barry better than I can.
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Gads, this thread is long and covers a whole heap of issues.
If you'll open a new thread with just issue #3, we can take a look at that, specifically. I've tried reading through this thread a few times and it just makes my head spin. I took a look at your site and as a visitor I did see images - at least some images, so I'm obviously missing a critical detail.
It also appears all other issues here have been sorted so I'm gonna mark this resolved and close it up. If there are other out-standing issues that you don't yet have a thread for, feel free to open up new ones for those as well.
Sorry for the bother, but it really will help us support you much more effectively. Thanks!
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Responses (48)
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
I stand corrected, the levels were not active. They are now active and display, but the description of the level fails and strips all formatting, making it a single, massive, line of text.
Support Kangaroo (joined March 2011) Likes (0)
Greetings BusinessOnlinePh,
Sorry to hear that you are having trouble with the Membership plugin.
What are you referring to here, can you please clarify or perhaps provide a screen shot?
Cheers, Joe
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
Hello, it was my fault as I had not activated some of the options. It now seems to be working ok. The only issue that I have at the moment is that the descriptions do not allow paragraphs and all the text is slammed into one line.
How can I upgrade multiple users. For example, I want all my current users to become Free Members.
Also, I do not want to protect any pages, so do I need to add any items to the levels? I want all content to be available to everyone. I know this is an odd setup, but we do not need any content protected as our prime aim is to allow VIP members to view our site with no adverts displayed. Will this be possible using one of your plugins such as the who sees ads plugin?
Many thanks
Member (joined August 2011) Likes (1)Liked by: 
Hi BusinessOnlinePh,
I have a site that offers extra content ad-free to subscribers (in other-words, non-paid members, which is exactly what you are talking about).
What I do is use the membership widgets to offer this extra content. You can create one set of sidebar content for members, and another for non-members. As most of my ads are in the sidebars, this is pretty much effortless. I simply put the ad code only in the non-member sidebars.
If you need to add this type of content to other areas of you site beyond traditional sidebars, may I suggest learning to create custom sidebars?
I did have to place a few ads that required more area than the traditional sidebars of the template offered, so I created a few extra sidebars for my site (imagine being able to create a new area for clients to add widgets to pretty much anywhere on their site, and you'll get the idea).
The Membership plugin also offers some creative coding to mask and unmask this type of thing. I like the whole widget thing better myself (far more simple for a client to do w/o help), but, check out the fine-print.
This plugin isn't terribly intuitive, but the more you work with it, the more you'll come to love it!
If you want to check out my not quite finished example (in other words, please be kind) you can check it here. Check out the sidebar content on recent updates, and then scroll down the page, pick a link, and click on it to go to the login page. This guy is a business pro - so don't stress on spam. He doesn't send out anything - just likes to know who is reading his stuff.
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
Thank you. However, our adverts are in 3-4 locations that are prime value locations. We use the sidebar for other info.
I understand that the shortcodes will work within the loop, but only 2 of our adverts are within the loop, 1 is above. Even then, the 2 in the loop are added by a plugin, so I do not know if it will work.
I will test it and report back. Thank you for your suggestions.
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
Nope, it does not work. It displays the shortcode as text. The only other option is to edit the theme, but the shortcodes will not work in there.
I need a more fluid solution, something that will do it for the two ads in the posts and the ad in the header.
Thank you for your suggestion.
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
Another issue is the way it presents the subscriptions. I have to have 3 subscriptions for VIP and each will need its own subscription type. Why cant it be listed under the membership level?
So we would have:
Free
VIP; Monthly, half yearly or yearly
Instead, we are forced to have it like this:
Free
VIP Monthly
VIP Half Yearly
VIP Yearly
It is confusing and really looks horrific. How can I have multiple options for one membership level when users subscribe?
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
and on top of this, the descriptions for each are stripped of all formatting, so it looks even worse. Can we have this addressed please? Why use a wysiwyg editor when you do not get what you see?
Support Kangaroo (joined March 2011) Likes (0)
Greetings BusinessOnlinePh,
Sorry to see that things seem to be spinning out of control on this project.
You are not forced, the code is GPL and open source, change it how you want.
However, the outcome or the way you are trying to currently use the plugin with one level and several payment schedules, the plugin was never intended to be used this way.
It was meant to be along the traditionally accepted membership configuration level 1, level 2, level 3, not payment options 1, 2, and 3.
But we can certainly submit this function as a feature request if you want.
WordPress has forever been stripping the code of the WYSIWYG editor:
http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/line-breaks-and-paragraph-tags-being-stripped
How long have you been using WordPress?
Please advise.
Cheers, Joe
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
Hello and thank you for your reply, even if it was slightly insulting. I have been using wordpress for many years and have ran 2 companies that offer wordpress services. My point is that it is not wordpress stripping the format, it is your plugin that is doing this, or at the very least, it is your plugin that is not enforcing the formatting.
If I can not format the description, it really makes it very poor quality as I have no way to format it and it will and does look a complete mess.
Why you are sending me a link about format within wysiwyg editors on wordpress.com when we are using the self hosted version is beyond me.
I am indeed forced by the plugin to use the format. The norm is not to provide entirely seperate membership levels. Almost all subscription systems will allow broken down options within that would allow for weekly, monthly and so on.
Ok, if this is the way the plugin is and these are no bugs, so be it. What about the other issues I mentioned which have not been addressed?
I honestly do not mean to come over as nasty and I am sorry if that is how it sounded, but what the hell does it have to do with anything how long I have been using wordpress? I have many plugins that use the wysiwyg editor and they DO NOT STRIP THE FORMATTING....
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
"It was meant to be along the traditionally accepted membership configuration level 1, level 2, level 3, not payment options 1, 2, and 3." Have you even seen other membership plugins? They do indeed offer multiple subscription options for one level. I know, I have many sites that use other membership plugins.
Sorry, but your reply really angered me.
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
The link you provide (although irrelevant) states "Some embed code will not work because we remove JavaScript, Flash, iframe, form, and input tags for security reasons. " yet that has NOTHING AT ALL to do with what is happening with me. You call this SPECTACULAR SUPPORT? I dont think so...
People Person (joined February 2012) Likes (1)Liked by: 
Hello! Stepping in to see if I can be of help here. :)
The plain truth is you do come off as being nasty and carrying a huge chip on your shoulder, in this and the following two replies you typed out of frustration.
There are indeed many membership plugins out there and they all offer different features. If ours does not offer what you are needing then you should definitely check out one that does, we like to help any way we can, however you need the best tool for the job. If ours does not fit the bill for you then that is just how it all pans out.
As a side note: we are here to support the capabilities and functions of the plugins, as they stand, that WPMUDEV provides. We, the support group, do not code or have any input in the development process when the developers create these projects.
I will ask that we all take a deep breath and move on. We can sling "mud" all day both ways, but that really won't get your issue solved will it?
Why don't you type a reply that includes the issues you are still trying to tackle, without any flowery remarks or jabs, which I can promise will prove to be a waste of your time if you insist on including, and I will do my best to help you solve them with the best humor and patience allowed here. (I have two toddlers, so I'm pretty sure I can hold up my end of the bargain :) as I get alot of practice!)
Ready and willing to help! :)
Deal?
Member (joined August 2011) Likes (0)
Hi there! OK, I'd like to just to travel way back into the past and address your shortcode comment in reference to sidebars. You are right, shortcode does not work in sidebars. Not unless you add a bit of code to your 'functions.php' page! Just add this bit of code and shortcode will work just fine.
OK, now, on to the formatting issue. Not to step on anybodies feet here, but Membership is not my favorite plugin as far as the actual look goes. As the plugin functions perfectly, and is quite simple after you get a bit of practice working with it, it is by far, my favorite Membership plugin.
On some sites I work on that use Membership, I do go to the trouble of adding quite a bit of custom CSS to give the login and membership form a look that 'matches' my sites' design.
As I am, um, kind of anal, I edit most of my plugins anyway, so I never really had any complaint about this. You know, let someone else handle the programming, and then I'll make it look pretty.
Member (joined August 2011) Likes (0)
Oh, and just quick reminder of past conversational point: You can add custom sidebar areas anywhere on your site. Then, you add that bit of code there to your 'functions.php' page, and you can have this work in headers, in your footer, anywhere on your site.
An example: client wanted each page header to be a different slideshow, so I replaced the headers with sidebar widgets, added the plugin 'custom sidebars' and tossed the shortcode into the widgets. Where you can place these is really is only limited by your imagination.
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
@KimberlyL I agree that I do come across as angry in that reply because I am. The member of staff claimed that the formatting was being stripped by WordPress and to prove it, he provided a link to a thread on WordPress.com (not .org) that mentioned that wordpress would strip certain items, none of which were items that I had entered or mentioned. This claim, I am afraid, is entirely false. WordPress has not been known to strip formatting of paragraphs.
On the matter of multiple subscriptions, almost every membership plugin available allows multiple subscriptions for each membership level.
What annoyed me was the tone used in his reply and his attempt to pull rank by asking how long I had been using WordPress. Neither myself or any of my staff can see what use a question of this nature would have, except to try and show a lack of experience in the customer.
Let me tell you who I am. I created WP-Member (I created the idea and hired a team to create the product), one of the leading WordPress Membership Plugins and it was one of the top ranking results within almost all search engines for the entire time that I ran the business. Late last year I sold the business. As I already had a subscription for your site, I opted to use your plugin as it seemed to have the features required and looked like it would work as anticipated. So I guess I do have a chip on my shoulder when someone has the nerve to talk down to me and attempt to pull rank.
After I left my replies last night, I was worried that I may have done so in the heat of anger, so I asked my staff (who provide support for our wordpress services) to have a look. All of them were shocked at the reply that had been left to which I was replying.
I am not a programmer, I am the managing director of two businesses.
The "flowery remarks or jabs" were only made after the truly awful reply I received which made me very angry. This was in no way the support that I should have received.
If I did say something that was not acceptable or was a jab prior to the angry reply, please point it out so that I can see what section you mean as it may have came across completely different to how I had intended. Prior to that reply, your support had been truly amazing.
Let us start over...
Hi, I am David. I will itemise the issues I am having below:
1) I do not want to protect any content. Do I still need to add items to the level as "positive", or can I just leave all levels blank. If I do need to add items to "positive", can I do so in a manner that all future content will automatically be added so that the user can access it.
2) The descriptions for the levels (shown on the register page) are stripped of all formatting. 3 paragraphs become a single line of text. This limits me to only one line within the description which looks horrible. It does not seem that this is being stripped by wordpress as I have not seen or heard of wordpress stripping basic formatting. I did not know how it operated and if the wysiwyg editor required html coding to be input so that it would generate the formatting desired.
When I experienced this issue, I went through the manual and saw that in the screenshots, the developer had entered two paragraphs that were stripped of formatting, yet no comment was made about it. I did not know if it was an issue that they were aware of or an issue that had been missed.
3) Will this plugin work with the who sees ads plugin? My intention is to display adverts to everyone except VIP members. However, the post left and middle adverts are added to the post via a plugin.
The reason that it has been done this way is so that the updating process is easier, cheaper and more effective. Instead of editing the theme, which would mean it would need to be re-edited every time a new release was made of the theme.
@camparoo Thank you so much for your suggestions. I had added the shortcode to the wp-insert plugin that we use for the adverts within posts as I wanted to see if the shortcode would be respected as it was likely to be within the wordpress loop. I am not sure if the plugin is altering it and preventing it from showing or it may (somehow) be out of the loop. The problem with creating a sidebar is that I would need to do so within the theme and that is what I am ideally attempting to avoid. However, if no other options are available, it will likely be the best route to select.
@KimberlyL Toddlers are pretty hard to control. I have 6 year old twin boys, a 9 year old girl and a 18 year old adopted girl. The boys are by far the hardest to control as they are twins and bounce off each other, so I know where you are coming from. Thank you for your help, I have been very impressed with the replies made by other members of staff, it was just that one reply that really made me mad.
Thank you all for your support.
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
And just as I add that reply, our marketing agent contacts us to say that they have a new advertiser who wants to use a bar in the footer of the page, so the theme will indeed need to be edited after all!
However, this raises further questions as I will need to hide the adverts from VIP members. Maybe adding sidebars is the way to go, but even then, we would need to add 4 separate sidebars, the 5th advert being link adverts which can not be added to a sidebar. If there is a way to use template tags instead of shortcodes, it would be a lot easier. If there a method to do this? Do any of your other plugins such as who sees ads or simple ads have features that would allow this?
Many thanks
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
I have been doing some further testing with wp-insert and the shortcodes do indeed work. When viewing the site as admin, all the shortcodes were displayed, but when I use a different computer (i hate having to logout to test and login again etc) I can see that when I am a visitor, ads show, when a free member, ads show and lastly, when a VIP member, no ads show!
So that is the two adverts within the post that are working correctly. the footer advert seems to work, but as the advertiser is not live yet, we can not fully test it.
This leaves the advert in the header which can be fixed by using a widget as camparoo had suggested (thanks camparoo).
While issue #3 is not fully resolved, it's in hand and can be ignored for the time being. I just need a reply to #1 and #2.
Thank you
Lifetime Member (joined June 2009) Likes (0)
@BusinessOnlinePh,
I skimmed through your posts - lots of reading and i am a little short on time, but to answer your questions.
1) You don't need to use any rules. In fact in the past versions that caused the most issues for people for because of the logic behind it.
I prefer, and this should solve most of your other points to use conditionals statements.
For Example:
Here is a list of conditional statements I use:
Note: You could code up almost anything using these checks.
To get more of them, check membershipincludes/includes/functions.php file ;)
For example this should suit you perfectly
current_user_has_subscription()And you could use this to filter out who sees ads - I don't know how he hooks it, but you could override where ads appear based on the user checks above.
Hope that helps.
Member (joined August 2011) Likes (0)
BusinessOnlinePh - quick question. I have scanned through all of the previous content (but not thoroughly). What theme are you using?
I have added custom sidebar stuff to multiple themes and most are pretty obvious and simple to work with, but, if you are messing with a completely hook-based theme like Thesis, for example, well – it's a whole new ballpark.
If your theme is Thesis, or is similar to Thesis (as in, all hooks and such), please let me know! I can save you a great deal of time and trouble. An example of a hook based theme I have worked with: New Frontier's Market. The slideshow below the header is a custom widget, as is all of the footer content.
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
Hello, we can consider #1 complete based on the answer from Jonathan. If I do not need to set any items for protection, that is fine.
With issue #3, I have found that when wp-insert injects adverts into the post, shortcodes can be used and will work. For the header, I have created a sidebar and added it as a widget, which has worked. For the footer, I have added the code, but we are waiting for the advertiser to go live so we can test it. Based on the source code being generated, it seems to be working fine.
We are just left with issue #2 where the plugin strips the formatting of the description. A member of staff had previously claimed that it is somehow due to wordpress.com stripping iframes, javascript etc, but as it is not on wordpress.com and uses none of the items listed, I can only assume it is down to the plugin.
I have also noticed that when I go to signup and am shown the paypal "subscribe" button, it asks me to select a subscription option, but there can only be one present, so why does it ask me to select a subscription option when there will only be one present. For that matter, why does it even show this page when all that can be done on this page is click on one button, surely this page should not exist as the only thing that can be done is clicking on a button.
At the moment, the registration page can be found here: http://discoverph.com/account/register/
Firstly you will see that the text description is stripped of all formatting.
When I click on "signup" next to vip membership, it states "Please check the details of your subscription below and click on the relevant button to complete the subscription." but there is only one button to check. If I can not have multiple subscription options (such as weekly, monthly, yearly etc) then why does it say this and why does it show me a page where we are essentially asking the user to click on another button as there is nothing else to do on this page? It seems odd to have an extra page where the user is expected to click on a button (which they have just done to enter this page).
Lifetime Member (joined June 2009) Likes (1)Liked by: 
Umm? Scratches head.
I see formating in description. And I don't have same issue with sign up botton. When I click on button it takes me to registration page.
Are you signed in? Log out. Clear cookies and all that stuff.
Attached is the description box with bold text in it:
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
Hello, the formatting has been changed. What you see in the images you provided is a single line of text, but that is not what was entered. Every item that is bold should be an entirely new paragraph. Unfortunately, when I read the manual, I can see that this happens to the developer too.
First, lets start with the Access Levels and Subscription Plans. The way it seems to work is that first the user selects the subscription plan that they would like and the subscription plan is assigned to an access level. However, they are asked a second time to select a subscription which makes no sense.
Below is a screenshot of the WYSIWYG editor and the description that I have entered. As you can see, this is entirely stripped of the paragraphs and everything is squashed into a single line. This can not be due to wordpress.com stripping js, iframes etc as had previously been suggested.
You can see how the text is output on the registration page: http://discoverph.com/account/register/
So, lets say that we want to register for one of the subscription plans. We click on the "sign up" button which takes us to a second screen where the only option available is to click on another button. At the top of this page, it states "Please check the details of your subscription below and click on the relevant button to complete the subscription.". It seems rather pointless as you can only have one subscription and the user has ALREADY selected their subscription on the previous screen. I fail to understand why the user is asked twice to select a subscription plan and why it asks them to "click on the relevant button" when there is and only ever will be one button. This seems to be doubling what the customer has to do as they are selecting their subscription twice, unless I am mistaken.
This is why I had assumed you could have multiple options per subscription plan (such as weekly, monthly, yearly etc) but I have been told that it does not work like this as that is not the norm.
Can someone please explain why it strips the paragraphs, why the customer has to select their subscription plan twice and why it seems to suggest there is more than one option when it says "click on the relevant button" when there is only one option and nothing else that could possibly be selected.
Thank you.
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
No reply in over 24 hours? I expected a reply sooner. Do you work set hours? Then I know when the best time to check my tickets.
A new problem has been found. Every single image within a post on the entire website is now showing the name of the image instead of the actual image. When I right click on an image, I can see that it seems to be an image as I can copy the image or image location. Even if you try to view the thumbnail in a new window, it just shows absolutely nothing...
Here is an example of one image
Thumbnail: http://discoverph.com/downloads/1304478695-vikings-4-150x150.jpg
It is one of many images located on this page: http://discoverph.com/food-and-beverage/fathers-day-dine-out-guide/
This is horrific as all of the images within posts are gone. I will likely have to remove the membership plugin as we can not have our site in this state due to the volume of visitors we receive every single day.
Please advise.
Many thanks
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
Here are the images.
I will focus on just one section of the post I mentioned where we have a header, image and text. Below I will show you a screenshot for each membership level and as you will see, every single membership level including visitor is being blocked from viewing images when that is not what I set as nothing has been protected as per the earlier advice.
Admin
Visitor (unregistered)
Free Member
VIP Member
What gives?
People Person (joined February 2012) Likes (0)
The first time a user clicks to "sign up" to a specific membership plan they are selecting the membership plan they want. The second screen that you reference above is to confirm the Subscription. As you can see the Subscription Button is a PayPal button style, this is where the Subscription is created for the membership plan. The membership resides in your site, the subscription is created in PayPal when they pay. So the second screen is like a confirmation of sorts (re: the "please check the details below and click to complete" text portion above the button). Every checkout I've been to asks me to check my info and confirm my purchase before actually charging me, so this is why I personally don't find the confirmation screen excessive.
I'll look into the next issue and pen a reply in a moment :)
People Person (joined February 2012) Likes (0)
OK next up, formatting.
I know it's a pain, however I did find a workaround. If you enter html formatting in the html tab you can get the formatting to stick. I will put a note into the developer to see if there is any reason in particular this can happen while the visual editor won't make it happen.
I'll attach pics, now onto the next one :)
People Person (joined February 2012) Likes (0)
Upon clicking your reference link to the thumbnail I get an error screen, will add screenshot of that image.
Upon visiting the site and clicking the link to actually see the pic I get another error message. Second screenshot showing this one as well.
How are you adding your images? Are you using an external link or are they in the media library? Perhaps there is a file permission that is gone awry? It does seem that your file path is from your downloads folder, which is permission-ed much differently than your media files, for your protection.
the preferred path should be something like wp-content/uploads/youpicture.jpg
I think that covers everything for now, looking for your response :)
People Person (joined February 2012) Likes (0)
Oh Lookie! Did a quick test using firebug... I changed the url (only locally, didn't change anything on your site) to the preferred wp-content/uploads/yourpicture.jpg and look what popped up :)
Seems it's a case of mistaken url identity! :)
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
Hello and thank you for your replies. The problem is that it is not as simple as selecting the level, then selecting the subscription as both are single. If I want to offer weekly, monthly and yearly plans, I have to have each listed separately. Such as Vip Weekly, Vip Monthly and Vip yearly. When a customer clicks on one of those, they are then asked to select the appropriate subscription, but there is only one. The customer is asked when they go to paypal to confirm their order, so what we are doing here is as follows:
1) select subscription
2) select subscription (you said this was like an order confirmation)
3) confirm order (on paypal)
#2 is entirely pointless as the customer is being asked to do one thing and only one thing (click on the button) which seems broken. Now, if I had other gateways, it would be logical as it is asking the customer how they should pay, but that is not what it does as I only have paypal activated. Also, the wording is very confusing as it asks them to make a selection when there is only one thing to select.
Formatting
Awesome, that is a great solution. However, I assume this is a bug as it is a WYSIWYG editor and yet we do not get what we see. Naturally this formatting is not being stripped by wordpress.com as was previously claimed. Hence my anger at such an absurd claim.
Invisible images
Thumbnail: http://discoverph.com/downloads/1304478695-vikings-4-150x150.jpg
What an idiot! Why didnt I see that. You are absolutely correct it is showing the download folder. However, this seems to be happening on all of our posts.
I assume that the file is being added to the downloads folder by the membership plugin as we have not created that folder or knowingly uploaded images to that folder.
I have checked the post and can see that the link used for the image is our uploads folder and not the download folder. Therefore, it must be the membership plugin that is changing the address and causing this issue. The post was created before the membership plugin was installed and all of the image paths are entirely correct, but are being altered to point to the download folder when membership plugin is active.
As I previously mentioned, I do not want to protect anything and as such, I have not added anything to the levels. Could that be the issue?
many thanks
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
@KimberlyL It seems that the downloads folder is not an actual folder, but a rewrite that is part of the Membership plugin.
The membership manual states "Anyone with the direct url can bypass our download protection. You must only use Masked Download URL if you wish to ensure your content remains protected from the prying eyes of non subscribers.".
In reality, what is happening is that the link is automatically being masked and as you are a visitor, it is processing the request through the Membership plugin. For some completely unknown reason, it is showing the name of the image which can not be highlighted (shown in previous screenshot) and not the image or the usual browser icon you would see when the image is incorrectly linked or does not exist. When you visit the direct address being used, it shows no errors, just a blank page.
I find this very odd and can not find any reference within the manual about this type of behaviour, unless I have overlooked it.
The following usernames can be used. The passwords are the same as the username.
test-FREE
Test-VIP
Thank you very much.
People Person (joined February 2012) Likes (0)
The Second button that the user presses is created by the plugin to make the Payment Gateway fire. We can't recode the initial signup button to act as a gateway button, as that would create issues for anyone with more than one gateway.
However, I can ask to see if there is a hack workaround since this seems very important to you. I do not see the developer changing this behavior as it is required to fit the many instances of use for the plugin. There really is no other way to get the payment gateway to fire other than clicking the button it creates I'm afraid.
I will see about getting the developer to comment here while I dig a bit more into the folder issue.
Barry: Is there a quick hack we can provide this member to use the Signup Button as the PayPal. Perhaps replacing the Signup Button with the PayPal Subscription Button?
Also, is there any reason that the HTML editor will hold manual formatting input but the visual editor will not use them?
People Person (joined February 2012) Likes (0)
Okay,
After looking I do notice there is an issue with not protecting anything. I think your folder issue is that membership is trying to protect your folder structure by hiding it in the /downloads/ folder because it does not consider the pics in the post viewable by visitors. I'll explain:
I have a visitor level and could not see the pic in my post when I checked out the post when not logged in. My visitor level had no rules, so it must be that the membership plugin checks for logged in/out by default, as there are no rules created. (which makes sense, to me anyway, as use of this program would normally imply having members only content, which would be viewed by members who would be logged in).
Anywho, I went in and created a Negative rule restricting access to Admin content and it worked like a charm. I was able to see everything on the front end as a visitor without actually restricting anything I would want them to see in a normal circumstance.
Can you see if this helps you any?
Best,
Kimberly
Lifetime Member (joined June 2009) Likes (0)
Make sure you don't select any protection for images when inserting/uploading/creating them.
And in your options menu - stranger settings, make sure you select a level (I create a level called 'guest')
which has zero rules attached.
This allows everyone/anyone to access the content of your site. Now, you can do your magic with what ever tickles your fancy with ads, etc.
Edit: I see another member is having issues with uploaded content. This might be a bug birthed by the latest wordpress release. ???
My system isn't ideal to give accurate account as one of my tweaks might override the bug - who knows. Best wait for barry's input.
http://premium.wpmudev.org/forums/topic/membership-giving-to-non-admin-users-on-pictures-and-files-hosted-under-wp-contentuploads#post-234621
People Person (joined February 2012) Likes (0)
@Jonathan I think this is a unique case for the visitor level here as he is protecting NO content on the site. That is what is confusing membership :) Adding a negative rule that doesn't actually affect the users front end access seemed to solve it for me.
Lifetime Member (joined June 2009) Likes (0)
I have never used the membership rules for protection - too many variables for error - lol.
I just think it strange that it isn't working here. Perhaps latest version/ new wp release etc etc has created a small glitch. Oh, well - knowing you guys, you'll be right on top of it ;)
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
@ KimberlyL Thank you for your reply. I do agree that the second page is useful when you have more than one gateway, but I also imagine that the majority of users only have one gateway. Maybe I could create my own registration page so that I can structure it properly and then link to that second page.
This would be ideal if on the first page the user could select "VIP Membership" and then on the second page, they could select a subscription/payment method for weekly, monthly, yearly etc.
But As I have shown, this happens on ALL LEVELS and not just the visitor. Login and you see no image also.
By admin content, do you mean wp-admin? I had not wanted to block that as I assumed that it was used when the user logged in or possibly for some other user interactions. Is this what you mean? What level would I add it to? Why would adding a negative rule for the admin area fix an issue with images in posts not showing? Sorry, I am not quite sure I understand. Surely we should be looking at this issue and seeing how it can be fixed instead of playing with settings to see if any fixes the issue as it could create further issues for the future, unless I am looking at it incorrectly.
@Jonathan Images were added to the post and published before the plugin was added. This is happening on all of our posts, new or old. We have a visitor level used for guests and we do not have ANY content protected on any of the levels.
Many thanks
Developer (joined June 2008) Likes (0)
Hi, I'm not sure of the status of this thread as I've only been pinged after 38 replies already - but I'll have a read through and see if I can work out where we currently stand and see if I can help - if you want to post under with a summary of what's working / not working then that would help *hugely*.
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
Hello, not a problem. I will list the issues below with a number next to each so that we can both just reference the number in our replies and know exactly what issue is being referred to.
1) The registration process
If only one gateway is used, the user is asked to select twice which plan they would like. First they would select VIP Monthly and then on the second page they would select the same again by clicking on the paypal subscribe button. This makes it look like it is broken, especially due to the wording used on the front end for customers. While I know this is designed for sites to have more than one gateway, I would bet that most customers only use one gateway. It would be lovely to see something done about this as it would increase our conversion rate. For example, you could have some simple code so that if only one gateway is active, the subscription buttons automatically replace the "join now" button on the first registration page. Less pages means more registrations :D
Alternatively, you could have it so that the two screens are:
1- Select membership level
2- Select payment plan (such as weekly, monthly etc)
The problem at the moment is that everything is on the first screen and it looks messy and confusing.
2) Description formatting
The description formatting is entirely stripped and ends up as one line. A work around has been suggested and I have not yet tested it, but I wanted to make you aware as this issue is a pain and I am sure many other users are experiencing this issue.
3) Invisible images
Images within all posts are not displaying. Instead, the name of the image is displayed. It seems to be rewriting the address of the image and using the /downloads/ folder.
All posts are effected and no images were protected.
No membership levels have any protection added.
Do I need to add any protection when I do not want anything to be protected? It seems odd that images are being protected when the plugin was not instructed to do so.
4) IPN
I have asked this in another thread, but they seem to be very confused. First they said that the user has to return to the site for the payment to be confirmed. They they said that it uses IPN and I should probably use some software to ensure that I can use more than one IPN address. Lastly they said that the IPN address is sent using the notify_url.
Can you clarify this please? I checked the manual and could not find any mention of "IPN". Will all future subscription payments from our users automatically notify the plugin of the payment so that their details can be updated within the membership plugin?
Thank you very much
Developer (joined June 2008) Likes (0)
Thanks
Already answered this in your other thread.
People Person (joined February 2012) Likes (0)
Barry, very sorry. Seems my summary got buried. I did create one when I flagged you. You can check the time-stamp.
I'll post it again.
Barry: Is there a quick hack we can provide this member to use the Signup Button as the PayPal. Perhaps replacing the Signup Button with the PayPal Subscription Button?
Also, is there any reason that the HTML editor will hold manual formatting input but the visual editor will not use them?
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
@Barry Sorry, I put it all in one place, I did not know that you had already replied to my other ticket. Thank you, I will check it in a moment.
I couldn't see any references to the other 3 issues in your reply. May I have an update please, just so I know what's happening.
Thanks so much.
David
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
@KimberlyL I assume barry saw the items you mention in the numbered list I provided as well as your message which was a few messages above the recent ones. I was not aware that an answer had already been made on the other ticket I had about IPN. I figured that if I could get the answer, I could post it on the other ticket to save time and so future users would have the answer too.
Thanks so much for your help Kimberly. I appreciate all the work you are doing to get these issues answered.
Member (joined April 2009) Likes (1)Liked by: 
Let me take a stab at both of these.
So, the registration/subscription forms are really meant for the average user to be able to get up and running quickly and easily. There's a balancing act between that and providing every ounce of customization.
The auto-created registration form itself is pretty great. But obviously, you'd like more control over it both in terms of the steps and the display. Fortunately, we had users like you in mind when the plugin was written.
Membership provides custom shortcodes which you can drop into any WordPress page or post from the dashboard and will then give you the corresponding membership component.
So:
[subscriptiontitle subscription="2"]Will display the subscription title for the 2nd subscription in membership. Other options are subscription details, subscription price, and the subscription button. You would structure them the same way:
Now, you don't want to just have your subscription description in plane text, but something with awesome line breaks and paragraphs? Just don't use that shorttcode and style your text within the WP editor however you like.
Also, it's worth noting that you can use any process you like to to get the person a username in WordPress. Several folks use gravity forms for example.
This way, you can collect any information you like in whatever way you wish, then just drop them off wherever you want them (by using the notification URL in Gravity Forms). So if I wanted to bypass the initial pricing selection, I'd instead send someone to this:
http://domain.com/REGISTERSLUG/?action=registeruser&subscription=2
That would send them straight to the membership page where they will see their gateway payment button.
More information on Gravity Forms with Membership can be found here:
http://premium.wpmudev.org/forums/topic/gravity-forms-and-membership-signup#post-232538
Hope that helps. Membership has the hard task of being flexible for power users, but still easy for newbies. We've tried to strike that balance as best we can, but there's always the chance you'll need to pay for custom development if the solutions don't meet your needs 100%.
Thanks!
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
Hello, I am sorry, but you answered #4 and then took 9 hours to reply to the other issues. A member of staff had to ask my questions also to chase up an answer (TWICE). Had you replied to #4 and said you were busy and would get back on the other issues later, it would not have been a problem. But I was left in the dark and other staff had to chase after you to try and get my other questions answered.
I understand and agree. When you have multiple gateways, the process can become drawn out and confusing if only one gateway is activated.
That's an absolutely awesome solution. It will work brilliantly as we can format the structure so that it seems like we have a VIP plan and under it we have weekly, monthly and so on. You may want to put this in the manual so others can see it as this ticket may be a bit too long for them to read through to get this answer.
However, surely it is an issue that the formatting is being stripped in the wysiwyg editor as it should not be getting stripped.
So, thats #1 and #2 sorted. Any chance someone could address #3? I am not sure how it was overlooked, but it is a fairly serious issue. I am sorry to say this, but it feels like I am having to fight you to get you to address these issues. How was #3 ignored?
Member (joined March 2012) Likes (0)
@KimberlyL would you mind chasing up on #3? It seems that it has been ignored and as you have been trying to address it in the past, maybe you have some insight or can explain it to barry better than I can.
Many thanks
People Person (joined February 2012) Likes (0)
I will see what I can do :)
Member (joined April 2009) Likes (0)
Gads, this thread is long and covers a whole heap of issues.
If you'll open a new thread with just issue #3, we can take a look at that, specifically. I've tried reading through this thread a few times and it just makes my head spin. I took a look at your site and as a visitor I did see images - at least some images, so I'm obviously missing a critical detail.
It also appears all other issues here have been sorted so I'm gonna mark this resolved and close it up. If there are other out-standing issues that you don't yet have a thread for, feel free to open up new ones for those as well.
Sorry for the bother, but it really will help us support you much more effectively. Thanks!
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