Viewing Restrictions & Paid Membership Plans
By Steven Koontz on Wednesday, 17 June 2015
Posted in General Issues
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Hello Team,

I know this issue has been covered quite a bit and you are busy with EB5's recent release, but it is exactly the fact that EB5 was recently released that I will re-hash a number of questions that were addressed in the past years by StackIdeas with older versions of EB. Here is what I am looking to do with a fresh install of EB5 (EasyBlog is NOT currently installed on the site - this will be a magazine addition to an existing site). Perhaps there are new features in EB5 that make some of this possible.

To begin, I need to set up a blog with 4 different access levels:
-Admins (the content creators)
-Public (with certain access restrictions; see below)
-Registered (with same access restrictions as Public; people would register to pay for access and then be promoted to:
-Member (Full blog viewing access)

I am probably going to use PayPlans for membership management.

Old EasyBlog only offers to toggle viewing access between public and registered, and covers the ENTIRE blog post.

I was wondering if EB5 provides any of the following VIEW access restriction possibilities. Note that I am not trying to do all three at the same time. The three examples are independent and would be the three different ways I am thinking of setting this up:

Possibility 1) Allow introtext to be viewed by public but full blog post only by Members (NOT Registered; Members will have higher viewing access level than Registered).

Possibility 2) Allow public to view full blog posts but limit to, say, only 5 full article hits per month based on IP address. After 5 reads the entire blog is locked from that user unless he pays and becomes a Member.

Possibility 3) Blog frontpage with post intro snippets is freely accessible to Public, but the actual blog post itself is restricted to paid Members only.

You may think the Member group is not needed, but I would need a special Member group just for EasyBlog paid subscribers because the Registered group has free activity allowed on JReviews which we cannot restrict.

Sorry to bother you with this while you guys have so much on your plate, but I need to know if I can achieve one of the three possibilities with EB5. Thanks for your insights.
Hi Steven Koontz,

I'm really sorry that delayed of this reply,

Unfortunately that was not possible to achieve this as you mentioned the 3 point at above.

But you can apply some simple hack to achieve with your first point.
Possibility 1) Allow introtext to be viewed by public but full blog post only by Members (NOT Registered; Members will have higher viewing access level than Registered).

Make sure you have enable this option "Login To Read Full Post" and "Truncate blog content as introtext" from backend Easyblog setting.
Then open this file -> JoomlaFolder\administrator\components\com_easyblog\includes\post\post.php


// LINE 4752 replace this function code in your file

	public function requiresLoginToRead()

	{

                // Get your current user id and user group

		$user = JFactory::getUser(); 

	  	$group = $user->groups;

	  	$gr = array_values($group);

	  	$gid = array_shift($gr);



		// If the settings requires the user to be logged in

                // $gid == user group id , you can replicate this $gid which user group id you wouldn't like them to access your full blog post.

		if ( ($gid == 1 || $gid == 2 ) && $this->config->get('main_login_read')) {



			$currentUri = JRequest::getURI();

			$uri = base64_encode($currentUri);



			$url = EBR::_('index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=entry&id=' . $this->id . '&layout=login&return=' . $uri, false);



			return $this->app->redirect($url);

		}



		return false;

	}


Hope this help.
Arlex Wong
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Thursday, 18 June 2015 16:25
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Thanks for the tip. That would help on the EasyBlog side.

Does anyone know of a plugin that tracks users and can limit them to a number of blog reads before blocking them? I know EB does some kind of tracking (there is an option to count re-reads as hits or not in the global hits tally). Lots of websites use this kind of monetization scheme, and I am surprised I haven't been able to find anything similar for Joomla.
Steven Koontz
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Thursday, 18 June 2015 17:59
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Hi Steven Koontz,

I am really sorry for the delay of this reply as it is a weekend for us here.

Perhaps you can global search in Joomla site -> http://extensions.joomla.org/

Please don't hesitate to share with us that if anyone here know this kind of plugin can achieve this and leaving your comments.
Arlex Wong
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Saturday, 20 June 2015 11:24
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Hello

That is good code just what i need...
But I need your help on rest. now i have Public & Registered can't see full blog only Members can.
That's cool but what can I do, when Registered person try to view post and type login info it just keeps refreshing looks like there is bug (looks like it) people will panic and spam admin saying we can't view post and he will need tell every one that they need to pay. but what I want, so after they try to log in it won't refresh but redirect to page where they can buy membership or pop up message saying something like please click here to pay $....... to view full post

Thank you
Ilya Semivrazhnov
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Saturday, 12 September 2015 06:14
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and please work with any company you want but find way to make it easy to use with pay plans...
if you had Membership features build in... THAT WILL HELP 1000000000000%
I'm using OSE Membership with EasyBlog and with out code you stuck... you need custom coding only...
Ilya Semivrazhnov
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Saturday, 12 September 2015 06:24
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hey Ilya,

I am really sorry for the delay of this reply as it is a weekend for us here.

I believe Payplans extension can achieve what your current requirement is because payplans can integrate with Easyblog, perhaps you can take a look of this link and see how it goes? http://www.readybytes.net/bundle/payplans-stackideas.html
Arlex Wong
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Saturday, 12 September 2015 19:02
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Hello
Today I got Payplan but now when I click on category it asking me to choose plan, but I need people to read intro text and when they try to read full blog then ask to choose plan not b4...
Thank you
Ilya Semivrazhnov
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Sunday, 13 September 2015 05:41
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Hey IIya,

I am really sorry for the delay of this reply as it is a weekend for us here. It's best that you check with the developers from Payplans as this product was not created by us and to be honest we have no idea how their plugin is performing these checks
Mark
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Sunday, 13 September 2015 13:37
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It's ok I will just use old code you gave to "Steven Koontz" but only I need you to make it redirect to Url that I will input after it false to login not to refresh but redirect to page wear I will put messg like " To view full post you need to ................................" and option to choose plan... and I'm telling you make payplan or other plugins build in easyblog so it will be easy to create plans or fix price your market will go up 100%

Thank you I will wait for code thanks)
Ilya Semivrazhnov
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Monday, 14 September 2015 01:01
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Hey llya,

I am sorry that delay of this reply,

If you would like to change the redirection after the guest/registered user click it, you can modify this code :


// same file location/function i mentioned at above

// Find this line of code

			$url = EBR::_('index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=login&return=' . $uri, false);



// Replace to e.g. google.com , so it will redirect to google page (you can change to your payplan page url from here)

			$url = "http://google.com";


Hope this will help.
Arlex Wong
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Monday, 14 September 2015 17:25
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Good good thank you, and i'm waiting on update on easy blog (easyblog with memberships plans) I will even pay more, if it will work nice like easyblog than I will buy it... send me email, when it gets available ... With easyblog it's nice you don't need to use it as blog... I use it as info.... site, If you wanna use my services pay. I know people use easyblog for news site, movies, ebooks...... that you need to pay to see post with news, or video or ebook.... all of them use coding pain in ........ coding but if you make build in memberships plans... mann I'm your 1st customer on 1st day of sale
Ilya Semivrazhnov
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Tuesday, 15 September 2015 01:59
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Thanks for the heads up on this I will like to learn more about the "membership plans" for EasyBlog. Could you please elaborate more on this please?
Mark
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Tuesday, 15 September 2015 02:17
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it's easy easyblog is not just blog module it multi use module... for an example - you have site you video tape how to use Adobe Photoshop. someone like take pictures but you want to know secrets how to make them beautiful colors and looks in minutes... so that person find website like -pic1- he reads intro text he likes what video is about and he is all happy and ready to watch it and move up in photo industry. then -pic2- tells him the video is not free.. he gets sad but still pay cause he just needs to know how to do it... after -pic3- he pays like paypal or what ever and he go back login now as member and click read more and it opens full post with video in post...

I gave example about video I know people do stock news, ebooks ......... list keeps go on and on.... with a little twick you can turn easyblog to easyeCommerce.. you have all tools just put them in good use...)
Ilya Semivrazhnov
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Tuesday, 15 September 2015 03:34
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Hi Ilya,

Thanks for sharing this with us but currently EasyBlog cannot setup to something like this Maybe you can submit your feature request in our user voice here http://stackideas.com/voices/easyblog

Thanks and have a nice day!
Sam
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Tuesday, 15 September 2015 17:26
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