Automating creation of public teasers

[bethperkins]

I love the power of S2Member but figuring out the best way to approach things can be a challenge!

My client wants to provide public teasers of all posts on the homepage and the category pages. When a non-member clicks on a post, he wants the teaser to be displayed with the notice that they have to login or join.

I understand that I need to use conditionals withing the posts to to do this (rather than using the restrictions page) and I have that working on a couple of posts. However - we have a big backlog of posts to update and I need to set this up to be as simple as possible for the client and his writing staff to update on a regular basis.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

[Cristián Lávaque]

Well, you found how it is done already, although it can be uncomfortable to add the conditional to every post.

You could try protecting the page with the restriction setting and then play with the alternative views setting to let it show in the post listing pages (home, category, tag, results) up to where you put the <!--more--> tag in the post. Just tried it and it works.

This way, though, on trying to open the post the person will be taken to the Membership Options Page instead of remaining there with another message. WP Admin -> s2Member -> Restriction Options -> Alternative Views Protection

I hope that helps.

[BobTabor]

I am doing something *similar*, except with video content. I took a different route that I'll share because it might spark another creative offshoot.

I have two versions of the same site (in development as I write this ... so these links point to my current site which I'll soon be replacing). So:

http://www.learnvisualstudio.net
http://members.learnvisualstudio.net

Why two versions of the same site when s2Member will adequately handle a free and paid version using the same install? Two main reasons: flexibility and simplicity. 'Flexibility' to make one site purely promotional in nature, and 'Simplicity' to avoid the situation you described -- having this logic sprinkled into every new page of content I have to create.

The 'www' side (my pure WordPress install site) will have 1 minute preview videos, the sidebars will promote the paid membership, and will have a popup with an offer for a free trial membership.

The 'members' side (my s2Member-powered site) will be where I take payment, allow login ... all the things that s2Member does so well. Here I have the full versions of the videos and other downloads / resources. I also have the free trial membership here -- a ten day trial that drips about 30 screencasts over 10 days, then creates a sense of urgency by cutting them off at the end of 10 days.

During development I had some Elancers copy and paste content from my current site into new pages in WordPress on 'members.learnvisualstudio.net'. We took a few passes to clean up URLs, links, etc. We have about 1000 content pages we had to convert.

Once the content was massaged, I exported the data and imported into the 'www.learnvisualstudio.net' into XML format, then changed all references of 'members' to 'www' using find-and-replace in a text editor. Then, I imported the modified XML file.

Now, I have duplicate content! Yes, going forward I'll have to manage two versions of the same content, which is fine because WordPress makes it easy to publish.

The benefits:
-- I can highly optimize the 'www' site using caching plugins and such without worrying about affecting membership functionality.
-- I can tailor the 'www' site to SEO, and tailor the 'members' site to upsell and other matters related to members.
-- I can automate the dual publish of a single "article" (video, description, full-text, whatever) using a third-party tool which will allow me to publish to multiple destinations.

I've given this months of thought and while there are downsides, I think the upsides for my situation outweigh them. Again, I offer this as another approach to a similar issue. Hope it helps a little.

[Cristián Lávaque]

Thanks for your input, Bob! It's very good to have more options to achieve something.

The only time I used a double installation like what you mention, was for a multilanguage website, since WP is so poor at doing that right, I ended up installing one for English and the other for Spanish, mirroring the structure, but in the other language.

[bethperkins]

Thanks to both of you.
Bobs approach sounds impressive but it is too much for me to get my head around right now.
I've come up with two alternatives to pursue and I'd love your opinion on which way I should head.
Option 1 is to go with Cristian's approach of restricting at the post level with a more tag. I would also need to modify the display post program (single.php?) to circumvent the restriction and display the post up to the more tag with links to "login" and "become a member". To solve my problem at this level seems the most direct way but I'm not sure how painful it will be and I'm not a PHP expert (although I'd be willing to pay someone).
Option 2 is to not put any restrictions at the post level and to use conditionals within the post. To make things easy for client, I would get a plugin I found called Shortcodes Pro that will let me create custom shortcodes and put them in a custom made TinyMCE button so client can push a button to add the S2 conditional code and links at the appropriate place in the post. Do you think this will work?
I'd love a recommendation on which way to go...or if I missed something

[Cristián Lávaque]

Option 2 sounds good, although you client will still get the conditional code in the editor, which may not be nice to look at.

Option 1 would be nicer if you get it developed, but it's not just editing single.php because s2Member will redirect the person to Membership Options Page earlier.