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Membership levels not only determine who gets access to site content they're also used for
other elements of the site. They're used in the design for Membership Options page and
they're used to customize the PayPal buttons.
The free version of S2Members supports 5 levels of membership. One free level and 4 primary
levels.
In S2Member, level 0 is reserved for free memberships. Whenever a visitor registers
without paying they are automatically entered as level 0. Level 0 can be controlled by navigating
to S2Member General Options and Clicking the Open Registration bar to open the screen.
Under the Allow Open Registration select the option you want (No to not allow or Yes to
allow) and then click the Save All Changes button at the bottom of the page. For the
course build-out we'll be allowing Level 0 as a way to retain potential customers for
upgrade.
Select the Yes option and the click the Save All Changes button at the bottom of the page.
Membership levels are directly related to content restrictions and there are numerous
ways to restrict content in S2Member. Content can be restricted by Post, by Page, by category,
by Tag, or by URI and content can even be restricted using custom capabilities.
S2Member installs a meta box on all page and post screens that restrict content using membership
levels. When writing a page or post simply select the membership level.
Another way is to use custom capabilities for content restriction. Content can be restricted
by using a tag or category name along with a membership level.
For the course build-out we'll use page tags with membership levels to restrict content.
And for that we'll need to install a page tagger since WordPress does not have the ability
to use tags on pages. It only allows tags for posts.
Navigate to the Add New Plugins screen and type Page Tagger in the search box and click
the Search button. Locate the Page Tagger plugin and click Install Now and then Activate.
This plugin installs a meta box for tags on the page screen. Now any page can be tagged
just like a post. And remember tags a case sensitive.
For the course build-out we'll be using level 0 and level one with custom capabilities to
restrict the content. The memberships levels themselves can be used to restrict this content
but with custom capabilities applied to membership levels you have far greater possibilities
for content restriction combinations.
Now we need to configure the membership level labels. Navigate to the S2member General Options
and click the Membership Levels/Labels. This is the screen where the levels are named.
They can be left at the default but for this course we'll be changing the names.
Level zero will be named Basic and level one will be named Site Build. Level one will actually
have two separate sub-levels – one for a membership site build and another for an e-commerce
site build. We're using one level here since these sub-levels are basically the same except
for the content. The content restriction will be handled with custom capabilities. In other
words, if the content is tagged with the word we use for the custom capabilities then only
a member with that permission will be allowed to view the content. We'll use these tags
names when we create the PayPal buttons since the permissions are set when a membership
is purchased.
For the remaining levels we can use a dash to let us know they are for future use.
The “Force WordPress to use your label” selection will change the default WordPress
role settings to the ones entered in the Levels fields above. This can make them easier to
identify if you need to add a new member or if you change a member level. It will not
effect the operation of the site, it is strictly a personal preference. This can be left to
“no” unless you just want to change it.
And the button to Reset Roles and Capability is typically used by developers. It resets
the roles if they were changes made and they're not functioning properly. Clicking this will
reset the roles to the defaults.
Click the Save button at the bottom of the page.
Before we can create the PayPal buttons we need to set the tag for the custom capabilities.
By doing this S2member will restrict content access using these tags.
Navigate to S2member Restrictions Options and click the Tag Access Restriction bar to
open the screen. Locate the Tags That Require Level #1 or Higher and enter ecom a comma
(no spaces) and memb. Remember that tags are case sensitive. These are the tags we'll use
in the pages and posts to restrict the content to members. Now when a customer buys the ecommerce
membership they'll be able to view all content marked with the ecomm tag. No one else will
be able to see this content. Click the Save All Changes buttons at the
bottom of the page.
Now that we have the levels set for the site and our tag restrictions in place, we can
create the PayPal buttons.