Many users would like to display different sidebar widgets based on the user’s login status, including restricting certain content from view of visitors who are not registered or logged in. This tutorial will explain how to set up widget areas to display based on the user’s login status. This is similar to displaying different menus to users based on login, but is slightly more complex. Don’t let that detract you from trying this technique, however, as it is a powerful tool for your site. Continue Reading →
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Customizing WP-Members with pluggable functions
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IMPORTANT: This article remains here for legacy purposes. There are many users who utilize pluggable functions in the plugin and have not updated these processes to utilize hooks and filters. There are also articles buried in this blog that have customizations that use a pluggable function (if you find one, let me know). HOWEVER, pluggable functions, while still supported, are not the preferred way of customizing plugin features. Like WordPress core, these were the original way to customize, but as filter and action hooks were added to the application, pluggable functions were not longer necessary. The API for WP-Members is much more mature than it was when pluggable functions were introduced. There really should be no reason to use pluggable functions at this point. If you are working on customizing on your own and you see no other way than to use a pluggable function, mention it to me as there may be a better way, or maybe there needs to be a new filter or action in the plugin.
Making direct changes to the functions within the plug-in is discouraged because it puts the user in a difficult situation. These types of changes are generally referred to as “hacks” and hacks must be reapplied anytime you upgrade the plug-in. Avoiding upgrades because of the need to update your hacks is a bad practice because upgrades often include important security updates.
So to make things a little more extensible, I have introduced pluggable functions to the WP-Members plug-in. Pluggable functions are functions that can be recreated outside of the plug-in itself without the need to make changes to the core script files directly. This way the plugin can be customized so that when you upgrade, your customizations will not be overwritten. Continue Reading →
Add a database generated list of values to the registration form as username
This post will show you how to replace the username selection in the registration form with a dropdown list of choices generated from a database. This is similar to what is described in this post except that in this version, we are using this as the username selector. Continue Reading →
Add a database generated list of values to the registration form
This sample code is an example of how to take a list of values from a database table and use it to generate a dropdown select option in your registration form. You can get as involved or as simple as need be from this framework.
I will be giving an example that will take a list of names from a database table so that the user can select their name from the list. To make it a little more interesting (and functional), I will update the table when the user registers so that name will not show in the registration form in the future. Continue Reading →
Adding shortcodes to other locations
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By default, WordPress only parses shortcodes in the main content area. Suppose you want to use shortcodes (WP-Members or otherwise) in locations other than the body text? Here are some snippets you can add to your theme’s functions.php file to allow the use of shortcodes in the sidebar, comments, and excerpts:
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