WordPress Membership

Easy to use WordPress Membership plugin

eMember Alternative Post/Page Protection Addon

The default content protection of the WP eMember plugin will work on most posts/pages and custom post types. However, there are some plugins out there that do not trigger the standard WordPress filters for their content. The default protection will fail on those posts/pages since the eMember plugin can’t hook in there using the standard method. This is when the “eMember Alternative Protection” addon will come in handy. This addon uses a completely different method to still protect those posts/pages.

This method of protection will work good if you are using a page builder type plugin or theme and the standard eMember protection is not working there.

Installing the Addon

You can install this addon the same way you install any WordPress plugin:

  • Go to the “Add New” plugins screen in your WordPress admin area
  • Click the “upload” tab
  • Browse for the addon file (emember-alternative-protection.zip)
  • Click “Install Now” and then activate the plugin

Addon Usage

Step 1) Click on the “Alternative Protection” menu link from the main eMember plugin’s admin menu.

Step 2) Check the options as you need then save the settings. You basically specify which type of posts you want this addon to handle (so this addon can apply the protection using the alternative mmethod instead of emember’s standard protection method).

emember-alternative-protection-addon-settings

When this addon is active and you have enabled the settings, a protected post/page will apply content protection like the following example:

emember-alternative-protection-example

Showing the Header and Footer with the Protection Message

There is an option in the settings of this addon to show the protection message with the site header and footer. Your theme must support WordPress’s standard get_header() and get_footer() functions for this option to work.

Get This Addon

The price of this addon is $29.

Please contact us to get this addon.

Automatically Protect Older Posts from Members

If you want to setup a magazine subscription type membership site (where members won’t have access to protected posts that were published before they joined the site), then this protect older posts extension should help.

Normally, when a member pays for a membership level, he gets access to all the protected posts/pages for that level. When this addon is active, it will only give them access to the posts/pages that were published after their join date.

Installing the Addon

  • Upload the “emember-protect-older-posts.zip” file via the WordPress’s plugin uploader interface (Plugins -> Add New -> Upload)
  • Activate the plugin through the “Plugins” menu in WordPress.

Addon Usage

After installing the addon, edit the membership level where you want to enable this feature. Then check the “Protect Older Posts” option and save it. Members of this membership level won’t be able to access posts that where published before they joined your site.

emember-auto-protect-older-posts-addon-setting

Get This Addon

The price of this addon is $39.00

How to Create Teaser Content for Your Membership Site

What is Teaser Content

A teaser is a short part of content to draw user in. It is used to “tease” a visitor into reading/viewing the rest of the content and in the process become a member of the site.

How to Create Teaser Content Using eMember

There are two ways you can create teaser content using eMember:

  1. Using the More Tag Protection Feature
  2. Using the Section/partial Content Protection Feature

Method 1) Using the More Tag Protection Feature

First, enable the more tag protection by checking the “Enable More Tag Protection” option from eMember’s settings screen.

Next, insert WordPress’s “More Tag” marker in your posts to tell eMember what content is teaser and what content is for members only.

The content before that more tag marker in a post will be visible to everyone and serve as a teaser. The content after the more tag marker will be protected/hidden and only be available to logged members.

Example:

Teaser Content Example

Method 2) Using Section/Partial Protection Feature

You can also use eMember’s section/partial protection feature to hide certain section/area of the post or page. The section of the content that you keep open for everyone serves as a teaser.

Please check our documentation on section protection feature to learn how to use this feature.

How to Protect a Section of a Post or Page (Partial Protection)

If you want to protect a section or sections of a post or page then simply wrap the section with the “emember_protected” shortcode.

The following screenshot shows an example of how a partially protected page may look like. You can protect multiple sections of the post/page using multiple blocks of section protection shortcodes.

section-partial-content-protection-example

Section Protection Video Tutorial

Take a look at the following shortcode examples. It will show you how you can use the partial protection feature:

Note: When you copy and paste the shortcode, make sure to paste it in the “Text” mode of the page editor to prevent any HTML code from getting copied.

Simple Section Protection Example

[emember_protected]

Whatever content goes here is only visible to logged-in members who have access to this post or page.

[/emember_protected]

Section Protection for Specific Membership Level Example

[emember_protected for="2-3-4"]

Whatever content goes here is only visible to members who belong to the specific membership level specified above.

[/emember_protected]

Where 2,3,4 are the membership level IDs that you want to allow access to this section of content.

Section Protection for a Specific Member

[emember_protected member_id="1"]

Whatever content goes here is only visible to the member whose Member ID is 1.

[/emember_protected]

Section Protection for Anyone Who is Logged In

If you want to just protect a section of a post or page for logged in member (you don’t care if the member’s status is expired or not) then use the following shortcode:

[emember_protected scope="verified_users_only"]

Whatever content goes here is only visible to anyone who is logged-into the eMember system as a user (doesn't matter if his account is expired or not).

[/emember_protected]

Section Protection for Anyone Who is NOT Logged In

If you want to just protect a section of a post or page for non-logged in member (only anonymous visitors will see this section) then use the following shortcode (can be useful if you only want to show a message to the anonymous users):

[emember_protected scope="not_logged_in_users_only"]

Whatever content goes here is only visible to a non-logged in user (anonymous visitors of your site will see this message).

[/emember_protected]

Section Protection for Expired Members Only

If you want to just protect a section of a page for expired members (only expired members will see the message) then use the following shortcode:

[emember_protected scope="expired"]

Only the expired members will be able to see this message.

[/emember_protected]

If you want to protect a section of a page for expired members of a particular level then use the following shortcode:

[emember_protected scope="expired" for="2"]

Only the expired members from membership level 2 will be able to see this message.

[/emember_protected]

Section Protection without the “Content is protected” Message

If you want to protect a section of a post or page without showing the “Content is protected” message to the non-logged in users then use the following shortcode (can be useful if you don’t even want them to know that there is a section of content there):

[emember_protected for="2-3-4" do_not_show_restricted_msg="1"]

Whatever content goes here is only visible to members who belong to the specific membership level specified above. Also, the users who do not have access to this content won't see a "Content is protected" message.

[/emember_protected]

Section Protection without the Protected or Expired Message

The following section protection option protects the section without showing the “Content is protected” or “Account is expired” message (useful if you don’t even want them to know that there is a section of content there):

[emember_protected for="2-3-4" do_not_show_restricted_msg="1" do_not_show_expired_msg="1"]

Whatever content goes here is only visible to members who belong to the specific membership level specified above. Users who do not have access to this content won't see a "Content is protected" message. The expired members won't see the "Account is expired" message.

[/emember_protected]

Section Protection Not For Specific Membership Level

If you want to protect a section and make it NOT visible to a particular membership level then use the following shortcode:

[emember_protected not_for="1" do_not_show_restricted_msg="1"]

Whatever content goes here is NOT visible to members of membership level 1. All the other members can see this content.

[/emember_protected]

Using a Custom Message for the Non Members

This section protection shortcode can take another extra optional argument which can help you customize the text/message that is shown to non members.

Here is an example usage:

[emember_protected for="2-3-4" custom_msg='This is a custom message']

The content goes here. this content will be hidden and only available to members of membership level 2, 3 or 4.

[/emember_protected]

The following screenshot shows how this custom message is shown:

Section Protection Custom Message with HTML Link

You can use a HTML link in the custom message that you specify for the section protection shortcode. Remember to switch to the “Text” mode in the WordPress post/page editor if you are typing in HTML link code.

Here is an example shortcode usage:

[emember_protected for="2-3-4" custom_msg='This is a <a href="http://www.example.com">test link</a>']

The content goes here. this content will be hidden and only available to members of membership level 2, 3 or 4.

[/emember_protected]

Note

Just remember that when you want to use section protection on a post or page you should not protect the full post or the category that the post belongs to. When you apply category protection for a category, all the posts in that category is fully protected (category protection overrides all the small section protections in the post).

Section Protection in Action

You can see an example of how the section content protection work on the eMember demo site.

How to Manage Content Protection in WP eMember

You can manage the protection of specific posts, pages, categories, comments from the “Manage Content Protection” menu of the eMember plugin. You can also set protection of a post or page while editing it in the WordPress editor.

Quick Summary of Content Protection

You perform the following operations in the “Manage Content Protection” menu to protect content in eMember.

  1. Lock-down the content you want to protect via General Protection. Select the items you want protected while you have “General Protection” selected from the dropdown menu.
  2. Then select a membership level from the dropdown menu and select items you want accessible to that membership level. Do this step for all the membership levels.

Content Protection Video Tutorial

WP eMember Manage Content Protection

Content Protection Written Instruction

It is important to understand how the protection mechanism works. There are two steps to protecting and giving access to specific content:

  • First you need to protect the content by selecting “General Protection” from the drop down menu and checking the checkboxes next to the posts, pages, categories,comments that you want to protect (don’t forget to hit the ‘Set Protection’ button).
  • Now that you have all the important content locked down, you can start to selectively give access to it according to the membership levels. Select a membership level from the drop down menu and check the checkboxes next to the posts, pages, categories, comments that you want the members of this membership level to be able to view (Don’t forget to hit the Grant Access button).
WP eMember Content Protection Management

WP eMember Content Protection Management

To protect content for a specific membership level simply select the membership level from the drop down menu and check the checkbox next to the individual posts, pages, categories that you want to give acess to.

Selective Content Protection for Different Membership Levels

Selective Content Protection for Different Membership Levels

The easiest way to manage content protection is through the protection of “Categories”. It allows you to give access to all the posts or pages under a certain category without having to individually select each post or page. So for example, you can create a category called “Basic” and put all the posts and pages under this category that you want to give access to for the “Basic” Membership level.

Protecting a Section of a Post or Page

Site Wide Content Protection

Protecting Posts or Pages From the Editor