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Multisite, Pro Sites, BuddyPress, Membership…

I am building a site where people can become a member, socialize and (if they pay) get a blog. They choose a level of paying membership when they enter the BuddyPress site. (Note: there is a Free membership that does NOT include a blog.)

I start with Multisite, right?

Then network install Pro Sites… set up the membership levels…

Then establish the Primary Multisite site as the Visitor site (with its own theme).

Then create the Member/socialize/buddypress site (with its own theme).

and then…???

How do I offer visitors who want to sign up for a membership access to both the Membership (buddy press) site AND to their own blog?

Thu, 19 Dec 2013 4:26:37
  • Jack Kitterhing
    • Code Norris

    Hi there @El Ron

    Hope your well today and thanks for your question.

    Your certainly on the right track :slight_smile: Your going to want to use Pro sites and our Membership plugin https://wpmudev.com/project/membership/ along with BuddyPress.

    Pro sites, would be networked activated and the sign ups would be from the main site.

    Then the membership site would be best on a sub site, as membership doesn’t integrate with Pro Sites, they’d need to register for a level, though they’d have their user account for signing up or vice versa :slight_smile:

    So you’d have domain.com for the site and perhaps members.domain.com for the protected membership content if that would work for you?

    Thank you!

    Kind Regards

    Jack.

  • El Ron
    • Flash Drive

    Thanks!

    Is BuddyPress network activated or installed only on members.domain.com?

    Are you saying that the member would have to sign up twice: once at domain.com (through Pro Sites) and once at members.domain.com (through Membership)?

    Cheers,

    El Ron

  • Jack Kitterhing
    • Code Norris

    Hi there @El Ron

    Hope your well today.

    On BuddyPress, network activate that and then we’re define it to use the second site you create, by using

    define ( 'BP_ROOT_BLOG', 2 );

    In your wp-config.php, above the line reading, that’s all stop editing, happy blogging!

    On the sign ups, that’s correct, they would technically need to sign up twice, though if you’d like them to only have to select a subscription, i.e, they already have a user account and then want membership access, rather than get a new account, just use their existing account, they can do that out of the box :slight_smile:

    Another useful plugin is this one, http://wordpress.org/plugins/join-my-multisite/ to automatically add users to each site etc :slight_smile:

    Thanks!

    Kind Regards

    Jack.

  • El Ron
    • Flash Drive

    Jack,

    I just read Mike Epstein’s article “Don’t Use Multisite.” (http://halfelf.org/2011/dont-use-wordpress-multisite/).

    Now I’m not sure multisite is the right solution.

    When I said above that “paying members get a blog”… that wasn’t quite accurate. What paying members get is a page (a custom post type, perhaps) that looks like a one-page website with a full menu bar of anchor links at the top — Home, About, Services, Testimonials, Contact — along with an “edit my page” button and a “return to my BuddyPress point of origin” button.

    Would this make more sense as a single WP site?

    Thanks,

    El Ron

  • El Ron
    • Flash Drive

    HNY! Jack,

    “Should members get one page and not be able to create new pages?”

    —Yep, members get just the one page. They can’t create anymore pages.

    “The links a the top of the page, are they links to other pages of theirs or yours?”

    —It’s a (faux) one-pager site for each member. Those links at the top just scroll the page down to the appropriate place.

    Cheers,

    El Ron

  • wowlookart
    • Design Lord, Child of Thor

    @Jack

    Thank you for those plugins, I have had clients request this very setup and its helpful to know there are plugin solutions out there.

    I would love to see either a stand along product or a complementary WPMUDEV plugin that encompasses this type of setup. Having the ability to create a custom post type, limit it in whatever way you want and it creates a page (instead of a site) for the user that they can modify.

    There is lots of potential to build product sites around this where you are selling the page (or the ability to post content to it) without the imposing overhead of having a ful blown blog.