I am starting a new site that will need a Membership Plugin, as far as I can see, since all I really need to do is maintain a membership list of members broken into categories, & export membership lists, WP-Members Membership Plugin seems the best suited.
It is listed at WP.org as requiring WordPress version 4.0 or higher - Tested up to 6.8.2
Since it is 4.0 and higher, I know I could just go with CP 1.73, but I would like to go with the newest CP.
Does anyone know of any reason it wouldn’t work with CP 2.4.1 or if it will fail come 2.5?
Thank you, I probably I used the wrong term, I need to “group” the members in different ways for output as csv probably.
The more I looked at WP-Members last night I am not even sure it will have the flexibility I need. I should probably just start building and see if it will do the job first.
We are just trying to maintain a membership list, with the ability for the members to edit their profiles and with admins of different levels. When I search with the word “membership”, or “club”, or “association” it is all about restricting content, which I don’t care about, it will be a private site anyway.
If this is the only functionality you need (to group and export), maybe the custom code modification would be a good idea. You know, both membership and all community-building plugins for Wordpress are usually pretty heavy and add plenty of data to database.
Using custom code it may work based on custom roles (exactly as @ElisabettaCarrara wrote) or based on user custom meta field or even based on your simple custom database table (probably the fastest method).
Let me explain why I say you do not need a plugin:
You can register a custom user role for each “category” - and assign capabilities to them.
this can be done by telling a free AI (I advice to use perplexity) to prepare the code for you. you can tell it something like this:
”register the following custom user roles for ClassicPress that have the same capabilities of the standard user role xxx (let’s say subscriber, contributor, or editor generally these are the most commonly used as a base)
plumber
electrician
carpenter
(…. these are your “categories/user roles”)”
The code the AI gives you for that goes in functions.php of your theme (I advice you to use a child theme so that these additional snippets go there and you do not lose them when parent theme updates - the AI can help you set up the child theme too).
Then you tell the AI to create a registration form template that maps to the standard registration fields and in addition allows users who register to select the role(s) they want (so you decide if one user can be in various categories or just only one) - you can also use the standard registration form and moderate the user role yourself assigning it manually when a user registers. This template goes in your child theme template files, then you create a page called “Register” using that template and put it in the navigation menu.
To show the users’ directory (pay attention because some countries do have privacy laws to abide to in doing so) you just ask the AI to put together another template for that to place in your theme files using the archive template as a base to output users and you can even implement a selector in the template (like a drop-down) that allows you to dynamically filter them by user role. Then you create a page called something like “Members” to put in your navigation menu. (this template can be customized to show the user registration fields you need, for example thumbnail, name, user role, short description - and the output can be customized design-wise to show them how you like and in a way that is consistent with the site overall design)
All of this is done using standard ClassicPress core features - just a child theme containing the few code snippets you need to add. And the free AI can guide you step by step so that you can have it up and running in a blink of an eye.
I spent last night reading WP codex on registering user roles and capabilities, trying to convince myself I could create these functions, (thank you for the idea of using AI!!)
While drawing charts of the organization and trying to scope it out, I was afraid I found something that might be a problem. I will use your scenario to explain.
Each group of plumbers has an admin, just like the carpenters and the electricians. Each of these admins need to have the capability of adding/editing users, BUT only in his group.
Maybe it is coming clearer with your scenario, am I going to be able to make a custom capability of “edit plumber” rather than “edit user”?
Standard roles are subscriber, contributor, editor, admin and super admin.
You will have plumbers (subscribers, can create and edit profiles but not post articles and such) and you need to have a “group admin” role that is an hybrid of admin and editor (again the AI can help).
The flow will be users register (all as subscribers), then you assign the group admin role to the ones you decide and assign them a group of users (that means the group admin will have a custom field to specify which user group they have to be admins of and the AI can help with that too).
Something that might help you is a PR I have just created at Add user groups capability to admin menu by KTS915 · Pull Request #2105 · ClassicPress/ClassicPress · GitHub. If adopted — and initial reaction is very positive — this would enable you to group a specific group admin (who would have one role) together with ordinary group members (who would each have a role with fewer capabilities) into one designated user group. Again, you wouldn’t need a plugin then.
once upon a time it worked on CP, I am going to test it to see if it still does and eventually I will fork it for CP to clean it up a little. That way CP will have its robust community plugin.
I already tested, it can work BUT it heavily relies on JQuery UI components that will be removed from CP v3 since they are deprecated.
This means it need a very big refactoring. It is composed by a ton of files (that have to be corrected one by one to avoid missing something and brought up to speed with PHP latest versions) and a complex structure.
I have access to perplexity pro, so I can try to refactor it but basically I am stuck studying for an exam up to October, 1st - after the exam I can take care of forking and refactoring it for good. It shouldn’t be that problematic going over each file one by one and automate the transition as much as possible.
EDITED TO ADD: the plugin on CP works, if debugging is enabled it throws deprecation notices to warn the user that it needs refactoring - so I think you can start to use it and then when my refactoring is complete you just install mine (I will need to rename it, but I will make it so that it’s possible to transfer data from the WP version to the CP one).
I will start seeing how or if it works in our real world scenario.
We have been trying to find a membership solution for our “Association”. We are not really trying to create a new social media site which it seems that maybe this “ProfileGrid” is focused on. But communication throughout the groups is a key factor. And it could be nice to have the front end embellishments, many of our members will probably be more comfortable if they don’t have to go to the back end to edit profiles.
this plugin was born exactly to do what you want. they then added all the extra features. You can certainly use it to achive the management you need.
However, the other solution using ClassicPress core features is viable too, it requires custom code for now and some front-end logic to implement all the steps you need on the site but it’s doable.
For your use case I think the plugin is more maintainable - the custom code might need to be updated in the future as ClassicPress implements all the bells and whistles that compliment the new user management feature.
I also think it is important to consider that a well rounded community plugin like this one could be a great asset for CP, because it is a versatile plugin that can cater to different scenarios. Plugins like BB or BP instead are limited in their core features and can only be extended via a gazillion of other add-ons to make them do what the user needs.
@breathecare2u can you clarify? You mean jack the pro version? This is not ethic, I prefer to fork the free version and implement the features myself or rebuild a similar plugin for CP.
