Eduan,
Thanks for sending me to the training videos. I got a few additional tips (and a couple of more problems, ouch!).
But the bottom line for me right now is this:
1.
My buttons are NOT working. When I test them, PayPal says they are illegal. I imagine that this is because PP is not really integrated to S2 membership. You DO say that it is required to enable IPN etc.
2. Right now my IPN is set to
no because the PayPal rep. told me that to set it to yes would clash with my PDT auto-return, which is set to my shopping cart.
3.
I can't change those PayPal settings because I'd mess my shopping cart, and without them it seems that the membership buttons don't work, the two systems are not connected. If there is a way around it, I'm not seeing it. In the link you sent me I had understood that the buttons would connect per transaction and create a temporary IPN. This does not seem to be the case. Am I missing something here?
4.
I can't use subscriptions at all! In the Paypal video training I learned that I would have to purchase a PayPal enhanced subscription something or other ($20 a month) for my subscription system to work (in the button options). So now I cannot use the buttons to create subscriptions or member levels either.
For now, just to launch the site, I only have two options left that I see:1.
Use my shopping cart (which works with PP and does subscriptions) for people to purchase the membership in another URL, then
manually include them in the system at each membership level, and manually unsubscribe, move up, etc. At the beginning there is likely to be a manageable amount of members, so I could do this, but ONLY IF the plug-in would still protect the contents and honor the membership levels and access, even though the payments did not go through the system, but I entered the members manually into each level. Can this be done?
(Now, if you told me that it is possible to integrate my shopping cart (1shoppingcart system) with this plug-in, I'd be in heaven. Of course, I'm not a developer so whatever way would need to be easy and at no additional charge.
If not, then here's another thought.
2.
I could charge only a one time fee using a PayPal button that I directly set at my PP account. And then, again, I would have to do everything manually at your end.
But if the button is a one time purchase, a buy now that I set up at my PP end, then I have two questions:
2a. Will the levels and protection, etc, still work in the plugin? (I am offering a step-by-step path in which each member level is a stage in the path. So, though customers may purchase everything in a one-time buy, they still need to go through the stages in the system one at a time and I need time to put more content for the later stages.)
2b. Could I adapt your registration page, so that I would send people directly from my shopping cart to a registration page? (As a thank you or landing URL that I include for the purchase --Instead of they coming through PayPal) Or perhaps I could do something that the system would recognize them as coming through PayPal even though the buttons are at my PP account? (My shopping cart uses our PayPal Standard as the merchant.)
Please bare with me here and answer as soon as you can, so I can do this now!
If I am missing a point, and there is another option that you are trying to show me, I apologize and ask you to let me know in more simple terms, as I don't see any option to the IPN/PDT auto-return integration, and I can't afford to use enhanced PP subscriptions until some money comes in.
Thank you and please forgive my urgency and difficulty in understanding your help.
I do whole-heartedly appreciate your care, time and energy.
Thanks,
MM