Setting up EDD Members

There are few steps what you need to do before you have Membership site up and running.

Install and activate Easy Digital Downloads Plugin

EDD Members is an add-on Plugin for Easy Digital Downloads so install and activate it first. After that setup your Easy Digital Downloads settings as you wish, here is excellent overview about basic configuration what you can do.

There are two setting you should look for under Downloads → Settings → Misc.

1. You should check Disable Guest Checkout (Require that users be logged-in to purchase files).
2. Under Show Register / Login Form? you should display Registration and Login Forms.

After all, you’re building a membership site and only logged in customer get expire date.

Configure EDD Members settings

By default nothing is private in your site when you install and activate EDD Members Plugin but setting up a private content takes only few clicks. Let’s walk through the settings under Downloads → Settings → Extensions.

1. Select which post type content you want to have private

Go to Downloads → Settings → Extensions and select which post type content you want to have private. In here you can see list of all public post types in your site. Posts, Pages and other Custom Post Types you might have in your site. All checked post will be private after you Save Changes. Remember that only singular views will be private.

2. Private comments

By checking this you’ll disable the comments for non members users.

3. Content for non members

Next you can change default text what non members see when they try to see private content. You can set different content for logged out and logged in users. This is helpful because you can set different text for logged out visitors and for logged in visitors who’s membership is not valid anymore.

Note that you can use links, images and even shortcodes in private content message. For example you can use {edd_members_expire_date} shorcode for logged in users.

4. Send Email Renewal Reminders

Next you can check if you want members to receive a renewal reminder when their membership is about to expire. For example you can set automatic email reminder one week before expire date and two days after expire date.

There are couple of email tags you can use in your email content.

1. {name} The customer’s name
2. {edd_members_expiration} User expiration date

Setup download items

You need to have at least one download item where you enable membership length creation.

1. Go to Downloads → Add New.
2. In Download Prices metabox you can check to enable membership length creation.
3. Note that if you enable variable pricing you can set different membership length for different prices!
4. Set how long membership are valid for. You can set it in days, weeks, months or years.
5. Also note that if you enable variable pricing those membership length will take over the setting How long are membership valid for?.

You can enable membership length creation for all your download items if you need. If user purchases more that one item membership will be calculated from the most lengthiest item.

Make single post type content private

Do you want to set only 10 of your posts private but all others are public for everyone? Yes, you can do that.

1. Edit post or page.
2. Look for metabox called Set as Private on the right.
3. Check this content as private in the metabox.
4. Repeat this for all your post you want to have private.

Shortcodes

Expire date

You can use {edd_members_expire_date} to output members expire date. It’s useful for example in account page or in private message content for logged in users.

There is one attribute called unknown_text. You can use it to overwrite default Unknown text which appears when there is no expire date set.

Here is example: {edd_members_expire_date unknown_text=”Unfortunately your expire date is unknown.”}

Remember to replace {} for [] when you use shortcodes. For example [this_is_shortcode], not {this_is_shortcode}.

Members only content

Shortcode {edd_members_only} can be used to show content for members only (expire date is still valid).  It works like this.

`{edd_members_only message=”This content is for members only.”}

We can add any content here which only valid members can see.

{/edd_members_only}`

Note! message attribute in shortcode is content for non members. If you don’t use it at all message will fallback what you have set in Downloads → Settings → Extensions for logged in and logged out users.

Drip content

You can release “drip content” or content that becomes available in sequence using shortcode {edd_members_drip}. It works like this.

`{edd_members_drip delay=”7″ message=”This content can be seen 7 days after purchase.”}

This is delayed content and I want it to show only after it’s been 7 days from purchase. It’s calculated from expire date.

{/edd_members_drip}

{edd_members_drip delay=”14″ message=”This content can be seen 14 days after purchase.”}

This is delayed content and I want it to show only after it’s been 14 days from purchase. It’s calculated from expire date.

{/edd_members_drip}`

Remember to replace {} with [] when using shortcodes in your content.

EDD Members name

Sometimes it’s useful to display users Display name in front end. You can do that using {edd_members_name} shortcode. It acceptsfieldattribute and have same values as get_the_author_meta function. Most common ones are:

• first_name
• last_name
• description

Example: {edd_members_name field="first_name"}

Modify expire date in users profile page

In some cases site admin might want to manually change users expire date. You can do that on users profile page.

1. Go to Users.
2. Edit the profile you want.
3. Locate text Membership expire date.
4. Set new expire date.
5. Update user.

Other plugin integrations

You can purchase Recurring Payments and you can enable private content for active members only in two ways.

1. When you edit post there is checkbox Active Subscribers only?
2. You can do the same for all selected post types under Downloads → Settings → Extensions.

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I have also tested EDD Members with Content Restriction extension and you can use them both smoothly. Here is more details how Content Restriction and EDD Members works together.

Screenshots in gallery

Check out the screenshots in gallery.

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