Chad Butler

Use an image in the post restricted message

Chad Butler · Sep 6, 2012 ·

This post will show you how to get a little more advanced with your post restricted message (the message that displays above the login form when a user accesses a page or a post that is blocked.

In this example, we will be using an image in the dialog and will also put some links to the anchors. This technique can also be extended to other plugin dialogs, and is a nice touch for your site. Also, it doesn’t require any php, so for those of you that are hesitant to wade into the world of filter and action hooks, this is still something that you can do without much under-the-hood knowledge.Continue Reading →

Add section headings to the registration form

Chad Butler · Sep 4, 2012 ·

In cases where you have a long registration form, you may want to add section headings to the form for an easier user experience. This post will give you a simple example to add headings to your form. For this example, we will be using the default values that install with the plugin and be adding an html <h2> heading to some of the form.Continue Reading →

Disable the WordPress toolbar

Chad Butler · Sep 4, 2012 ·

This article is provided free. Find out how you can get full access to premium content, including how-to articles and support forums, as well as priority email support and member exclusive plugin extensions..

The “admin bar” is actually more correctly referred to as the Toolbar. But most people refer to it as the admin bar, so I’ve referring to it as such in this post so as not to confuse anyone.

Removal can be managed with 3 lines of code to your functions.php file (or 1 if you really want to be efficient).

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Displaying sidebar widgets based on login status

Chad Butler · Sep 3, 2012 ·

Many users would like to display different sidebar widgets based on the user’s login status, including restricting certain content from view of visitors who are not registered or logged in. This tutorial will explain how to set up widget areas to display based on the user’s login status. This is similar to displaying different menus to users based on login, but is slightly more complex. Don’t let that detract you from trying this technique, however, as it is a powerful tool for your site. Continue Reading →

Customizing WP-Members with pluggable functions

Chad Butler · Aug 29, 2012 ·

IMPORTANT: This article remains here for legacy purposes. There are many users who utilize pluggable functions in the plugin and have not updated these processes to utilize hooks and filters. There are also articles buried in this blog that have customizations that use a pluggable function (if you find one, let me know). HOWEVER, pluggable functions, while still supported, are not the preferred way of customizing plugin features. Like WordPress core, these were the original way to customize, but as filter and action hooks were added to the application, pluggable functions were not longer necessary. The API for WP-Members is much more mature than it was when pluggable functions were introduced. There really should be no reason to use pluggable functions at this point. If you are working on customizing on your own and you see no other way than to use a pluggable function, mention it to me as there may be a better way, or maybe there needs to be a new filter or action in the plugin.

Making direct changes to the functions within the plug-in is discouraged because it puts the user in a difficult situation. These types of changes are generally referred to as “hacks” and hacks must be reapplied anytime you upgrade the plug-in. Avoiding upgrades because of the need to update your hacks is a bad practice because upgrades often include important security updates.

So to make things a little more extensible, I have introduced pluggable functions to the WP-Members plug-in. Pluggable functions are functions that can be recreated outside of the plug-in itself without the need to make changes to the core script files directly. This way the plugin can be customized so that when you upgrade, your customizations will not be overwritten. Continue Reading →