Chad Butler

Blocking content in a custom template

Chad Butler · Aug 11, 2012 ·

Lately, this question has come up a lot. How do you block content that is outside the loop and still display the login/registration forms on the page.

This type of issue may come up if you are using a custom query to put some specific content on a specific page, or it might be that you are displaying specific data that you want to protect. As long as it is something in the WordPress template framework, you can still use WP-Members to block the content. Continue Reading →

WP-Members 2.7.6 release

Chad Butler · Aug 9, 2012 ·

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Some exciting updates in this release:

Added ability to use same redirect_to querystring that WP uses in the wp-login form. This allows more seamless replacement of the wp-login.
Added a new page shortcode for password reset/change [[wp-members page=”password”]]. If the user is logged out, it works the reset forgotten password functionality. If the user is logged in, it will offer the change password functionality. These functions do also remain in the members-area page shortcode as well, but now can be placed in a stand-alone location as well.
Added a new page shortcode for the user edit page [[wp-members page=”user-edit”]]. This needs to be used if the user is logged in and can be used with the login status shortcode.
Removed $content global from the page shortcode function. This should correct the double form issue when used with plugins/themes that filter $content.
Added do_shortcode to the page shortcode call. This should allow the page shortcodes to be used in conjuction with other shortcodes on the page (although this is not necessarily recommended).
Added translations for Russian, Slovak, and Hindi.
Moved _OLD forms to wp-members-deprecated.php. These forms can still be used, but will be deprecated in a future version. It is highly recommended that users still using legacy forms begin converting to the _NEW forms.

The addition of redirect_to to the login form gives users the ability to seamlessly replace the wp-login with the login_enqueue_scripts action. There’s an example of how to set this up here.

The reworking of shortcodes and the addition of some new ones allows more flexibility with the shortcodes than in the past. It allows for the use of more than one of the “page” shortcodes on a single page, allows for nested shortcodes (such as putting page shortcodes within the logged in/out status shortcodes). In my opinion, this is probably the most powerful update in this release.

The new shortcodes break out some of the functions of the members-area page to be used separately as needed/desired.

Redirect requests to wp-login to a front end login page

Chad Butler · Aug 8, 2012 ·

Note: If you want an easy way to do this, the Advanced Options extension offers this as a setting. But if you need more control over the process than a simple “on/off” switch, the method described here is a flexible and customizable alternative.

The new version of WP-Members 2.7.6 adds a method of picking up the redirect_to parameter. This allows you to make redirecting from the wp-login more seamless, since the wp-login is designed to redirect the user back to where their login was requests (such as comments or a forum). Continue Reading →

Redirect a logged in user from a landing page

Chad Butler · Aug 7, 2012 ·

Suppose you have a landing page you are directing users to, and users can login on that page, then be redirected to an articles page. What happens if the user is already logged in and they hit the landing page? Here is a process that will help smooth out the user experience. Continue Reading →

Setting up a custom WP-Members stylesheet

Chad Butler · Aug 5, 2012 ·

WP-Members is designed to work out-of-the-box, yet be extensible and customizable. The layout of the forms and dialog messages are a good example, with the ability to easily define a custom stylesheet in the plugin options.

Continue Reading →