Two packs of posts

[scalare]

Hi,

I'm working on a site that will sell access to specific posts with content. There will be two different packages of posts. One has 21 posts, the other one has 17. Both packages are at the same level. Just that they are mutually exclusive, unless a customer purchases both packages.

It seems I would not be able to do this with membership levels, because higher levels "contain" lower levels, and both packages have to be at the same level.

And the Pages/Post packages seem to allow to create just one package (or I wasn't able to find how to make more than one package)

Could someone please clarify to me how this works, and if it is possible to do what I need?

Thank you.

[Jason Caldwell]

Hi there. Thanks for your inquiry.

I would recommend using s2Member's Specific Post/Page Access feature.

And the Pages/Post packages seem to allow to create just one package (or I wasn't able to find how to make more than one package)

Yes... you CAN create more than one package. You just create a new Button Code for each package. Whenever you configure the Button Code for each package, you can choose which Posts/Pages are to be included in the package, and you set a price for each package. You can sell an unlimited number of Post/Page packages, and each package can contain an unlimited number of Posts/Pages.

Quick tip: Before you create Specific Post/Page Buttons, you'll need to protect each Post/Page that you plan to make available within a package. You can do this through s2Member's General Options panel, under: Specific Post/Page Access Restrictions

Please let me know if this solves the problem for you. ~Thanks!

[scalare]

Hi Jason,

thank you for your answer. But I'm afraid your answer is not quite what I expected. I've been doing some more research, and I think I have figured out how to do this. Could you please follow my explanation below and let me know if I'm right?

I did not want to loose the members only area feel (I saw somebody else saying the same thing in another thread), so I thought that I could create the packs as two custom capabilities packages associated with level 1. So what I am planning to do is:

1) Have two tags: pack1 and pack2.
2) Assign posts to the corresponding tags depending to which pack they belong.
3) Protect the two tags in Tag Access Restrictions, for level 1, separated with a comma.
4) Create two buttons for level1, with pack1 and pack2 as custom capabilities for each one.
5) And then add advanced conditionals to single.php template to check the tag of each post, and verify if (current_user_can("access_s2member_ccap_pack1")) or (current_user_can("access_s2member_ccap_pack2")) to decide if I can display the post, or have to redirect to the Membership Options page. There will be some users that will buy both packs at some point, so in that case, current_user_can should be true for both conditions.

Will this work? And also, will users that buy the two packs have to register twice? I could not test the registration process yet because I'm using paypal sandbox so far, so I could not test the sequence in full, but will they be able to bind the second pack they buy with the user account they created for the first pack?

Thank you in advance!
Andres

[Jason Caldwell]

1) Have two tags: pack1 and pack2.
2) Assign posts to the corresponding tags depending to which pack they belong.
3) Protect the two tags in Tag Access Restrictions, for level 1, separated with a comma.
4) Create two buttons for level1, with pack1 and pack2 as custom capabilities for each one.
5) And then add advanced conditionals to single.php template to check the tag of each post, and verify if (current_user_can("access_s2member_ccap_pack1")) or (current_user_can("access_s2member_ccap_pack2")) to decide if I can display the post, or have to redirect to the Membership Options page. There will be some users that will buy both packs at some point, so in that case, current_user_can should be true for both conditions.

Beautiful. This will work just fine.

will they be able to bind the second pack they buy with the user account they created for the first pack?

Yes, you just need to create a Modification Button with s2Member's Button Generator. Supply both Capabilities in comma delimited format, and establish the cost for the upgrade. They will already have one Capability, so the new Button should include both Capabilities, and be sold at a lower rate.

The important thing to realize, is that s2Member is NOT yet capable of just adding a single Capability. You have to give s2Member the big picture, and include a full set of features in each Button Code. After checkout, s2Member will update the account to the new feature set; based on the Level and Capabilities you configured in the Modification Button.

This Modification Button should be introduced to a Customer that is already logged into your site ( possibly on the Login Welcome Page ), with a link that says " upgrade your account! ".

[scalare]

Thanks Jason. I understand.

So I guess I will have to ask people to login if they already purchased a pack before, so I can recognize them, and display just the "upgrade" button in the Membership options page. Because otherwise, they would try to buy the other pack by clicking the other button, and they will not be able to associate the new pack with the original member name, right?

I guess I will have to add some kind of notice in the Membership options page telling them to login. And I will add a third button in that page to let them buy both packs at the same time if they want to do so and make things easier for them.

I have yet another question: you said that the modification button should be sold at a lower rate. Why is that? We plan to charge the same amount for each pack, and there will be no discounts if you buy both of them. Won't we be able to do that with the modification button? For example, pack one will cost $ 19.99. Can't we just make the modification button be $ 19.99 to include both capabilities?

Thanks!

[scalare]

OK, I have deployed part of what I explained above, just changed the tags part with categories, because I need to show one post at a time, and need to be able to go through posts sequentially, and I need users not to cross between posts groups (what I called packs), and the navigation between posts is easier to control using categories instead. (I explain this in case it helps someone else)

[scalare]

Something does not work as expected. I created the modification button, specified both capabilities in it, and I even made the button upgrade to level 2 (I was using level1 for both packs previously). It charged the upgrade cost correctly, got paypal emails, but it logged out the user I was loged in when upgrading, and I wasn't able to login again using that user from that moment on: the upgraded user was deleted.

I had the option Membership EOT Behavior set as Delete. Could that be related to this?

Thanks!

[scalare]

I was setting up paypal modifications buttons the wrong way. I selected "One time - 6 months" option from Paypal Subscriptions group, and I should have selected the same option from Paypal Buy Now group instead. Doing that fixed this problem.

Thanks!

[Jason Caldwell]

Thanks for reporting back with your solution.
~ VERY much appreciated.