I am currently starting development on a networking based website (career and job networking). But i need to have it setup so when you join you have to choose a membership level to join. a basic level migh be a small one time fee, or just free and would only give basic acces to content and some of the forum. The other levels cost a monthly subscription where different account types give access to different content on the site. Also multiple accounts can be used.
example:
- Subscription Option 1 = Free Content: Basic use of browsing site and forum
- Subscription Option 2 = $5 a month for access to web page A and Forum A (or portion of a forum)
- Subscription Option 3 = $5 a month for access to web page B and forum B (or portion of a forum)
- Subscription Option 4 = $5 a month for access to web page C and forum C (or portion of a forum)
When the user joins they can choose any one Subscription option or choose any combination of the 2,3,4. There should also be the option to make it a recurring monthly charge (i am already setup with paypal for a business account).
I will most likley use vBulletin because it has options to do this but it only works for the forum itself, not the whole site or to give members access to a set of pages with given content.
I am currently using Dreamweaver for the majority of the web design. my server technology is apache/mysql/php but also have to option to go to cold fusion if i need to but the others are free and still work real well. I am developing on windows xp (with the local development runtime servers for apache/php/mysql so i can test) but site is hosted on a linux server. Once i go full force for the site i will be investing on a linux server to host my own site instead of paying to host.
Everywhere i have searched to set this up someone wants to set it up for money but i want to learn how to set it up myself and not have to rely on an unknown person to change setting for me and even pay an additional fee for them to do any changes. If you know of any resources i can look up or even if you can tell me how to do it that would be greatly appreciated. thank you. if you have any other questions just ask
You will need to use some type of server side language (ASP, .NET, PHP, etc) to communicate with a database (MSSQL, MS Access, mysql, etc). There is User Management (ASP) and User Management (PHP).
There was a login called Spooky Login (ASP) that was really good but I don't know if he is still developing that one or not. There is another one called MembersPro that some people tend to like, but it also depends of course on what your server can support.
I currently have Amember controlling membership access to different levels
of Joomla, different courses in Moodle and different forums in SMF as well
as different folders on my site.
I can set up a membership that could access a certain forum AND a certain
course and a certain folder. It's pretty flexible.
You do have to pay for plugins to different scripts. But you are in control
of everything and you don't have to rely on others if you need to change
anything.
Easy and very efficient, works with paypal Subscriptions, Google checkout, or other merchant accounts such as CDG etc. The setup also does the automatic billing and collecting of funds. I have used it in the past with great results. If you need any help setting it up, let me know.
yea i have been looking at Joomla and Drupal for CMS setups since they have subscription setups. i havent had to look into joomla as much i have Drupal though. Only problem with those is that they are web-based site design and i primarily use dreamweaver and hand coding so they arent as easily setup. They are working on a plugin for dreamweaver for drupal but im not sure about joomla. I have been looking at aMember since it does interact with Drupal and vBulletin which also helps set up accounts and subscriptions.
So Maybe at this point what would be a good option for those above as i dont personally know anyone that has used those. What would be a good, or the best combo?
droopal or joomla? : I am making a community driven website where they can have input and make thier own pages and profiles and i know droopal is supposed to be better for community based sites. But also which is better for subscriptions?
aMember: i know it works great by itself and can be embedded with drupal and i think vBulletin which does subscriptions?
Dreamweaver vs. CMS (drupal / Joomla): i am used to using dreanweaver and i know you can basically make any kind of page with a little tweaking and habd coding. heh not to mention i got dreamweaver as a way to build my site so i dont want to feel like i wasted my money. But i like the integration that a CMS provides and how efficient and set a bunch of stuff up for you it is. I will buy aMember if i need to and if its the best option for me but i just want to make sure it be the best choice for me.
So what do you guys think? im pretty into dreamweaver and like how customisable it is and the cms's have a steep learning curve but they are powerful systems. also twith the integration of vBulletin that can do some membership stuff for me.
I also use dreamweaver, and have not had any issues with template / website design with Joomla or Forum Designing.
CMS is much better for community building, but I lean towards Joomla for my software of choice. As far as subscriptions go, aMember is unnecessary if you plan to use a CMS.
For Joomla you just make it, that when a person registers for a subscription there account access increases to subscriber(or higher level account), and then set it so that the Forums, or other website area areas, are only visible to only certain member accounts. If they are not a subscriber then the forum is not visible and it can't be accessed indirectly, via entering a website address to it, it just comes up as you don't have permission to access this resource.
But the question comes down to, are you planning on just using a Forum, or will you have other areas to the website? If you are using just a forum, the easiest way to set it up, is with Mods for the forum. For instance Simple machine forum has a subscription plugin you can add, and depending on what people pay, it will move there account level up so that they can access forums only available to a member level.
With joomla, and the Simple Machine Forum Mod, if a person stops paying, it automatically moves them down to a membership level you desire, or it can even delete their accounts instantly.
thats great info, thanks. Does joomla still require you use say dreamweaver or other Wysiwyg editor or is the page building still web based? And how well does dreamweaver work with it> (im looking on the joomla site now for info on this as well) . As for forums i am mostly looking at phpBB and vBulletin. do you know which works better? as for vBulletin i dont mind paying the fee (i think $85 for a year) to use that forum but i am also familiar with phpBB (what i started on) so if that integrates better i will use that.
the Forum will be in heavy use for my site but I will still have large non-forum pages on my site. anything from news, to tutorials, viewing profiles, and many more pages so it wont be just that. which is why i wanted ro use a cms to work on those other pages otherwise i would just use dreamweaver. I just like the dynamics that a CMS provides. Do you know of any good resources and links i could look at to get me started? if you cant think of any thats fine (as im looking up and downloading joomla now also). I have a local virtual testing server on my machine to test it out so im going to do that.
If you are going to be using profiles across the website and not just on the forum you should look into Community builder which is a component for joomla.
What I recommend doing for your website theme and design, is to look around for a template you like, and then change it to what you really want. No point reinventing the wheel when you can find more than half of the work done already and all you have to do is personalize here and there and then be done with it.
Once you have the template you like it comes down to editing the Templates Index file to make the layout the way you want, and editing the CSS. I prefer to use dreamweaver for editing these files. If you want to custom make the content for a page but use the theme of Joomla Template you can use wrapper scripts, which inserts a webpage into the theme and design of the main website. It's hard to describe so let me give you an example of the use. This page is using the Joomla Theme, but the Shop information is from a static page created on the website using wrapper link to display it. Here is the link to the Static html page - and here is the link to the joomla page using the Wrapper Link. The wrapper is pushes off a little on the right side, but that's because I have playing with page size in the joomla template.
So if you want to create the content of a page using dream weaver you can. There is a lot more that Joomla can do, and it is easy to use with Dream Weaver. As I tell people the key to web design is two simple practices. Copy and Paste
Yea the wrapper thing makes sense. Lol and yea copy and paste are wonderful tools. So yea i get the idea about the template building. Thats pretty much exavlty what i wanted to know. I would look for a template thats close then just edit it dreamweaver. thanks
Yea I looked at it.it is a little more dreamweaver friendly but doesn't offer the options I need that drupal has to offer. I've ben looking through them both a lot.drupal just seems more to my fit.especially since I'm doing such a heavy community driven site. I have actually considered trying to find some people to start help me come up with my own or just do what's needed to the drupal one.cuz I'd like it to be really dreamweaver friendly since its what I know and I'm a school student and the other guys there could somewhat help me out n a way.but a lot of it is still up in the air at the moment.I want to do as much research as I can before I can dedicate my project to one of the 2 (joomla or drupal) because once I start if I went to the other I'd have to start over and I don't want to do that.
I haven't had a chance to look through the community builder addon for joomla though.
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