Content only available to paid subscribers? ["Yet another 'can I do this?' q"]

Firstly, apologies for the possibly annoying nature of my query, but the other topics asking what is possible didn’t seem to quite cover my requirements.

I’m researching how to build a site with the following features:

• Managed content documents containing video. Am thinking FLV at the moment.
• Login area granting access to content which should only be available to subscribers who’ve paid (I’ve had some experience with WA eCart, which affords plenty of custom coding within pages, and would ideally like to use it again unless there’s a solution that offers integration with MODx).
• Integration of registered subscriber/user accounts with forum (SMF will be fine if that’s easiest?).
• Eventually (if successful) the site will be available in different languages.

I like creating my own valid HTML layouts with CSS and have tinkered with/learnt some relatively basic PHP (variables, loops, basic functions and recordsets).

I’ll install MODx as soon as I get a chance and have a play, but it would be great if someone with some experience could let me know if they think I’ll be okay with MODx and my level of knowledge. Many thanks.

:)

I don’t know your level of knowledge, but that’s an easy application for MODx.

Thanks rthrash.

In broad terms, how would I go about protecting the content via a subscription system? Maybe... if I were to use eCart I could put some code to insert the users details into a database on the successful transaction page. The login system would then use the custom table/database to check their subscription status.

Is this a sound way of achieving it?

Quote from: ImpelGD at Aug 08, 2006, 11:39 AM

• Login area granting access to content which should only be available to subscribers who’ve paid (I’ve had some experience with WA eCart, which affords plenty of custom coding within pages, and would ideally like to use it again unless there’s a solution that offers integration with MODx).

As I said, I have a little basic PHP knowledge (and can call on a contact of mine for help with specific issues I may have), but does anyone have any general guidance for creating this kind of subscription system?

Thanks.

Basically you need to look at the web usergroup stuff (standard with MODx), add a Subscribers group, and restrict access to just that usergroup.

Ideally, your "payment successful" page would then add the user to the web user group. If you have experience with WA eCart, then use that - you just need to hit the db to put the right stuff in the right tables. You should at the same time save the "Subscription Expiry" date. In the long-term you’re going to need to run a routine daily to remove the privilege from expired subscribers. You’ll also need to be able to *extend* an existing subscription. But at the start all you need to be doing is saving the expiry date so that you have it when you need it.

Many thanks Paul - it’s great to have some advice and reassurance that my ideas are on the right track. Will look into the relevant bits.

And thanks for renaming the topic - much better.

I’ve done something similar but using Zencart:

The user purchases a product in the Zencart driven store.
When they try to log in as a web user, a custom plugin does the following:

- copies username and password from Zencart to web users - i.e. creating a web user if needed, or just updates password
- checks whether they have purchased the necessary product
- updates a web user setting to show which products they have purchased

I then use the products purchased information to configure their web user groups membership.

In order to make this work I had to change how MODx stores encrypted passwords to match the Zencart system (one uses salt, etc.).

Andy

Thanks for that Andy - appreciate the rundown. WebAssist has a customer registration feature, so I should be able to do a similar kind of thing.

As always, I’m open to any other advice and guidance. Thanks again.