Can anyone point me toward how to turn a current site into a membership site with a forum? I’m a techno-moron and old man, so be gentle.
Sitelok and an associated plugin would probably be your best bet. It is a little bit technical but Adrian from @vibralogix has very good support and could get you started
Page Safe from Joe Workman is a good solution for membership pages.
Mootable from Stacks4Stacks is one option for integrating a forum.
Thanks! Looks like Sitelok has a steep learning curve for someone like me, but I downloaded the manual and think I might be able to learn it. This was a great help, as I had no idea how to proceed.
SiteLok is really VERY easy to use.
@LarryTheMarketer First, Sitelok is fantastic. But it’s mainly meant as membership software: and it does that job very well. That’s the simple part.
… but you state you also want a discussion forum. This is where things could get tricky. Typically Sitelok would mean members would have to login to your site, or to specific portions of your site. Forum software also requires a sign up and login (in the vast majority of cases). So do you REALLY want both? What are you trying to accomplish in plain English? (I have a suspicion that you want to do one of these things, but don’t need both.)
Sitelok does offer an add-on which allows a SSO (single sign on) for both the membership protected parts of the website and for Vanilla (one specific discussion software product). That may be one way to go. Typically folks don’t want to be required to login twice at the same site.
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One addendum. I create several sites where I need membership control, but I also want members to be able to comment on the website pages and blog. That is, I don’t need a full forum but I do want to allow/encourage discussion. Sitelok has a very nice Disqus commenting plugin. Again, SSO (single sign on). Works beautifully. Comments are viewable only by members. Depending on the specifics of what you are looking for, Disqus as a Sitelok plugin may be a great option.
Joe will be releasing some SiteLoc stacks sometime in the future. FYI
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SiteLok has a plug-in which allows single sign-in with the Vanilla forum software. I’m afraid that Vanilla doesn’t have a very good reputation with those who used the old RW forum but it seems to work for many people without massive spam attacks. They also have a single sign-in plug-in for Disqus.
I’m building a site which uses both SiteLok and Armadillo. Since most members won’t be allowed to post on the blog anyway, I don’t think having two log-ins is that much of a problem.
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Depending on your timeline and if Stacks is what you’re most comfortable with, you might want to wait for Joe’s Sitelok stacks that Zeebe mentioned.
However, the installation of Sitelok isn’t too bad (it looks more technical than it is) and once you’ve installed it, the Admin is actually quite user friendly.
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@LarryTheMarketer I’ve recently adopted SiteLok to a membership system I have been building and yes there is a lot in it however two things… if you just follow the simple setup that’s in the manual you will be up and running in no time and the support from Adrian is second to none and super fast.
Once you are running you can tweak to your hearts content. My site is quite tricky and Adrian has been onboard assisting all along.
For my money, give SiteLok a go. I don’t think you will be disappointed.
Cheers, Lance
The only downside I’ve found to using SiteLok for a membership site is if you have (as I do for a society site) members who do not have email. Email is a required field so you cannot enter such records. As a quick fix, I gave them all my email address but it’s not ideal.
There’s also a script on this site: https://www.phpjabbers.com/member-directory-script/
and a Forum one too I think.