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[Branda Pro] Restrict Content for Membership site

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Branda Pro is near to have functionalities to be a Resctrict Content Pro plugin. It could be?

Thu, 21 Jul 2022 13:14:23
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Branda Pro
  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hi DeXafío

    I hope you’re well today!

    Branda’s purpose is quite different and while it does include some “restrict” features they are aimed mostly towards back-end access customization. This is quite different than “membership” type restrictions and front-end restrictions.

    I get your point but I’m not quite sure if it really would be a “good fit” for Branda. It’s already a complex plugin and making it a membership-type plugin would not only go “out of its purpose” but it would add another new level of complexity to it. Quite likely a bit too much to handle in a single plugin (both code-wise and use-wise).

    We did have a membership plugin in the past and I really can imagine the level of complications (i many areas) it would add up to it.

    However, since this is a feature request, I’m thinking that perhaps some “middle ground” could be settled here. Branda is already capable of hiding and/or restricting access to selected areas of back-end (wp-admin) based on user-role and/or for selected user accounts.

    While adding full-fledged membership feature may not be possible, what about adding option to restrict access to selected content (just basic – like selected posts/pages only) based on user role? Something similar to what can be done for “wp-admin”. So for example:

    – “subscribers” cannot access “post A” and “Page B”
    – “some custom role” cannot access any posts but can access pages
    – and so on…

    It wouldn’t involve any user-account and user-role management and no complex restrictions – just a “conditional logic” like “this role can/cannot access this post or this post-type”.

    Going further would pretty much mean creating a new plugin from scratch and additionally “combining” it with Branda while there are many great membership plugins on the market (both free and paid) already.

    But such a simple feature, I think, could make nice addition.

    What do you think?

    Best regards,
    Adam

  • DeXafío
    • DeXafío

    I agree with you. I´ve propose this because plugins like RCP, Paid Membership Pro, etc, adds integrations that agencies with WPmudev already have. I mean, integrations stripe add on and integrations with mailchimp, hubspot, and others email marketing or CRM are already en Hustle Pro and Forminator Pro. So We multiply integrations with those plugins that we already have with WPMUDEV. We can have with forminator and Stripe add on a monthly or yearly payment and with Branda, we create ACF for those tipes of roles, (client a, b or C), you know. So, we already have all to create a membership i Think, combining differents WPMUDEV Pro Plugins. But at the end, once a user have a course URL, I think if we could restrict content for that, it would be done. Recurrent Payment, User rol manager, etc it´s already done and we can create a WP admin for students where they only see and access their pages and/or premium posts. Maybe I´m lost on any step but I´m not sure where.
    So, Hustle to catch, forminator for register and payment and Branda for students or clients backend with contents and advising for news. Defender Pro could restrict access as well and many plugins to combine but I don´t know what we need not to install a whole membership or LMS plugin. It could be an addon to Branda Pro or Forminator? It would be great step for all of us.
    Anyhow, thank´s a lot for your answer and I hope we could find the way to connect this final step for a simple membershipsite without many complex functionalities.

  • DeXafío
    • DeXafío

    I´m sorry, I forgot to ask, at the ende, if actually need a member plugin, you´ve suggest two. With all we have with WPmudev Pro Plugins, I need very few for a member plugin. Only can restrict some parts in post and pages. Wich one of them you think is the simplest or better coded, free o paid plugin for this. I think most of the membership plugins have many things we don´t need with our WPMUDEV plugins, don´t you think?
    You suggested these Two: (were random or any of them could adjust something simple but effective for this kind of cases?

    WP Members
    Simple Membership

  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hi DeXafío

    Thanks for response!

    It’s not quite like that. I mean, currently none of our plugins has any “content access management” features and there’s no plugin that would be even remotely related to it. Putting such features into any of them would essentially make such plugin a completely “different tool”.

    This includes Defender which is in no way “user management” plugin but strictly a security plugin and in only contains some “user access” related features that are directly related to security – like 2FA authentication or login protection.

    I’m also not sure why you mentioned “and with Branda, we create ACF for those tipes of roles”. ACF stands for “Advanced Custom Fields” which isn’t really a WordPress term but relates to the Advanced Custom Fields plugin.

    Branda also isn’t “custom fields” creation/management plugin and have/won’t have such features, neither it integrates directly with Advanced custom Fields plugin.

    So one way or another there’s still one “part” of that all missing. What could be done, quite easily I believe, would be e.g. this:

    1. create som custom user roles for your “membership levels”

    This can be done e.g. using free User Role Editor plugin. You can create roles “from scratch” or based on existing roles. For example: copy subscriber role multiple times and just rename them according to your membership plans like “Membership Basic”, “Membership Premium”, “Membership Gold”.

    2. Use Forminator to create a registration form with payment.

    – you can add select or radio field to select membership type
    – then based on that field you can set the form to assign one of your custom user roles (see point 1 above) to newly registered user; there’s a “Assign Role Conditionally” option in registration form settings which you can use for that
    – use Stripe payment field with Stripe Subscription Add-on if you want recurring payments
    – and payments can then also be set to different amounts (also one-time or recurring) conditionally based on that membership selection field

    3. Use Branda to e.g. restrict access (or to add some links) for those user roles in back-end; but that only works with back-end; you cannot restrict access to front-end content (like your courses posts) this way.

    So that’s where the “gap” is and currently you would still use separate 3rd-party plugin.

    What we could suggest to our developers for future (though I cannot promise it would be added) would only be to make it possible to restrict access to selected single posts on front-end based on user-role – but that’s pretty much it. It’s not something that could and would be added anytime soon too, I’m afraid.

    ———–

    As for your question about the plugins that I suggested:

    I don’t know them “insight out”. I’ve suggested them because out of the free plugins of that kind those are that I’ve seen used the most often (I deliberately skipped premium plugins because I have no way to test them and usually it’s hard to find unbiased reviews of such plugins – especially if they are marketed only through “marketplaces” such as Codecanyon…).

    You’re right that most of them would already have some “all in one” features but I wouldn’t necessarily consider that a bad thing. Personally, while I’m a huge advocate of “use as little plugins as possible” approach, I also don’t see any reason to reinvent the wheel.

    I mean, I got your point and I can completely understand that it’s good to keep all “under one roof” but on the other hand, such membership solution “stitched” out of multiple tools may take way more time and effort and, ultimately, give way less “flexibility” (and area for future improvements/changes) than using a ready-to-use and proven to work dedicated solution :)

    I hope it makes some sense :)

    Best regards,
    Adam

  • DeXafío
    • DeXafío

    Hey Adán, that´s a great, great answer, thank you a lot. This is a very good support. Endly as you say, in order to do it properly, we´ll need a membership plugin. Do it in the back end could be possible to try and check if could be usefull for this king of purpose.

    I am really grateful for your guidance and support. We are going to see which plugin can help in this line while continuing to learn how to use all the features of the WPMUDEV plugins, which are many, and perhaps learn how to create functional scripts.
    And at time, thank´s Álvaro for his comments.
    Kind regards and have a nice weekend.