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Hi there. I have an online publication and I recently installed Simple:Press with the intent of building a private forum so that our authors can communicate better. However, the snag I've ran into is trying to separate the general members, the authors/editors, and the admins. I think I have this mostly complete, except what I believe I need to do is build some type of wishlist to assist the S:P plug-in. I'm basing this on the YouTube video (WPA) that was put out some years ago. However, the recommended plug-in doesn't appear to be supported any longer, and I'm not sure what the best route to go is with this. I don't mind purchasing a plug-in if necessary, but I'm had numerous problems over the years with buying "garbage plug-ins" that aren't supported well by the developers, then it's a pain in the behind trying to get refunded. So what I'm trying to find out is what's the best route to get this done efficiently? It's also not so much an issue of money, but rather quality, and I would like to eventually add some of the other S:P plug-ins/add-ons, but I need to be able to evaluate it with my team using it before I can assess what needs to be built on to it. Any assistance I could get in resolving this would be appreciated. I don't need if I need an upgraded membership to get this kind of support, but it's better if I can get the forum operational first and find out what features would be helpful so that I can add on the right features/packages. Thanks so much.
Hey Joel,
It really depends what you want to achieve. If you want to give the public the option of signing up to the forum from your WP site then you're going to be looking at a membership plugin of which there are definitely a lot of good choices out there. This will allow you to funnel users into user groups which you can then map to WP roles to control access. See How to configure Simple:Press with a membership plugin and also check out the Getting Started documentation on controlling access.
Membership plugins being one of the most popular plugin types out there should be fairly easy to narrow down which one will work for you given rating and reviews, and of course be sure to check the plugins support forum to check how the support shapes up.
If you are just looking at having a small private forum of hand picked and manually added users, you might want to look at other solutions for keeping the page private and inaccessible to regular guests / subscribers. This can normally be done with a membership plugin as well as it allows users to be sorted into groups with set permissions, and the page can normally be set to only be visible to a user with a set permission - But they are all different in the way they function. Other solutions will still require users to be sorted into WP roles as the page will need to be accessible to some roles and inaccessible to others.
If that doesn't help, could you elaborate about what you are trying to achieve exactly?
Thanks Ike. I'll just elaborate a little, but I think you provided most of what I need. In addition to myself, I just need my editors and authors to have access to the forum. I don't even plan to have it listed on the homepage, but regardless people still have a way of finding things when they're hidden. So what I want to be able to do is separate staff from people who just sign up for the website to write comments for articles and such. Currently the settings on S:P allow me to map existing members, but I'm guessing that's where the membership plug-in comes in since it doesn't map based on the user roles set directly in WordPress. At least it didn't for me.
So in short, I'm trying to get this done with the least headache possible. I've just had problems with website extensions in the past. I buy something, then a month later I'm rebuilding a part of the website because WordPress updated and the developer disappeared. Also, are you plan on adding a similar membership premium plug-in any time in the future? If so, that is definitely something I would be interested in. Thanks so much. 🙂
We do not have any current plans to create a membership plugin although we have discussed it in the past and it is not entirely out of the question for the future. But as Ike, I believe, said - why invent the wheel? There are plenty of really good plugins out there already.
You can exclude access to the forum page for all people except a small group of nominated users without any additional plugins whatsoever but as you say, people will always stumble on such things and while it will not allow them entry it will show you have such a page.
A quick search of the WP plugin repository using the term 'restrict access' throws up quite a large number of options that should allow you to mark a page as not available. I think of this were me I would probably be thinking along those lines rather than the extra baggage of a membership plugin...
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What has also worked for me in the past is using something like 'WPFront User Role Editor' to give certain user roles the permission to 'view private pages'.. Then you can just make the forum page private allowing only those with the role including the permission to view private pages access.
WPFront User Role Editor allows you to give an individual more than one 'role' which makes it handy for still being able to sort users into multiple roles, but only giving certain users that special access.
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