Partially protecting content on actual Blog page

[bettydonelly]

Hello

First off, i am absolutely thrilled with the s2Member plugin .. i am using the free version and this one is already very powerful so i want to thank the creator(s) so much because i've wanted to create a membership site since 2006 or so but i am and have been on such a tight budget all these years that i just could not make it happen .. so again thanks!

Now i do have a small issue and i don't know if this is a bug or if i should mention it rather as a suggestion for future releases of s2Member.

Here's the actual blog where i'm having the worry:

http://simplemusicworld.com/blog

My blog's front page is a static page (it's my 'About the Author' page) and i do use a separate plugin (i tried searching for the name of this plugin to mention it in this post for clarity, but i think i have so many plugins and couldn't find it!) .. which enables me to have a kind of 'news' page which functions exactly as a real blog (with journal like posts), and which is separate from the actual blog page.

Now you see, at first i tried to restrict certain posts so i entered the posts ID's in the correct 'post restrictions' in the general options of s2Member.

But these posts kept showing up in the actual blog page until i restricted access to the entire blog page by entering the blog page ID nr. in the 'set page restrictions' in the general options.

Now the blog page (of course, when i'm logged out of admin area) only shows posts which are posted via my 'News' page ... these posts actually show up both on the 'News' page (which i was able to create using this other plugin remember, and which look exactly as if it were a blog itself) and they also show up on the 'main' blog page.

But what i really would like to do here is to reserve the News page for real news announcements like when new content is posted within the protected content areas and just news bulletins and so on ..

But to entice my readers to actually become free or paid member what i'd like to do is use my actual 'main' blog page for free content of quality value which is not just News and does not go into the News page.

This however, seems impossible ... i cannot restrict certain posts on the main blog because i have to restrict access to the entire 'main' blog page, otherwise it seems (and this is what i initially tried) that when i do not enter the blog page ID nr in the 'set page restrictions' none of the protected posts (the posts ID's i enter in 'set post restrictions') are actually protected ... they keep showing up in my main blog.

I did all this i believe two weeks ago so forgive me if i get some of the details wrong of what follows :

But i think that because i also protected the category, i had no trouble with the view and when i clicked (again, i always log out to test these things) ... so when i clicked the category i think it was indeed protected and i was led to the membership sign up page but then again by the same token my posts (protected in the, set post restrictions) did show up and weren't protected at all ... again, until i protected the entire blog page.

I don't know if this is meant and if the plugin was created like this but i would love to make a suggestion that if this is not due to some bug, that i might be useful to look into this matter and i think it would be beneficial for the actual signup conversion rates if we could still use part of the blog page to post stuff that would reflect the quality of the content inside the protected areas.

Because i think that otherwise it's necessary to create a separate page for each piece of content if i have to restrict access to the entire blog page. For me, i can currently work around this because i have this plugin which allowed me to create this News page which functions as a blog (with reversed chronology posting)

So in conclusion ...

It could be a bug.
It could be a feature to include in a future release (so then it' my suggestion to the creator)

Or .. i missed something in the setup tutorials and could be doing something wrong.

Anyways, thanks in advance for looking into this matter!

a raving fan, (you guys make dreams come true!)

Betty

[Cristián Lávaque]

Hi Betty. It's great that you finally could start your membership website.

About the problem you're having, I don't know how your other plugin changes the situation, but this video may help you understand what's giving you trouble: http://www.s2member.com/content-restric ... ble-video/

[bettydonelly]

Thanks again Cristián!

Regarding the general use of the s2Member plugin, I.e. protecting my content as i want it to appear, well i think i'm starting to get the hang of it!

The problem i mentioned in this thread is solved! .. After watching the video series you supplied, i took a real close and investigating look at my settings.

In the 'restrict page access' settings i had entered the actual main blog posts page, so first thing i did was delete that ID.

I logged out but still could not see the post i wanted to be 'free for all' , ..

The actual problem was that i had restricted access to the category ID the post was filed under.

So when i deleted the category ID in the 'restrict category access' settings the whole situation was exactly visualised the way i wanted to ... My restricted posts were not visible on the main blog page and those i wanted to be visible were! What a fantastic plugin!

So thanks ... that's one problem solved!

Betty

PS ... I am quite busy right now doing all sorts of work on different blogs and so on but once things cool down some i'll fill in my profile and post a nice photo of me to go with it!

[Cristián Lávaque]

I'm very glad you sorted it out! Very well done.