Membership levels to include author level permissions

[danv09]

Hello.

I've done a little research on your forums and found only this thread that was close-to-relevant to my problem: http://goo.gl/DYhow

My question is: Can the s2Member membership levels gain the same access type (in addition to their default access) as the "author" user level has ?

For example, I have a post that was created and left in draft mode.

That post is assigned to user "Dan". User "Dan" has a membership level 2 access. Now, I log in as "admin" and change the post from "draft" to "published".

Then I see that the post is being assigned to "admin" user instead of keeping it assigned to "Dan".

I try to go and assign the post manually to user "Dan" but I only see user "admin" in the list.
Why is that ? Because all the users are spread along different membership levels. Neither of the users are now "authors".

So, I change user "Dan" to author from his membership level 2 access and now I can re-assign the post to user "Dan" however now Dan does not have a membership level assigned which breaks some stuff, right ? So, I need to go and offer him again his prior membership level.

Let me know if I was clear enough.

Can this type of back-and-forth thing be done automatically by incorporating the "author" permissions to the s2m membership levels ?

Thanks.

[Jason Caldwell]

Thanks for your inquiry.
Maybe it will help if I provide a bit of detail regarding
s2Member Roles and how they work inside WordPress.

From the Dashboard documentation:
s2Member -> API Scripting -> Advanced Conditionals.

Membership Levels provide incremental access:
* A Member with Level 4 access, will also be able to access Levels 0, 1, 2 & 3.
* A Member with Level 3 access, will also be able to access Levels 0, 1 & 2.
* A Member with Level 2 access, will also be able to access Levels 0 & 1.
* A Member with Level 1 access, will also be able to access Level 0.
* A Subscriber with Level 0 access, will ONLY be able to access Level 0.

* WordPress® Subscribers are at Membership Level 0. If you're allowing Open Registration, Subscribers will be at Level 0 ( a Free Subscriber ). WordPress® Administrators, Editors, Authors, and Contributors have Level 4 access, with respect to s2Member. All of their other Roles/Capabilities are left untouched.

* Now, if you'd like to add new Roles, or give your "Authors" a different set of Capabilities, I recommend this plugin/tool: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/capsman/

[danv09]

Thank you for the reply Jason.

So, the custom capabilities come to enforce the granulation and for example, if I want a level 2 member to be able to be set as 'author' (which gives him level 4 access automatically) I can make sure he doesn't have that level 4 access with custom capabilities, right ?

Thanks.

[Jason Caldwell]

Yes, I think you've got it.

For instance, it sounds like what you want to do is sell your Customers the "Author" Role. However, it sounds like you should modify the "Author" Role using the plugin/tool that I mentioned.

So for example, if you wanted your Authors to have Level 2 Access instead of Level 4 Access, you can uncheck these Capabilities for the Author Role ( i.e. using the plugin/tool that I mentioned ):
access_s2member_level3, access_s2member_level4.

So this customizes your installation, making it so that "Authors" are actually Members at Level #2; only they will also have access to all the default things that a WordPress Author would typically have.

OR, another way to go about this ( making it easier to integrate with s2Member ), is to use the plugin/tool that I mentioned to modify one of the s2Member Roles ( possibly the s2Member Level 2 Role ), by giving the s2Member Level 2 Role all the same Capabilities that an Author would typically have in WordPress. In other words, you could turn the s2Member Level 2 Role into an Author, essentially.

Reference article: http://codex.wordpress.org/Roles_and_Capabilities

[danv09]

Perfect. Thanks for such a great explanation. Seems like that plugin works beautifully with yours. Cheers !

[Jason Caldwell]

You're VERY welcome.