Concept for membership area with viewable videos

#1

Hello -
I’ve read through the documentation and am planning out a project, and having a bit of trouble conceptualizing how to use S2Member for a particular need. My client creates lengthy how-to videos that he wants to make available for purchase and viewing on his website:

Blog site with a ‘buy now’ button to enable viewing of particular videos.

Should I:

  1. Create protected pages
  2. Cause a ‘buy now’ button to activate lifetime membership to membership level 1 for video 1, 2 for video 2, etc. . .
  3. Host each video at its own protected URL?

Also - is there a recommended way to implement a page on which members can see the protected pages their membership status grants access to?

It seems like the S2Member plugin is the correct approach for my use case but any guidance is much appreciated.

Thanks!

#2
  1. Yes (and/or posts): start by having all protected posts/pages require level 1 access.
  2. Probably not.
  3. Yes, provided you follow the instructions in Download Options (Many don’t and then wonder why something doesn’t work.)

On (2), you need to understand that membership levels are hierarchical, so a level 2 member can see everything at level 1 as well as at level 2. You can change that behavior by installing the Capability Manager Enhanced plugin, but that wouldn’t be what I’d do.

Instead, assign a custom capability (ccap) as being necessary to access each video. (That will also make a difference to how you upload the videos and give them their URLs. See (3).) When you create a Buy Now form, make sure you include the appropriate ccap within the shortcode.

If you do things this way, you could then also sell access to “packages” comprising several videos. That would be what I’d use levels 2, 3 etc for. If you do this, you will need to use the Capability Manager Enhanced plugin to add the appropriate ccaps to each level.

1 Like
#3

Tim your post really improved my project planning. I’m planning on following your directions, and appreciate the effort!