Thread

I’m a programmer new to EE, and very excited to be using it! Need some help from some experienced EE folks on how you would approach these two high-level specs:

(1) Member Registration & Subscription

  (a) free and paid memberships (monthly or yearly recurring subscriptions via online payment gateway)

  (b) subscription management for members: can view/cancel and upgrade from free to paid subscription

  (c) custom member fields, some of which are only available to paid members; so different public-profile theme for free vs paid members; and different edit-your-profile page

Note: I’m aware of Membrr.com for (a) and (b). But how would you approach this? And what about (c)?

(2) Public Member Listing - zipcode search

  (a) member profile includes service-area-zipcodes: all the zipcodes that member services (potentially dozens). Preferable to store zipcodes in a new table where each zipcode is a new row, tied to member id (i can do more with the data this way).

  (b) public member listing shows different fields for free vs paid members

  (c) public member listing accessed via zipcode search that pulls members based on service-area-zipcodes; and handles nearby zipcodes.

Note: I’ve built a zipcode search using a US zipcode database/api before for a custom site, but never for EE. Would i need to build an EE Module here?

Thanks much for any help!
Ron

Hi,

I posted this thread on the Community Support forums but no reply. Since i just purchased EE, and new to it, thought perhaps Pre-Sales can give me some direction.

“free vs paid membership subscriptions AND member zipcode search”
http://ellislab.com/forums/viewthread/181873/

Thank you,
Ron

I can help with 1 more than 2. I have used membrr for a Yearly recurring subscription (its would be fine, probably better with monthly as well) and it does a and b perfectly out of the box, just follow their documentation. Also, try Membrr support if you have any questions. Brock over there is really helpful.

As far as C goes, you can easily get this functionality by using Solspace’s User module. It’s a must for any site with Public members and sounds like it would work perfectly for what you are doing. I have used it (on the same site as Membrr) and it works very well.

As far as different fields for free vs paid, its pretty easy to. Solspace’s User allows you to create member profile templates to allow users to create/edit their profile. Just use some member_group checking in your tags and you are good to go.

One caveat, Membrr has a glitch in their member group switching, so you would probably be better to always use Subscription tags to limit member functionality, although, you could see if you could get by with Membrr’s group switching ability, as long as you don’t do free trial plans.

Can’t help much with the zip codes, but writing your own ee plugin is actually really simple and the work you are trying to do wouldn’t be too bad, just need some clever sql queries.

Thanks blendimc!

ronherman, in regards to #2, I would strongly suggest not using your own zip code table. Zip codes change frequently and are a chore to maintain. You’d be much better off using a service like the Google Maps API to geocode zipcodes into latitude/longitude and then it’s a matter of a) storing the correct lat/lon for each member, and b) running the query to find members in a given radius and outputting the data in XML (for Google Maps). There are also add-ons to assist with this.

Essentially, yes, EE can do this. The blessing (or curse) is that there are many ways to go about it. A custom module might be preferable (I have gone this route when implementing a locator on one of my EE sites) depending on your exact needs. Hope this helps!

blendimc, Thanks! That’s very helpful. Membrr out-of-the-box is good news, and i’ll followup on their forum. And I’ll checkout Solspace’s User module. It would have been nice if their website showed more template samples, but i’ll just have to download and try it for myself. I really appreciate your help!

Brandon, yes you’re right - an API would be preferable. My particular use requires members to enter zipcodes in their service area, because their area may not be a perfect radius from a given lat/long. I’ll need to either purchase a renewing zipcode DB, or call an API to get lat/longs from zipcodes (better), and calculate my own distance. What i was referring to was a matching table between members and their zipcodes (member_id, zipcode). I’ll roll up my sleeves and get to work. Thanks much!

Ron