Confused: Login Welcome Page versus Home Page

[tripleaaadelay]

Hey guys,

I understand I need a separate Login Welcome Page and Home Page, but it feels strange to log in to a site and not be taken to the Home Page.

How do you recommend the Members Area be set up so there's not this feeling of having two pages competing as the "home page?"

Thank you!
triple

[Raam Dev]

Hi Triple,

You generally want members to see content that non-members cannot see. That's the logic behind the Login Welcome Page: After a member logs in, they get to see special content specifically for them (the Login Welcome Page), which would direct them to other content that they can see (content that non-members cannot see).

If the member-only content is on the home page, then you'll need to do some advanced scripting to check if the person viewing the home page is a logged-in member. That makes things a bit more complicated than simply creating a separate page (the Login Welcome Page) for members-only.

If you want your Login Welcome page to be the home page, you can configure a Special Redirection URL for the Login Welcome Page. This can be done in WP-Admin -> s2Member -> General Options -> Login Welcome Page (you'll see the redirection box at the bottom). Simply add the full URL to your home page (i.e. http://example.com/) to that box.

Now after a member logs in, they will be redirected to the home page.

If you'd like the home page to then display some member-only content, you'll need to use the s2Member scripting feature to check if the visitor is logged in. You can read all about that here: WP-Admin -> s2Member -> API / Scripting -> Simple / Shortcode Conditionals.

Does that answer your question?

[tripleaaadelay]

Great! Thanks for the very detailed and thoughtful message. That answers my question very clearly!

My plan is to make "http://(mysite).com" open to visitors, and "http://members.(mysite).com" only accessible to members. That's why I was imagining the home page and login welcome page were one in the same for members.

I've decided to use the "Restrict all Pages" feature of s2Member to accomplish this. s2Member will be running on the members site, and on the visitors site I'll just make hard links to send visitors over to the members site "Membership Options Page."

I decided this was the best option after realizing I needed too specific restrictions. For example, I wanted visitors to only open the first three pictures in a gallery, but members could open all pictures.

My solution will require running two completely separate installs of Wordpress, (Multisite didn't work because the subdomain was virtual) but I think it results in the most flexibility, and another bonus is it's very easy to put the two sites on separate dedicated servers if I get a lot of traffic. I don't want my members experience to become sluggish because of visitors and vice versa. My site is going to be loaded up with streaming videos from Japan, so bandwidth is a real concern.

If you have any other ideas or thoughts, I would love to hear them. Either way, thanks for the above stellar response!

triple