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I am a musician, am in several bands, and I would like to create a WordPress website where the members of the other bands can come to to listen to MP3s of their respective practice/recording/performances. Access to each bands recordings should be limited to members of that particular band only. Some musicians are members of more than one band. There are no plans for any band member to pay for access.

I imagine that I would store all of the MP3s for a particular practice/recording/performance under a folder which in turn would be a child of that bands folder, just as it now appears on my computer's hard drive.

I imagine that it would be ideal if my WordPress site had two pages: a default page for everyone on the planet; and a members-only page. (Alternatively there could be a page for each band)

The default page would contain a few MP3s of what each band would like to share with the world (ex. exceptional performances and recordings), and a login box. The login box would in turn have a link to allow band members to create a new account. I would somehow have to be involved to assign each band member permissions to a particular band before they can gain access.

I believe that in order to display a list of MP3s that are stored in a folder, I would use a plug-in called "list yo files". I would add a unique list yo files entry for each folder containing MP3s to the members-only page. I would somehow assign permissions to each unique list yo files entry so that a user logging in with permissions to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones could see and play all of the MP3s assigned those band permissions only, but would not be able to see other list yo files entries.

So, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that I would only be using the 0 membership level of S2member because no one is paying for this service, and I would not be using any of the other membership levels because access to the MP3s does not depend upon a cascading hierarchy of membership.

If that is the case, then what feature of s2member would I use to create and manage band membership?

I'd say custom capabilities. Think of them as tags, but applied to accounts and used for access.

WP Admin -> s2Member -> API / Scripting -> Custom Capabilities
http://www.s2member.com/custom-capabilities-video/

Thank you. I did watch that custom capabilities video, however it showed an example of creating custom capabilities with the PayPal level 1 section, where the custom capabilities were magically assigned to the user during the PayPal process.

Do you agree with my assumption that my site would only be using level 0?

Can custom capabilities be created to work with level 0?

If I'm using level 0, and not a PayPal button, how would I assign specific custom capabilities to each registered user?

You'd edit their profiles and add the custom capabilities there by hand. If you want to add some on registration, you'll need the free registration pro-form in s2Member Pro.

Thank you for your reply.

Okay, coming along, new domain, new host, WordPress installed, WP show IDs installed, S2 member installed, list yo files installed, two pages created: a homepage; and a band member page, sample MP3s uploaded into two directories for two bands, and list yo files code on bandmember page displays and plays MP3s!

So I designated the bandmembers page as the S2 member login welcome page, and when I designated the home page as the S2 member membership options page I received a warning message that S2 member does not want the homepage to be its membership options page.

Please recall that there will be no paid membership, and therefore no PayPal buttons. If possible I would like the homepage available to the general public which will contain a login for the band members to access the bandmembers page.

Can I continue to designate the homepage as the membership options page, or must I create a third page that will only have a register link and nothing else?

I'd follow the warning's advice and not set the homepage as the Membership Options Page in s2Member.

You can create a new page for that and customize it with a message explaining why he got there, which would mostly likely only happen when someone wants to see a band's private page not being a member of the band.

s2Member will add some variables at the end of the URL when redirecting to the Membership Options Page to let you know where they tried to access and what access restriction applied, which helps you customize your message. WP Admin -> s2Member -> API / Scripting -> Membership Options Page / Variables

Thank you, so my website has three pages: a homepage, a membership options page, and a login welcome page. All logged in users will have membership level 0, so s2member automatically restricts access to the login welcome page to logged in users only.

The test membership and security my site currently only has two users: an administrator; and a user2. I have added custom capabilities words, and, delimited format, to the administrators profile, but have not added any to the second user.

Since I only have restricted content on one page, I added the custom capabilities PHP code to the HTML tab of that page in edit mode. I modified the default code by changing level1 to level0, swapping out the default music and videos custom capabilities for my own, and substituting the "display links…" For my own list yo files code to display the MP3s. Please see attachment.


Both users can successfully log into the site, and both users can see and play all of the protected content. Why is user2 able to see and play the custom capabilities protected content?

Do you have the Exec-PHP plugin installed? Otherwise the PHP code won't work. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/exec-php/

Those conditionals are simple enough to use simple conditionals (shortcode) too. WP Admin -> s2Member -> API / Scripting -> Using Simple Conditionals