Welcome and thank you.

Nothing needed for this. Just take a look at this FAQ: https://simple-press.com/documentation/codex/faq/problem-with-post-edit-buttonow-to/problem-with-post-edit-buttonow-do-i-allow-people-to-register-on-my-forum/

Thank you very much! 

I have already set the permissions so that anyone can register.  But I want this to be totally private.  I have set those permission levels when creating the groups/forums.  But, how does the person register and get a password, me accept them as a new private member, etc?  That page really didn’t explain the privacy aspect.

Also, just looking over the plug-ins, they look very complicated.  I can’t even find where to download them.  And there are so many.  Can anyone just tell me the best, most basic plug-ins, and where to download them?

Example: I’d like the tiny MCE editor, but that page just has a long list of instructions (which I’d rather not read) and I didn’t see an option to download.

Thank you very much!

Being more specific, I don’t know how to do this:

You will also need to set the New User Default Role. Most commonly this will be set to Subscriber which will grant new users the minimum access to your WordPress admin – just the Dashboard and their Profile. Note that when a new user registers, they will be placed in the forum User Group designated by you on the Forum – Usergroups – Map Users to Usergroups panel and it is recommended that this be set up and checked prior to enabling site registrations.

How do I set the new user default role?  And how do I designate which usergroup they should go to?

I am very confused obviously…sorry.

Registration: You have to remember that Simple:Press is a WordPress plugin and everything to do with users is controlled by your WordPress site. So – if you want more than they give you as standard then you need to go down the plugin route, That really is the strength of WordPress of course.

So if you feel you need to approve registrant requests for example – then you will need to look for a plugin to handle that. Anything from ‘Theme my Login’ (which can allow for that) right up to a full-blown membership plugin.

Downloads: Just go to our download page from the menu at the top and use the button link to members plugins. Download and installation instructions are in the Codex (https://simple-press.com/documentation/codex/plugins/plugin-basics/using-plugins/). When you install and activate them there is a little Getting Started link beside each one which will give you a hint what you need to do.

Thank you.  I will check the membership plug-ins. 

As for the plug-ins, could you tell me which are the most basic and generally useful / preferred? My eyes are glazing over looking at all of the options with pages and pages of descriptions for each of them. 

Also, once the person is logged in: do they automatically have the power to start posting?  I’m very confused on that point.  I’ve never had any members or users of my WP sites other than me…

I’m sorry but I want to make sure I’m not confusing anything.  I assume the forum software would have what I want built it. I just installed the plug-in you recommended and the back-end is very confusing (makes no sense to me).  There was no easy option for adding members that I could see.

I am an experienced WP user, just FYI.

I just want to be able to approve someone before they start posting.  Isn’t this what the permission levels are supposed to do?  I want to be able to approve new members or somehow keep the entire forum private.  

Hard to believe forum software would not include privacy settings without having to rely on another plug-in.  Very disappointed in this purchase…Have spent last hour trying to find and install options that do not work.  This is not user friendly at all.

The forum does NOT rely on another plugin to be private and that is not what I said, I said that if you need to control and approve site registrations then you would need a plugin for that. And that has, as I said, nothing to do with the forum. That is under the control of WordPress.

We have many, many users who have private forums – some part private. And on this forum here there are some forums you can not see which are dedicated to the SP team members. One of the main strengths of SP is exactly that – the granular and effective permission control. 

And as you have not said what options you have ‘installed that do not work’ I can’t really help or give advice. I can only answer the questions you have asked.

What plugins might be useful is a difficult question as it really odes depend on what your forum is for and how it will be used.  I would recommend the tinyMCE editor. And if you are planning on allowing your users to use Gravatars I would recommend the gravatar cache plugin as that will speed operations up quite a not.

Probably the most popular after that is the Subscriptions plugin that allows your users to subscribe to forums and/or topics and receive notifications when new posts arrive.

To add, you can subject users to ‘first post moderation’. This allows you to review all first posts by users before letting them post what they like. Although the post will show up in the forum, it will only be visible to you until you have approved it. To enable this, make sure that whichever usergroup you want to check has ‘Can Bypass First Post Moderation’ unchecked in the permissions associated with them.

As Andy has said, you can keep the forum private if you like. It’s just a case of set up as you’d expect with any plugin. All forums are going to be more complex than the average plugin, there will always be a learning curve, but try not to let that put you off.

To elaborate a bit – you could create two forums (from the admin panel Forum > Forums > Create New Forum) call them ‘members forum’ and ‘guest forum’ with the intention of having one open and one private.

You could then set up two usergroups (from the admin panel Forum > Usergroups > Create New Usergroup) one called ‘members’ and the other ‘guests’.

Then you could create two permission sets (from the admin panel Forum > Permissions > Add New Permission Set) say one called ‘access’ which is open and allows most options (up to you how far you take that) and repeat with one called ‘no access’ which is strict, and in the case of privacy has everything unchecked.

Then navigate to Forum > Forums > Manage Groups and Forums, find ‘members forum’ and click ‘Add Permission’. Here you can select the usergroup ‘guests’ in the first dropdown, and select the permission ‘no access’ in the second dropdown.

You can then do the same for members by adding another permission and choosing ‘members’ from the first dropdown, and ‘access’ from the second.

You can do the same for the ‘guests forum’, but in this case both usergroups want the permission ‘access’.

This will basically make it so members can view all forums, but guests are restricted to the ‘guests’ forum. This is just a basic example on setting up privacy, and although it might look daunting it should only take 20 minutes or so to set up, and once you have experience with it, you can start working with more usergroups and permission levels.

Ref post #6

It’s hard to recommend which plugins you would find most useful as it’s different for everyone and as Andy has pointed out, you haven’t really given us an idea of what you want to be able to do / control. Things like how many users you have / expect to have, and what you are using your forum for really dictate what plugins you will find most useful, although a few basic plugins that might help you get started are:

‘Admin Bar – Post Control’ – Invaluable really – Only displaying to admins it adds a control to the top of the forum itself which allows you to monitor every new post made on the forum. When the admin bar is open you can view posts without having to visit threads. There are a few controls to reply, mark as read, delete etc.. Also the admin bar offers Akismet support (spam plugin) if you run that on your WP site. More info.

‘User Warnings and Suspensions’ – This plugin is really useful if you want a little more control over undesirable users / posts. More info.

‘Forum Post Captcha’ – Really useful spam prevention plugin, adds a drag and drop captcha which can’t really be beaten! You can add it to the registration page to, to deal with spam signups. More info.

‘Report Post to Admins’ – Again really if you like the idea of having a little more control over what goes on, this plugin will allow users to report posts directly to you. More info.

‘Subscriptions – Topic and Forum’ – Pretty useful for most forums.. Simply allows users to subscribe to topics or entire forums and receive email updates upon replies. You can customise this plugin through the WP admin – see Forum > Components > Subscriptions. More Info.

‘Preview Forum Posts’ – Another invaluable one, adds a ‘Preview’ button when making posts. Unless it’s just a quick reply most people like to preview their posts before they submit.

‘Private Messaging’ – Does what it says basically! Pretty useful for people to get in contact with you as an admin if you think that would be something you’d find useful, if not other members have the option to privately talk to each other. You can restrict the use of the PM system through permissions, and also through the Private Messaging tab that will appear in your WP forum page once the plugin has been activated. More info.

There are others that are incredibly useful, I’ve just tried to pick out the ones that will help you keep the forum clean / up to date / spam free.

Hope this helps!

Yellow Swordfish said
The forum does NOT rely on another plugin to be private and that is not what I said, I said that if you need to control and approve site registrations then you would need a plugin for that. And that has, as I said, nothing to do with the forum. That is under the control of WordPress.

We have many, many users who have private forums – some part private. And on this forum here there are some forums you can not see which are dedicated to the SP team members. One of the main strengths of SP is exactly that – the granular and effective permission control. 

And as you have not said what options you have ‘installed that do not work’ I can’t really help or give advice. I can only answer the questions you have asked.

What plugins might be useful is a difficult question as it really odes depend on what your forum is for and how it will be used.  I would recommend the tinyMCE editor. And if you are planning on allowing your users to use Gravatars I would recommend the gravatar cache plugin as that will speed operations up quite a not.

Probably the most popular after that is the Subscriptions plugin that allows your users to subscribe to forums and/or topics and receive notifications when new posts arrive.

What is the difference between a membership site and a private site?  I want to limit access to certain people and keep the site invisible from search engines.  Are you saying that without a membership plug-in, I cannot restrict who joins? 

If I need a membership plug-in to restrict who joins, then will you please suggest another one because the one you suggested was not user friendly.

Also, I had a friend test sign in.  He signed in, entered name and email, and was told he would receive an email with a password.  He now shows on the back end as a member. But he has received no email.  Am I supposed to assign a PW and send him an email?  If not, how is he supposed to get it?

Thank you for the information on the plug-ins. Now I need to know how to get those downloads.  There are long pages of instructions with no clear and easy spot that I could find just to download the plug-ins without studying 5,000 words of instructions.

Ike said
To add, you can subject users to ‘first post moderation’. This allows you to review all first posts by users before letting them post what they like. Although the post will show up in the forum, it will only be visible to you until you have approved it. To enable this, make sure that whichever usergroup you want to check has ‘Can Bypass First Post Moderation’ unchecked in the permissions associated with them.

As Andy has said, you can keep the forum private if you like. It’s just a case of set up as you’d expect with any plugin. All forums are going to be more complex than the average plugin, there will always be a learning curve, but try not to let that put you off.

To elaborate a bit – you could create two forums (from the admin panel Forum > Forums > Create New Forum) call them ‘members forum’ and ‘guest forum’ with the intention of having one open and one private.

You could then set up two usergroups (from the admin panel Forum > Usergroups > Create New Usergroup) one called ‘members’ and the other ‘guests’.

Then you could create two permission sets (from the admin panel Forum > Permissions > Add New Permission Set) say one called ‘access’ which is open and allows most options (up to you how far you take that) and repeat with one called ‘no access’ which is strict, and in the case of privacy has everything unchecked.

Then navigate to Forum > Forums > Manage Groups and Forums, find ‘members forum’ and click ‘Add Permission’. Here you can select the usergroup ‘guests’ in the first dropdown, and select the permission ‘no access’ in the second dropdown.

You can then do the same for members by adding another permission and choosing ‘members’ from the first dropdown, and ‘access’ from the second.

You can do the same for the ‘guests forum’, but in this case both usergroups want the permission ‘access’.

This will basically make it so members can view all forums, but guests are restricted to the ‘guests’ forum. This is just a basic example on setting up privacy, and although it might look daunting it should only take 20 minutes or so to set up, and once you have experience with it, you can start working with more usergroups and permission levels.

Ref post #6

It’s hard to recommend which plugins you would find most useful as it’s different for everyone and as Andy has pointed out, you haven’t really given us an idea of what you want to be able to do / control. Things like how many users you have / expect to have, and what you are using your forum for really dictate what plugins you will find most useful, although a few basic plugins that might help you get started are:

‘Admin Bar – Post Control’ – Invaluable really – Only displaying to admins it adds a control to the top of the forum itself which allows you to monitor every new post made on the forum. When the admin bar is open you can view posts without having to visit threads. There are a few controls to reply, mark as read, delete etc.. Also the admin bar offers Akismet support (spam plugin) if you run that on your WP site. More info.

‘User Warnings and Suspensions’ – This plugin is really useful if you want a little more control over undesirable users / posts. More info.

‘Forum Post Captcha’ – Really useful spam prevention plugin, adds a drag and drop captcha which can’t really be beaten! You can add it to the registration page to, to deal with spam signups. More info.

‘Report Post to Admins’ – Again really if you like the idea of having a little more control over what goes on, this plugin will allow users to report posts directly to you. More info.

‘Subscriptions – Topic and Forum’ – Pretty useful for most forums.. Simply allows users to subscribe to topics or entire forums and receive email updates upon replies. You can customise this plugin through the WP admin – see Forum > Components > Subscriptions. More Info.

‘Preview Forum Posts’ – Another invaluable one, adds a ‘Preview’ button when making posts. Unless it’s just a quick reply most people like to preview their posts before they submit.

‘Private Messaging’ – Does what it says basically! Pretty useful for people to get in contact with you as an admin if you think that would be something you’d find useful, if not other members have the option to privately talk to each other. You can restrict the use of the PM system through permissions, and also through the Private Messaging tab that will appear in your WP forum page once the plugin has been activated. More info.

There are others that are incredibly useful, I’ve just tried to pick out the ones that will help you keep the forum clean / up to date / spam free.

Hope this helps!

Ike,

Thank you. That was helpful. I had already set the user restrictions to members only having access. For now, this is a small group and we want total privacy without others having access.  Maybe the first post idea would work.  I just can’t tell if those without the restricted access are able to see the site. Also, I want to approve those who join. This particular forum will not be open to the public.

I’m still confused about how to know whether someone has registered (see question above).  Sorry I would have replied all in one but I didn’t see your answer at first.

Thank you for any feedback.  I thought this was going to be plug and play without a significant learning curve.  So I guess I was wrong, which is a bummer.   But thank you for the encouragement.

Tina

Yellow Swordfish said
The forum does NOT rely on another plugin to be private and that is not what I said, I said that if you need to control and approve site registrations then you would need a plugin for that. And that has, as I said, nothing to do with the forum. That is under the control of WordPress.

We have many, many users who have private forums – some part private. And on this forum here there are some forums you can not see which are dedicated to the SP team members. One of the main strengths of SP is exactly that – the granular and effective permission control. 

And as you have not said what options you have ‘installed that do not work’ I can’t really help or give advice. I can only answer the questions you have asked.

What plugins might be useful is a difficult question as it really odes depend on what your forum is for and how it will be used.  I would recommend the tinyMCE editor. And if you are planning on allowing your users to use Gravatars I would recommend the gravatar cache plugin as that will speed operations up quite a not.

Probably the most popular after that is the Subscriptions plugin that allows your users to subscribe to forums and/or topics and receive notifications when new posts arrive.

Now I am not sure why in this forum I am no longer seeing a “reply to post” option, rather than quote, but anyway.

Here’s what I do not understand.  If I can restrict user permissions, where a member is the only one who can see some forums, BUT anyone can become a member, how is that helping me?  This is only a WordPress issue bc it is not built into the forum software, as surely it could be?  Unless I am misunderstanding something, limiting users to varying levels of access is meaningless unless you can also restrict users. 

 This is only a WordPress issue bc it is not built into the forum software,

Let’s start at the beginning. You say you are experienced in WordPress. If that is the case then you will know that WordPress itself does very little. The bulk of functionality is added with plugins. Simple:Press is a forum plugin for WordPress. That is what it is.

Why on earth would we want to spend weeks creating registration/membership control when (a) the basics are built into WordPress itself which will ALWAYS ultimately handle user registration, login etc., and (b)  there are some excellent membership plugins already available? This is what the WordPress plugin system is all about. If you want a standalone forum that has all of those extras built in to the one application then you need to abandon WordPress and go use phpBB, Simple Machines or vBulletin.

As to membership plugins I do not believe I suggested any. I mentioned the ‘Theme my Login’ plugin simply because I know it allows you to approve new members via email before they can access the website – which is what you asked for. I believe I also implied that it was an entry level plugin. On this site we use ‘WishList Member’ which is quite possibly the most comprehensive one available. There are several others in the middle but I have had no personal experience of any of them.

Exactly the same thing applies to email production. Simple:Press does not send emails. WordPress sends out emails. When Simple:Press needs to send an email (and user registration is NOT one of them of course) then we pass the details off to the WordPress email functions to process. Sadly, as a quick trip to the WP support forums will attest, WP is notoriously bad at getting this right. For those people with a problem sending WordPress emails (and incidentally we have that issue on our website as well) we usually recommend a plugin named HGK SMTP but only after double checking all of the email settings both in WP and in SP just to make sure they are correct. 

A forum is actually a rather complex application. We have deliberately positioned Simple:Press – as far as WP forum plugins go – towards those users that want to be able to run private or semi-private forums, who want a high level of control of what they want their users to be able to do and who demand a high level of functionality and customisation opportunities. And like life itself, what you get out it is in proportion to what you put in to it.  If you want ‘plug and play’ and something more basic that needs very little setting up then perhaps the bbPress plugin would be a good option.