Community Support Forums

Hi again Jason!

There are buttons that "guests" (non-registered visitors) use to purchase membership. These are the "Paypal buttons for Level 1 access", "Paypal buttons for Level 2 access", etc.

What stops a free member (a "subscriber") from clicking one of these buttons? They will get redirected to create an account, but they already have their WP account - awkward.

Then there are the "Subscription Modification" buttons. For instance: "Upgrade to Level 3". There is only one choice for this. But the price should be different if upgrading from Level 2, compared to upgrading from Level 1, compared to upgrading from FREE. How does this get sorted out?

The answer seems to be: create buttons for all of these things, and then use "advanced conditionals" to show the right ones to the right people. Is that the only way to do it?

Is there any way to offer "Sign up" buttons that can be used by BOTH registered persons ("free members") and non-registered visitors ("guests") that will function correctly in both cases - WITHOUT USING the Exec-PHP plugin?

Finally, what happens if a registered person (free, level 0) wants to purchase a subscription, but they simply forgot to log in first?

Thanks!

I'm trying to forge ahead and experiment with Exec-PHP but this is also confusing.

In the Exec-PHP documentation it says you must do the following things:

# Assign the ‘unfiltered_html’ capability to the user
# Assign the ‘exec_php’ capability to the user

Following the links (both of the above lines are links) leads to this:

"A user may experience problems" ... "This is because the user also needs the ‘unfiltered_html’ capability assigned to." ... "Because WordPress has no built-in configuration menu in the admin menu to assign roles/capabilities, you need to install one of the available role/capability manager plugins as the one mentioned in the requirements."

I followed the link again ("mentioned in the requirements." is a link) and it takes me to:

http://www.im-web-gefunden.de/wordpress-plugins/role-manager/ (Role Manager Plugin)

However, the documentation for Role-Manager Plugin states that it is only compatible up to WP 2.6!

So here I am:

To have "Join Now" buttons for both registered and non-registered persons requires Exec-PHP.

Exec-PHP requires the Role Manager Plugin "to avoid problems" according to its own documentation.

And Role Manager Plugin does not work with WP 3.0.

So what now - please help - thank you -

EDIT - at least, "admin" defaults to having the exec-php capability, and it does work, at least for admin...

But - still confusing - this trail of information that leads to a contradiction -

There are buttons that "guests" (non-registered visitors) use to purchase membership. These are the "Paypal buttons for Level 1 access", "Paypal buttons for Level 2 access", etc.

"Paypal buttons for Level 1 access", "Paypal buttons for Level 2 access", etc.
Although these are not titled "Modification Buttons", they will ALSO function as Modification Buttons for Free Subscribers. You do NOT need to use an official Modification Button to allow a Free Subscriber to upgrade to paid Membership. s2Member can handle the upgrade all on it's own, even without a Modification Button being provided ...

with one condition:

... the Free Subscriber MUST be logged into your site whenever they click the checkout button. That will initiate an upgrade process automatically. After checkout, s2Member will update their existing account, rather than asking them to register. This is handled internally by s2Member. All you have to do is make sure a Free Subscriber is logged in before you introduce the button to them.

Modification Buttons: ( aka: "all in one" buttons )
Now... the special Modification Button generator for s2Member, is designed to pass the modify="1" parameter to PayPal, so that with Standard PayPal integration, an existing Customer will have the ability to (modify) an existing PayPal Subscription that is associated with their account at your site. That is the only difference between a Level #1,2,3,4 Button, and an official Modification Button. In places where you want a "one button handles all" situation, use a Modification Button, or just add modify="1" to your Shortcode; same difference.

A Modification Button will work in ANY situation. If a Customer is logged in when they click the Button, they'll get updated. If they're not, they gain access to register a new Username.

What stops a free member (a "subscriber") from clicking one of these buttons? They will get redirected to create an account, but they already have their WP account - awkward.

Only if they're NOT logged in when they click the Button.
If they are logged in, everything will work just fine.

Finally, what happens if a registered person (free, level 0) wants to purchase a subscription, but they simply forgot to log in first?

s2Member will consider them a "new" Customer after checkout, because they were not logged in when they initially clicked the checkout button. s2Member will provide them with a link to register, instead of updating their existing account. You should try to prevent this from happening.

NOTE: With s2Member Pro, you can generate PayPal Pro Modification Forms, which are designed to handle the entire process for you automatically. If you use a Pro Modification Form, s2Member Pro will not allow a Customer to checkout unless they are already logged into their account with you. This is possible with s2Member Pro, because the checkout experience is all on-site, as opposed to sending a Customer through PayPal.

Also, with s2Member Pro, the checkout experience consolidates the Registration/Checkout steps into a single Form, making the entire process smoother, and a Customer who is trying to register with the same Username/Email Address, is detected early on, because s2Member Pro handles this during checkout; and before a payment is accepted by the system.

Exec-PHP

Yea, I agree that Exec-PHP has some side issues. We have a new alternative to Exec-PHP coming soon that will be an attempt to improve upon this plugin. You can look for this to be released at PriMoThemes.com. We're hoping that it will improve the usability of s2Member's API Scripting as well.

Exec-PHP requires the Role Manager Plugin

It does not "require" the Role Manager plugin for most installations. By default, Exec-PHP will work fine all by itself with a default installation. If you're running a Multisite Networking installation, or you have multiple Editors/Authors/Contributors, then yes.

If you need to configure permissions for Editors/Authors/Contributors, I recommend the Capability Manager plugin, which IS compatible with WP 3.0. I've tested it myself on 2.9.2+ and all works fine.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/capsman/

Hi Jason,

Thank you very much for a great answer. capsman looks terrific. Cheers, Marty

~Very welcome. Glad I could help.