Subscription pages and tutorial

Are there any tutorials out there on creating a subscription page set up.

For example: If I wanted to charge people to have access to avatars, signatures etc...they would have to subscribe to have those features.....I've looked around and cant find anything...and the vbulletin one is too vague....

Cheers

Are there any tutorials out there on creating a subscription page set up.

For example: If I wanted to charge people to have access to avatars, signatures etc...they would have to subscribe to have those features.....I've looked around and cant find anything...and the vbulletin one is too vague....

Cheers


I'm not aware of any guides but I can give you some pointers.

There are several ways to do but I'll describe the way I've done it.

Create your "standard member" usergroup that does not have the "extras".

Then create a new usergroup that has the extras - such as allowing an avatar, sigs pic, etc. We will make this is a secondary usergroup, so it will only add rights, not take a way. Meaning that you don't need to set all the forum permissions and such unless you are going to give them access to a forum that they don't have access to under the "standard usergroup".

Once you have the 2 usergroups setup go to your admincp and select the following:

admincp --> Paid subscriptions--> Add new Subscription

Give it a title and description, this is what the user will see.

On the right select the "extra" usergroup under "Additional Usergroup" (Not under Primary).

There are two ways to great access to forums using subscriptions.
1. Like I discuss above, grant them access via the Extra Usergroup.
2. Select on the "Add new Subscription" page to grant access. This works great if you are allowing going to allow them to buy access to a forum, no other extras. Since you are interested in letting them buy avatars then I would skip this section. Note: If you want to use this you need to make sure you have access masks turned on in the vbulletin options.

Go to the bottom of the page and select the price and duration and it it will be recurring.

After you have this setup you will need to setup a Payment API Manager.

I use Paypal.

admincp --> Paid Subscriptions --> Payment API Manager

Select the payment provider and select "edit" and Go.

Fill in the details and that's it.

You will also need to turn on "Instant Payment Notification" (Note: This may not be required anymore but I still have it turned on).

Access Paypal --> Profile --> Instant Payment Notification Preferences

Turn it on and enter the URL the URL of your paypal.php file located in the root folder of your forum:

IE: http://www.yoursite.com/forum/paypal.php

To test I setup a subscriptions that cost 1 cent.

Good luck!

i dont have http://www.mysite.com/forum/paypal.php......did you mean payments.php?

Thanks for this...so far so good....

question 1: Inside of Subscription Manager - Under primary groups wouldnt i put Registered Members there so that once the subscription is over it would go back to that group?

question 2: Does vbulletin send out an email when a renew is due (i dont have recurring on, seeing price cannot be changed)?

Thanks for you help mate....it was nice and easy so far...

Thanks for this...so far so good....

question 1: Inside of Subscription Manager - Under primary groups wouldn't i put Registered Members there so that once the subscription is over it would go back to that group?

question 2: Does vbulletin send out an email when a renew is due (i dont have recurring on, seeing price cannot be changed)?

Thanks for you help mate....it was nice and easy so far...

1. No this would be to change the Primary User - the way I suggested was to add an additional usergroup. The system will remember what usergroup they were in to change them back to.

2. Yes the system will send an email to the user before their subscription expires. Not sure how many days, maybe 7.

So you have the confidence the system works I would create a test subscription that will only stay in place for a day so that you can make sure everything works the way you want.

To be honest I setup ours 2 years ago and have not changed it since, so it's all a little vague. :)

im still confused by something....I did create an additional usergroup and have set that under additional groups inside of subscription manager.....however, if i dont change primary group to registered users (and leave it as No Change)...how will the system know which usergroup to go to once the subscription expires...??

Also, you wouldnt by any chance know how to add text on top of where it says Additional Subscriptios would you....not sure which template to change.

Thanks your help Todd I tested it and it works great...only 1 thing...i had set a custom usertitle for the additional groups, but the title didnt change once i subscribed ... all the other features showed up fine

im still confused by something....I did create an additional usergroup and have set that under additional groups inside of subscription manager.....however, if i dont change primary group to registered users (and leave it as No Change)...how will the system know which usergroup to go to once the subscription expires...??

Also, you wouldnt by any chance know how to add text on top of where it says Additional Subscriptios would you....not sure which template to change.


This setting is only for while the subscriptions in in place.

Vbulletin will store the state of the user Pre-Subscription in it's database and will revert back to it when the subscription has ended.

The template you want to update is: subscription

The way I found this was to bring up the page you want to change and view the source of the page. Here is part of the source from my site. I search for the text I want to add under, in this case "Available Subscriptions" and then look at the HTML comments above to see what template it's in. In this case it's <!-- BEGIN TEMPLATE: subscription -->. See below:

<!-- / usercp nav -->

</td>
<td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
<td width="100%">

<!-- main page contents -->
<!-- BEGIN TEMPLATE: subscription -->


<form action="payments.php?do=order" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="s" value="" />
<input type="hidden" name="do" value="order" />
<table class="tborder" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="1" border="0" width="100%" align="center">
<tr>
<td class="tcat">Available Subscriptions</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="panelsurround" align="center">
<div class="panel">
<div align="left">

<!-- BEGIN TEMPLATE: subscription_availablebit -->
<fieldset class="fieldset">
<legend>DAM Supporter</legend>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="3" border="0" width="100%">
<tr>
<td width="67%" valign="top" rowspan="2">
<div style="margin-bottom:3px"><strong>DAM Supporter</strong></div>
Support DAM and receive the ability to add an avatar and a profile picture, as well as upload attachments and gain access to the private forums.
</td>
<td width="3%" rowspan="2" style="border-left:1px solid #CCCCCC">&nbsp;</td>
<td width="30%" valign="top">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="bottom" nowrap="nowrap">
Cost:<br />
<select name="currency[1]" style="width:125px"><option value="">--------</option><optgroup label="365 Days">
<option value="0_usd" >US$20.00</option>
</optgroup>
</select>

Here is the templates, I added text below where I think you want to add the text.

<if condition="$show['activesubscriptions']">
<table class="tborder" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" border="0" width="100%" align="center">
<tr>
<td class="tcat" colspan="3">$vbphrase[active_subscriptions]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="thead">$vbphrase[subscription_title]</td>
<td class="thead">$vbphrase[start_date]</td>
<td class="thead">$vbphrase[expiry_date]</td>
</tr>
$subscribedbits
</table>
<br />
</if>
<if condition="$show['subscriptions']">
<form action="payments.php?do=order" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="s" value="$session[sessionhash]" />
<input type="hidden" name="do" value="order" />
<table class="tborder" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" border="0" width="100%" align="center">
<tr>
<td class="tcat">$vbphrase[available_subscriptions]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="panelsurround" align="center">
<div class="panel">
<div align="$stylevar[left]">


I think you want to add stuff here - but you may need to play around


$subscriptionbits

<div class="fieldset" style="margin:0px; padding:$stylevar[formspacer]px">
$vbphrase[validity_periods_marked_indicate]
</div>

</div>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
</if>

I also changed this phrase, paypal_order_instructions, to tell the user that echecks thru Paypal take longer to clear and that they wouldn't be added to the subscription until it's cleared.

To pay for your subscription using <a href="http://www.paypal.com" target="_blank">PayPal</a> click the button below and follow the onscreen instructions. <b>Note:</b> An echeck sent via Pay Pal takes 5 to 7 days to clear, your subscription will automatically become active when it clears. To have your subscription active immediately then use a credit card or paypal funds to purchase your subscription.

i dont have http://www.mysite.com/forum/paypal.php......did you mean payments.php?

You probably don't need this anymore, I would try everything without the paypal option turned on. I think this was an old vb 3.0 setting that is no longer needed.

ooohh...so i really dont need to add the primary usergroup in subscription manager....will it hurt if i did? any idea why my custom title didnt change?

You have been extremely helpful...i really thought that this was going to be an all day event...lol

Regarding your post about finding templates...i havent turned on my html output in vboptions to show me the template name.....maybe i should..lol....cheers