Hi, I'm new to wpForo, but not new to websites. I've been building sites professional for many years. I have a client that needs a forum and after checking various plugins I have landed here. There reason for the posts is because I need some functionality that I can't for sure say is available in the extensions.
1. The site will be mostly private. Meaning, that the entire forum is paid membership only. The site will likely have a public front end, but the forum itself is membership only. Can wpForum do this out of the box or with an extension or do I need a membership plugin? If so, what do you recommend? I have used Ultimate Member for this sort of thing, but I would prefer something more robust. UM has too many things missing.
2. Given the membership paid, do you have an extension that can do the above and/or manage subscriptions/memberships? Basically, there are 3 tiers of access to content and users pay for those tiers. I don't necessarily need automation for access to content after payment, but it would be preferred.
Apart from that, we'll need strong moderation. Tracking of posts and contributions. I see you also have your ad extension. I'm wondering if it will track impressions well.
Update. I've installed and started configuring the forum. So far I love how user-friendly all the settings are. You guys really put some time into thinking through the user experience. I'm going to start adding addons now. Ultimately, have to figure out how I'm going to do the paid memberships. I was thinking about Paid Memberships Pro, but it doesn't look like there is direct integrations... plus, I'm not so sure about the plugin either. Makes me think about bbPress and how oftentimes, the most popular option isn't always the best. Looking into other options, but this is key, so any recommendations are appreciated.
Hi @kiteboarder,
First you should make sure your paid membership plugin is based on user roles. So the membership plans/levels should be based on User Roles to allow it be integrated with wpForo. wpForo is based on its own Usergroups, and that Usergroups are synced with WordPress User Roles. This allows to get correct access in forum based on User Roles. Once the paid membership plugin changes the user role to some member role it automatically gets according Usergroup and Forum Access in forum. This also works in vice versa.
Please note that WP User Roles like subscriber, contributes, author, editor, etc don't have any affection in forum accesses. They are not used in forum. They are synched with forum Usergroups. And forum Usergroups are used to get different accesses to different forums. Please follow the steps below to see wpForo Usergroups and Forum Accesses...
Step 1: Understand that in forum there is no Roles like Subscriber or so. wpForo has Usergroups for this purpose. And each Usergroup is synced with WP User Roles. For example Subscribers are the same users with Registered Usergroup. The Registered Usergroup is the same Subscriber User Role. You can see that they are synced together in Forums > Usergroups admin page. So saying Subscriber Role you should understand Registered Usergroup in wpForo Forum.
Step 2: wpForo forums have permission settings in Edit Forum screen. Edit the forum and use these settings to control Usergroup accesses and privileges in that forum. Each Usergroup has some Forum Access set in each forum. For example The Registered Usergroup ( Subscriber User Role) has Standard Forum Access by default in all forums. You just need to set Read Only forum access for Registered usergroup that forum. Then navigate to Dashboard > Forums > Dashboard and click on [Delete all caches] button.
Step 3: Understand the Forum Accesses. Forum Accesses are set of forum permissions. For example, you just selected "Read Only" access for Registered usergroup. You can find all permissions of Read Only access in Dashboard > Settings > Forum Access > Read Only (edit) screen. You can see that "Can create topic" and "Can post reply" permissions are disabled for this forum access. So your users with Registered Usergroup (Subscribers) will not be able to post create a topic or reply in that forum.
Step 4: Secondary Usergroups have the same power like the Primary Usergroup. It allows to set multiple Usergroups to the same user. For example if Usergroup A has access to Forum A and Usergroup B has access to Forum B and you want User AB to have accesses to both Forum A and B you should set User AB primary Usergroup A and Secondary Usergroup B or vice versa.
Now I have a question: what happens when paid subscriber cancels membership and his access to the site expires, in particular what happens to wpforo email notifications of new replies topics or anything user has previously subscribed to?
@robertI just went through this again, and it's still very confusing, hah. I guess I just have to get started and maybe it'll start making sense. I installed Restrict Content Pro. Essentially, I don't need any complicated groups. I just need ONE membership group that could be called "Premium Member" or maybe just use the Subscriber group. That's all I need really. The entire site will be private except for the homepage...
Hi, thank you for these details. I haven't gotten to this point yet, or to the paid part. I have some of the extension I'm going to order in my list, but since the site has a bunch of other parts, I haven't gotten to that yet. That all said, I'm fairly confident WPForo has the functionality I need. I'll know more as soon as I'm integrating the forum with whatever paid subscription plugin I decide on. Thanks. I'll be around here soon. Going through documentation. The client wants to see some content, so I'm busy populating the forum.
