0

Troubleshooting Product Settings

Summary

DAP has 3 fields which are applicable at a Product-level.

If a content (page/post) is part of just one single product, then the Product-level settings will apply.

But if a content (page/post) is part of multiple products, then DAP can’t figure out which product’s settings to use – so it falls back to the “GLOBAL” equivalent of that same setting under Setup > Config.

The 3 fields are…

• Post-Login URL
• Sales Page URL
• Error Page URL

All 3 of these have both a Product-level setting, plus a fall-back Global setting under Setup > Config.

 

1) Post-Login URL not redirecting to the right page

If the user has access to more than 1 DAP Product, then DAP cannot decide which Product’s Post-Login URL to redirect the user to. So it simply redirects the user to the global equivalent of that URL at Setup > Config > Post-Login URL (Global)

So if you’re testing the “Post-Login URL” field, make sure you create a test user with access to just that one product, and then log in as her and test.

2) Error Page URL not redirecting to the right page

If the content that user is trying to access, but is not eligible to access, is part of just one DAP product, then that product’s “Error Page URL” will apply. And this field is set to “/dap/product-error.php” by default. Even if you set this to blank, it will assume that to be the same as teh default value, and the default “In-page Error Message” will apply.

If the content that user is trying to access, but is not eligible to access, is part of more than 1 DAP Product, then DAP cannot decide which Product’s “Error Page URL” to use. So it simply uses the global equivalent under Setup > Config > Error Page URL (Global)

If you want to redirect the error page URL to a custom error page, then you have to enter that into each product, as well as one for the global one.

3) “Sales Page URL” on error page not pointing to right URL
(OR)
Lock message says “Sorry, this content is for members only. Click here to get access” but “Click here” points to my incorrect URL

If the content that user is trying to access, but is not eligible to access, is part of more than 1 DAP Product, then DAP cannot decide which Product’s “Sales Page URL” to show on the “In-Page Error Message” shown to the viewer. So it simply uses the global equivalent under Setup > Config > Sales Page URL (Global)

So make sure you have set up a URL in that field.

4) Clicking on a protected Category is not taking user to the correct “Error Page URL”

When you click on a category (instead of a single post), then because the category could contain many posts, each of which could be part of multiple Products. So DAP is unable to choose just 1 single Product from which to pick the “Error Page URL” and redirect the visitor to. So it just shows the error message with the padlock image, which can be customized. Click here for details.

 

14

Storing and Protecting Video, Audio and Other File Formats

=> Click here to see a demo of S3MediaVault Streaming video/audio player

Q1: What’s the difference between storing files on Amazon S3 (and serving it using the S3MediaVault.com plugin), compared to storing the files right on your own web site and having DAP serve them directly to your members?

A: See this post How and Why to use Amazon S3 to Deliver Audio, Video and PDF on your WordPress website

If all files are stored right on your web site, and you have a large amount of video, audio and other files, then a lot of people viewing and downloading them from your site will use up a lot of resources on your server – like site loading time, server memory, server bandwidth, etc – and your site could slow down considerably. Plus, on top of that, there may be bandwidth charges that your host will charge you with for all of those downloads, which are usually not very cheap.

And don’t put too much faith in your web host’s “Unlimited Bandwidth” clause, because if you read the fine-print carefully, you’ll see that as per their TOS, if you consume large amounts of bandwidth and use too much of the server resources, this could cause other web sites (belonging to others) on the same server to slow down and have a degrade in performance, especially if you are on a shared hosting account. And they could consider this abuse of their TOS, and could either slap you with huge bandwidth or server utilization fees, or may even ask you to take your web site elsewhere because you’re causing issues for other site owners on the same server.

Instead, if the files are stored on Amazon S3, then you don’t have to worry about your site slowing down, or you using up too much bandwidth and getting slapped with huge bandwidth fees, because the files are being served from Amazon’s huge S3 servers which have tons more resources and speed compared to your web host.

Plus in the long run, bandwidth is cheaper on S3 compared to your web host.

Q2: Can DAP protect content stored on an external site, like Amazon S3?

A: Not directly, not by itself. By default, DAP can only protect files (and any other content) that is on the same web site where DAP is also installed. For large files, we do recommend that you store files on a fast, scalable file server like Amazon S3. Now, the page or post itself (in which you post that Amazon S3 link) can be protected by DAP, and no un-authorized user can even see the content of the page (or the link within that page).

However, once a user has authorized access to a page because they’re a member, now they can see the page where you have that Amazon S3 link.

It’s similar to posting a public YouTube video on a protected DAP page on your web site. Sure, DAP can protect the page from un-authorized users, but authorized users can actually see the page, and see that it’s a YouTube video, and clicking on that video will directly take them to a page on YouTube.com, which DAP has no control over, and cannot protect once they leave your web site.

Similarly, DAP cannot directly protect that external link to your file stored on Amazon S3. And that’s where our Amazon S3 plugin S3MediaVault.com (S3MV) comes into the picture.

S3MV can make sure that your files on Amazon S3 cannot be accessed directly by anyone, even if the link were shared with others via email or on a forum, and can ONLY be accessed through a page or post on your web site (web site where you have installed the S3MV WordPress plugin).

NOTE: The S3MV plugin is included for free with your purchase of any DAP license, starting with the Unlimited-site license and above.

Q3: Can S3MediaVault prevent members from downloading the protected videos or audios?

A: Yes. S3MediaVault offers “true streaming”, as well as standard “Progressive Downloads”. You can choose either option for your videos and audio.

If you want them to be able to download the files, S3MediaVault allows you to do that.

And if you do NOT want them to be able to download the files, S3MediaVault help you prevent downloads as well.

S3MediaVault is the first-ever WordPress plugin that lets you create encrypted Streaming Video and Streaming Audio.

“Impossible to Download” Streaming Videos: We highly recommend allowing paying members to download your content for offline use. And S3MediaVault very much allows you to create secure download links for all of your content – Video, Audio, PDF, etc.

However, for some reason, if you do *not* want anyone to download your videos/audio, then S3MediaVault can do that too.

S3MediaVault allows you to create HLS Videos with industrial-strength AES 128-Bit Encryption for both your videos and audio. This is “True Streaming” at its best, with the strongest security available for streaming videos and audio.

None of your website visitors, subscribers, or members will be able to download your videos from your website. Even software like Internet Download Manager (IDM) or browser extensions like Video Downloader or Video DownloadHelper will not be able to download your streaming video or audio. S3MediaVault is the only WordPress plugin that can create this level of security. Check out our encrypted streaming demo here.

Multi-Resolution Streaming with “Resolution Switcher” and “Video Stream Optimization”: S3MediaVault allows you to create streaming video in multiple resolutions. You can choose the resolutions in the Settings page – 1080p, 720p, 360p, 240p and 144p. And S3MediaVault automatically encodes your video in all of those resolutions with a single click. And when the viewer clicks play on the video, the S3MediaVault video player will automatically choose the lowest-but-best resolution for the viewer based on their internet speed. So, if they’re watching from a device which has slow internet speeds (like 3G, or 4G or maybe they’re using a service that doesn’t offer high-speed internet, or maybe throttles mobile access), the player will serve them the most optimized quality of video. That means, your streaming videos will load quickly for them regardless of their internet speed, saving them on their bandwidth bill, as well as saving you on your AWS bandwidth bill (win/win FTW!).

In addition, just like you can do on YouTube, your viewers will be able to change the resolution to a higher or lower number, and the switch will happen seamlessly without affecting their viewership experience.

S3MediaVault is the most secure plugin that can secure your content and make sure it’s only available on your website.

Combine that with the Page/Post protection of DigitalAccessPass (DAP), which can make sure only certain people (like paid members, or free but registered users) can access the post or page where the S3MediaVault embed code is published.

Combine DAP + S3MediaVault, and you would have now completely locked down your content from any and every kind of unauthorized and illegal access.

40

Product Chaining

Product Bundling

Any time someone gets access to PRODUCT A (either through direct signup, manual admin add, or purchase), then you can automatically give them access to PRODUCT B. And you can select whether they get PAID access to PRODUCT B or not.

Similarly, when someone is removed from PRODUCT A, you can also tell DAP to automatically remove their access to PRODUCT B.

Very useful for bundling products.

Product Access Automation

User signs up as free user to PRODUCT A.

Later on, user buys PRODUCT B (which is, say, paid version of PRODUCT A).

If you set up Product Chaining, then you can automatically remove them from PRODUCT A when they purchase PRODUCT B. So when you send an email to all PRODUCT A users asking them to purchase access to PRODUCT B, then you won’t be sending emails to those who have already purchased PRODUCT B.

Click on image below to open full size in a new window.

25

“ProductLinks” Widget: Product-Specific Content

You already know that you can create a “My Content” kind of page within WordPress, that will list all products that a user has access to, and then each product will list the content that they currently have access to (content that has already dripped on them).

But this page is a full-summary of all products, all listed on one page.

Instead, if you wished to create product-specific download pages, where you create a separate page for each product, that lists all the content within just that product alone, then that’s where DAP’s “ProductLinks” Widget comes in handy.

Here’s how you set it up.

1. In WordPress admin, go to “Appearance > Widgets” and enable the “DAP ProductLinks” widget by dragging it onto a widgetized section of your theme’s sidebar.
   
2. As soon as you do that, the DAP ProductLinks widget will show up in your blog’s side bar.
   
3. By default, each of the product names – like “Gold Membership” in the above example – will link to whatever URL you put into the “Post-Login URL” for that particular product (DAP Dashboard > Products > Manage). So the next step is to create a separate page for each product, and then enter the permalink for this new page, into the Post-Login URL of that Product within DAP.
4. Create a new page in WordPress – call it, “Gold Membership Content” (for example). In the body of the page, enter the following DAP merge tag:%%PRODUCT_DETAILS_<id>%%
   

   Replace the entire text <id> with the actual Product id from DAP (Products > Manage)

   So, if the product’s id is 6 in DAP, then the merge code becomes:

   %%PRODUCT_DETAILS_6%%

   Save the page. And if you gave the page the title “Gold Membership Content”, then the permalink for this page will be:
   http://YourSite.com/gold-membership-content/

   

5. Take the above permalink and enter it into the product “Gold Membership” in the “Post-Login URL” field. That’s it!
   
6. Do the above for all products and you’re done.

 

End Result

• For each product that your member buys, the “Your Products” widget will show in the side-bar.
• It will list all of the products that the member has purchased.
• Each of the product names will link to it’s own specific content page
• When member goes to that page, the DAP merge tag you entered for that product will expand into product details and product-specific content links just for that product.

21

Protecting Videos

There are many ways in which you can protect videos.

Case 1: The video file is stored on your web site

By default, DAP can only protect files that are stored on the same web site where DAP is installed.

So if you install DAP on YourSite.com , then your files must also be located on YourSite.com. DAP installed on YourSite.com cannot protect files (.mp4, .mp3, .html, .pdf, .doc) that are stored on AnotherSite.com.

So assuming the files are stored on the same site as DAP, you can (and should) protect both the actual video file, as well as the blog post or page in which the embed-code for your video is published, by adding both to a Product.

This gives you 2 levels of protection for your videos:

Level 1: The blog post or page containing the video player code, itself is accessible only by authorized members.
Level 2: When an authorized user gets legitimate access to the page where the video is published (because they’re a paying member, say), even if they try to do a view source and figure out the location of the video (eg., http://yoursite.com/videos/howtovideo1.mp4) , and pass it around by email to their friends (or post the link in an online forum), their friends still can’t view the video, because the video link itself is protected by DAP.

If you have some text that you want the casual visitor (and Google) to read, but wish to protect only the video, then you could turn Sneak-Peek on (in Setup > Config > Advanced), insert a WordPress more tag (<!–more–>) into your post just where you want the content to start being protected, and put the video player’s embed code after the more tag.

Case 2: Video file is stored on Amazon S3

The only 3rd-party-stored video files that DAP can protect at this time are videos (and other files) that are stored on Amazon S3. DAP cannot do this by itself, but uses a special WordPress plugin called S3MediaVault.com , which is a plugin we developed specifically to make Amazon S3 videos play in your WordPress blog posts/pages. So again you get 2 levels of protection for your videos…

Level 1: DAP protects the post/page where the special S3MV video player code is embedded
Level 2: The S3MediaVault plugin makes sure that even if someone tried to do a view source and figure out the actual link to your Amazon S3 video, they still won’t be able to view the video.

WARNING: Video stored on other 3rd party video sites

DAP cannot protect, say, videos that are embedded from other 3rd party web sites like YouTube or Hulu. Of course, DAP can always protect the blog post or page itself that contains the video, but once an authorized user gets valid access to that blog page, they can see that it is a YouTube video (say), and then pass that YouTube video link to their friends, in which case DAP cannot protect that external YouTube video link.

Check out my podcast episode at http://subscribeme.fm/video-hosting-for-your-membership-site/ which goes into detail about video hosting for your membership site.

25

WordPress User Sync

NOTE: This content is for advanced users only, who understand the concept of user tables, database, etc. If you don’t understand any of this, then just ignore this – you don’t really need to know this in order to use DAP. This is only an explanation for those who wish to go under the hood of DAP and its integration with WordPress.

As you probably already know, WordPress has its own user database.

DAP has its own User database, and doesn’t use the WordPress database – for many reasons, not limited to the following…

1) Ability to store more user information than what WordPress allows

2) More powerful user search, profile updates, affiliate information, etc.

So, if you want to use any WordPress based plugins – like WordPress Forums or Subscribe2Blog – these forums are looking at WordPress’ native user database.

Now comes the necessity of “syncing” the DAP user data and your WordPress user data.

In the DAP Dashboard, in “Setup > Config > Advanced“, you will see two settings for syncing DAP & WP user data.

(1) Sync DAP User data and WP User data

If you turn this to “Y” (for “Yes”), then every time someone logs into DAP, their DAP user data (just name and email) is automatically “synced” with WordPress user data. If you set this to “N”, then no data will be transferred from DAP to WordPress.

(2) Sync WP data only for PAID users

This one matters only if you have set (1) above to “Y”.

If you want only your “PAID” members to be synced with WordPress, then set this to “Y“.

If you want both “FREE” and “PAID” members synced with WordPress, then set this to “N“.

Here’s how it actually works:

1. For the sync to work, you must first setup and save the above 2 config settings
2. After you save the above two config settings, make sure you log out of DAP and re-log in (if you are/were logged in and testing as a regular user), because only then, the Config settings above will take effect.
3. Your user must log in through a DAP login form (not the WP login form).
4. Make sure the user is redirected to any part of your WordPress blog after log in. This can be done via “Logged In URL” setting in DAP Config.
5. The user can be redirected to any WP page, WP post or even your blog home page – that’s the only time the ‘syncing’ kicks in.
6. When user lands on any page/post of your WP blog, then the DAP LiveLinks plugin (which you have already installed & enabled) kicks of the “sync”, copies the logged in member’s name and email over to the WordPress user table, and also automatically logs him into your WordPress blog.

That’s all there is to it.

Also see: Forum Integration

4

Troubleshooting Content Access

User Can’t Access Content

By far, this is the most frequently asked support question. So let’s start by addressing that real quick…

If a User can’t access a piece of content (blog Post, Page, File, etc), then there are only a very few reasons for that…

1. User doesn’t have any access to the DAP Product (where the content in question is protected as part of).
2. User is a FREE user having FREE access to this specific Product, but the content within the Product itself has been marked as being available to PAID users ONLY.
3. User does have access, but access has expired
4. User account status is Inactive because they’ve not yet double-opted in
5. User account status is Locked (because they reached the IP login limit, and got locked out of their account)

In all cases, the main place to start troubleshooting is with the Users > Manage page. Search for the user’s email id (who is reporting or experiencing the content-access issue). See what Products they have access to, check their Access Start & End dates, check their account status, etc.

So let’s go over some of the basics, and some more detailed solutions for such issues.

Important Basics

Use two different browsers for testing. Not two different browser tabs, but 2 completely different browsers – like Chrome and FireFox, or FireFox and Internet Explorer. Log in as DAP admin using one browser, and then as a regular user in another browser. That way, you keep the access separate, and your testing will be clean and easy.

If you are using, say, Firefox, you are logged in to DAP admin, and are browsing your blog or trying to access content on your blog, then you will only have access to the content that the admin user has access to. You, as the DAP Admin, DO NOT have automatic access to every product by default. You will have to manually give yourself access to every product you create. And if you want yourself to have “PAID” access, then you have to mark yourself as “PAID”.

That is because, if DAP gave you automatic access to all products, then you will go ahead and protect a blog post, try to access that blog post, and DAP will give you access to that content because you as admin have automatic access to the product. And then you will wonder “Hey, I protected a blog post, but I’m still seeing it.

It’s Probably Not DAP

We realize that your first gut reaction is to blame DAP :-). That’s what we would’ve done too, if we hadn’t developed DAP.

But please note that whatever issue it is, you can be 99% sure that it’s not a bug. Because access-related bugs are extremely rare. We also do a lot of pre-release testing, then we release a beta version, then we get hundreds, if not thousands of people to try the beta, iron out the issues, and then release the final version to everyone else. So if there were a bug, it would’ve been caught a long time before it gets to you.

So we request you to approach things with an open mind, and try to think through calmly (and logically 🙂 why a certain user does not have access to a certain piece of content.

Now, on to more specific issues and specific answers…

1) I have protected a blog post as part of a Product. But I can still access it.

Short Answer: If you have protected a post/page/file, try to access it, and are able to do it, then it means you DO have access to it. Now let’s troubleshoot so that you understand the “how” and the “why”.

• Have you protected the page/post by adding it to a Product? If you don’t add it to a DAP Product, the post/page/file won’t be protected.
• Who are you logged in as? As DAP Admin? Or as a regular member?
• Now by logging in as DAP Admin, if you search for this logged-in user by email id or last name on the “Users > Manage” page, you will see that the user probably does have access to the product to which the post belongs
• Are you already logged in a a user who has access to that link?
• Maybe logged in as DAP Admin, who maybe already has access to the Product, which is why you are able to access the link? If so, either log out of DAP, or visit your blog in a completely new browser (if you’re logged in as DAP Admin in FireFox, then visit your blog using Internet Explorer).

2) I have protected a blog post as part of a Product. The User’s account shows as having access to it when I look him up in the DAP Dashboard, but the actual user cannot access it in their browser.

Short Answer: If you have protected a post/page/file, try to access it, and are able to do it, then it means you DO NOT have access to it. Now let’s troubleshoot so that you understand the “how” and the “why”.

• Who are you logged in as? As DAP Admin? Or as a regular member?
• Whoever you are logged in as, make sure that user (admin user or regular user) has access to the product to which the post belongs
• Have you added the post as a “PAID” or as “FREE”?
• If you have marked the post as “PAID”, make sure the user also is a “PAID” user (either there must have been a real transaction, or you must have manually marked him as “PAID”). Because free users cannot access content that has been marked as “PAID”.
• Maybe the user’s access to the product has expired. Check the user’s “Access Start Date” and “Access End Date” for that product. The start date should be current (not be in the future) and the end date should be current (shouldn’t be in the past, which means his access to the product has expired)

3) Free user can’t see protected content

You’ve created a free product with pages or posts that are only accessible to this membership type. The problem is that the users can’t actually access this content.

1. Log into your DAP system and go to the Products/Levels > Manage page.
2. Select your product in the General Settings tab, then click the ContentResponder tab.
3. In the Content Responder tab, you’ll see “edit” hyperlinks beside each of the pages/posts you’ve protected. Click the one for the page that’s causing the problems.
4. The “Drip Settings” popup will open now. In that popup, set “Is Free? (i.e., Accessible toFree users too?” to “YES”.
5. Click Save/Update resource.

4) I don’t want the links to all my protected blog posts showing up on my blog’s home page

Make sure you have “Sneak-Peek” turned off in the DAP Admin Config section. Once you do that, posts that are protected will not be displayed on the home page as well as if someone tried to visit the link directly.

5) Why do I see the “Lock” symbol on my blog’s home page?

It’s possible that you have no published posts (it’s a new blog), or you have probably protected all of the posts by adding them all to a DAP Product.

6) I have protected a blog post, but the entire blog post shows up, with the lock image at the very bottom

This is probably because you have turned on “Sneak-Peek”, but have not inserted the “More” tag into the post/page in question.

• Do you want a part of the protected content (like a “snippet”) to show even for users who are not eligible to access the post or page? If yes, then go to “Setup > Config > Advanced > WordPress Sneak Peek: Show snippets of post (upto the `More` break) even for protected posts?” and change the setting to “Y”, and save.
• If you turn on Sneak-Peek, then you *must* insert the WordPress “More” tag into every single blog post and page that you currently have protected.

So for the above issue, do one of the following…

1) Turn Sneak-Peek to off (set it to “N”)

– OR-

2) Insert the WordPress “More” tag into the post/page.

Doing either one should resolve this issue.

7) Members getting locked out because access end date is in the past

The only time a member’s access end date goes into the past, if their recurring payments are no longer coming in.

Which means, either they have canceled (or gotten a refund), or your membership level’s lifecycle has ended (like, if your Product/Level was a micro-continuity subscription program that lasts only for 6 months).

If the payments are still coming in, their end dates should keep getting extended by DAP automatically.

If payments are coming in, but the dates are not getting extended, then the payment link between DAP and your Payment Processor somehow broke, and you need to visit the Payment Processor integration documentation for your specific payment processor, and troubleshoot why the payments are coming in fine, but DAP is not processing them.

To ensure members’ access does not stop, make sure that their payments do not stop, and the recurring cycles in the product match that of your payment processor. Say, if your payment processor is processing recurring payments every 30 days, then DAP’s recurring cycles (on the Product page) should also be 30. If it’s 31, then DAP’s should also be 31.

Tip: It’s not a bad idea to set DAP’s recurring cycle day to 1 more than your payment processor’s recurring cycle, just in case your payment processor takes an extra day to process the actual payments. So in that case, if you have set your Payment processor to charge every 30 days, you could set DAP’s recurring cycle to 31 (one extra day grace period, just in case the recurring payment does not get processed on time).

8) I have newly setup DAP. Protected a blog post as part of a Product. But I can still access it, and I am not logged in.

If this is a new site that has just setup DAP, it is possible that the DAP changes that need to go into your .htaccess file at the main folder of your blog in question, didn’t go in correctly.

• Step AA: Open the .htaccess file at the root of your blog, then see if there’s text that looks like this:
  #—– START DAP —–
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !(.*)(\.php|\.css|\.js|\.jpg|\.gif|\.png|\.txt)$
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} (.*)/wp-content/uploads/(.*)
  RewriteRule (.*) /dap/client/website/dapclient.php?dapref=%{REQUEST_URI}&plug=wp&%{QUERY_STRING}  [L] #—– END DAP —–If you see it, then simply open a ticket, and we’ll troubleshoot.
• Step BB: If you don’t see it, then log in as WP Admin, go to “Settings > Permalinks”. Then pick a permalink structure OTHER than “default”. Then save the setting. Even if something other than “default” is already picked, simply hit the save button anyway. That’s when the .htaccess gets updated. Now go to Step AA above and verify the text in the .htaccess file. If it’s still not there, just open a ticket.

9) After a member logs in, they’re unable to view the member page – they get a “Sorry, cannot access” type error.

Some questions to ask that will hopefully lead you to the answer…

• Did you log in as them in a fresh browser and was your experience the same problem? Or is it a user-error on their behalf?
• What product did they purchase?
• Do they have valid “non-expired” access to the product?
• What is the “Logged-In URL” field of that Product in DAP? Is that the right URL to which they should be going to after they log in?
• If so, then is the “Logged-In URL” page or post actually protected as part of that same product that they actually purchased?
• If that field is empty, what is the value of the global setting under “Setup > Config > URL to which user is redirected to, right after log in” field?
• What is the actual URL that they’re “Supposed” to see after they login? If you went there directly, what do you see?

 

NOTES

1)  DAP Admin does not have access to content by default. You need to give access to the DAP admin to the products in the DAP Manage Users Page.

2)  If a user reports they cannot access content, it could be because their access has expired. So…

a) Login as DAP Admin, go to DAP Users > Manage page, search for user by email id (or other).

b) Make sure they have “valid” access to the product

c) Look at their access start and end dates. If access end date is earlier than the current date then you can manually extend access for legitimate users by clicking on the ‘Modify link’ under ‘Product Access’ in DAP manage users page.

d) Make sure that if it’s a PAID USER, then the user record is marked as ‘Paid or has a transaction Id’ under the ‘Trans Id’ column in DAP manage users page.

Users marked as “FREE” can only access content that is marked as “Free” in the DAP products page -> Content Protection area.

18

Customizing Error Messages On Protected Pages

When an unauthorized visitor tries to access a protected page or post, you can choose from among two things that can happen:

1) Display an “In-Page Error Message“: They can be presented with an error message that shows a “lock” image. You can show the standard DAP version, or you can customize this message and add your own text.

-OR-

2) Redirect to Error Page: They can be redirected to any other page of your choice (WordPress page or post, or a completely non-WP page)

1. Display “In-Page” Error Message

“In-Page” basically means that this message will be shown on the same page that the user is trying to access (to which they do not have access). So basically, the content of the very post or page they’re trying to access, will be replaced by this “In-Page” error message.

The default error messages shown by DAP are as follows.

A) If a visitor is NOT logged in, then they will see…

(Image A)

B) If a visitor IS logged in, then they will see…

(Image B)

If you see Image A above, there is a line of text that says: “Click here to get access”.

And in Image B above, there is a line of text that says: “If you are a free member, then click here to purchase access”.

In both cases, the text “click here” is actually a link. And by default, that link will point to whatever you put in the “Sales Page URL” in your DAP Product (to which the above post/page is part of). See Image C below.

(Image C)

Displaying Custom Error Message

If you wish to customize the above standard error messages, then here’s what you need to do:

1. Go to /dap/inc/ folder. There are two files there:error-loggedin.php , and
   error-notloggedin.php
2. Make a copy of both files on your computer, and add the text ‘custom‘ to the front of each of the file names of the newly copied files. So the new files are now called: customerror-loggedin.php , and
   customerror-notloggedin.php
   
3. Open customerror-loggedin.php and customerror-notloggedin.php and modify them as you please, change the text, formatting, font size, color, etc.
4. Upload the new files to the same folder – /dap/inc/ – as the original error files.That’s it. DAP will then ignore the old error files, and start displaying your new “custom” error messages.

2. Redirect to Error Page

Instead of showing an error page (default or custom, from (1) above) you can also redirect the un-authorized user to a completely new page/post of your choice.

If you see Image D below, you will see that on the DAP Products page, there is a field called “Error Page URL“.

By default, this is pointing to /dap/product-error.php

(Image D)

Change this to any link you want. Examples…

http://YourSite.com/myerrorpage.html , or

http://YourSite.com/myerrorpage/

Whatever you put in the above field (Error Page URL) is what page the user will be redirected to, when they access a page that they don’t have access to (either because they have not logged in, or because they are logged in, but don’t have access to it yet).

66

Forum Integration

DAP currently integrates with all WordPress-based Forum plugins (some of them mentioned below) as well as two non-WP based (vB & XenForo).

• Simple:Press
• BuddyPress
• bbPress
• Mingle
• XenForo (non WP)
• vBulletin (non WP)

So if a member logs in to your membership site via the DAP login form, then they will also automatically be logged in to your forum. That’s called “Single Sign-on” and DAP supports it with all of the above forum software.

Which Forum To Use With DAP?

The WordPress-based forums listed above (Simple:Press, Mingle, etc) are not really full-featured (like XenForo or vBulletin). DAP doesn’t – and cannot – protect individual forum posts or threads if you used the basic WordPress-based forums. But they’re all free, have pretty decent forum features, easy to set up and use, and will work just fine for most people.

However, if you want a more full-featured forum software that will give you greater control over many details, allow you to protect content at a thread or forum level, and want tons of user and admin features, then we highly recommend going with XenForo (XF) or vBulletin (vB). XF and vB are not free, have a slightly bigger learning curve than the simple WP forum plugins, and require more setup and maintenance overall. And if you want the best forum plugin, and are willing to pay the price (dollar-wise as well as effort-wise) and put in the time to set it up, then XF is the way to go, and DAP integrates extremely well with XF.

Now, the rest of this post is about integration of DAP with the WordPress-based forums.

(For XenForo integration details, click here)

(For vB integration details, click here)

 

Integration with BuddyPress, bbPress, Simple:Press, Mingle, etc

What this essentially achieves, is that once your forum plugin has been integrated with DAP (explained below), anyone who is a member in your DAP-powered membership site, will also be automatically be logged in to your forum when they log in to your membership site.

So they won’t have to log in twice [like, once into DAP and once into your forum].

Here’s how you set up the DAP/forum integration.

1. Download the 3rd party WordPress forum plugin
2. Install it as per their instructions. We don’t support the installation or setup of the forum plugin itself.
3. Log in to your DAP Admin Dashboard and click on “Setup > Config”.
4. You have two settings on the page that applies to forum integration:
   “Sync DAP User data and WP User data”
   “Sync WP data only for PAID users“
5. Pick “Y” or “N” for each of them, and you’re all set.

Now, a quick explanation of both settings.

1) Sync DAP User data and WP User data

If you turn this to “Y” (for “Yes”), then every time someone logs into DAP, they’re automatically logged into WordPress too (with a “user” WordPress role). And because they’re logged into WordPress, that means they’re also logged into your forum (because you are using a WordPress-based Forum Plugin which already integrates with your WordPress installation)

2) Sync WP data only for PAID users

This one matters only if you have set (1) above to “Y”.

So once you have decided to turn on the DAP/Forum plugin integration, then if you want only your “PAID” members to have access to the forum, then set this to “Y”.

If you want both FREE and PAID users accessing your forum, then set this to “N”.

11

Modify Content Under Padlock

When your visitor encounters a “Sorry, you’re unable to access this content” page that has the DAP Padlock image on it, you can customize the text that shows up below the padlock by doing this:

1) Open the file error.php that is stored in the /dap/inc/ folder.

2) RENAME it as (or COPY it as) customerror.php.

3) You can put ANY kind of HTML content within this. Images, javascript, css,, buttons, text, whatever. Any HTML can be used in this file.

4) Upload this new file customerror.php back to same folder /dap/inc/

5) error.php doesn’t matter any more. Whether you delete it, or just leave it alone, the fact that there is a customerror.php file in the same directory means that DAP won’t even bother about error.php any more.

6) Future updates of DAP will not touch your customerror.php file. So updates or upgrades will not mess with your custom error page copy.