MemberPress has a built-in Groups feature — a tool that affects both front-end presentation and back-end functionality. But this Groups feature has some important limitations and disadvantages which, under some some circumstances, militate against using the feature at all and/or for displaying front-end pricing pages. In this article I’ll explain those limitations and disadvantages using a real-world scenario, and I’ll give you step-by-step instructions for creating your own membership pricing page that circumvents them.
Techniques
Short How-To articles, similar to Case Studies but on a smaller scale.
MemberPress Rules Using Custom Taxonomies and Custom Roles
When building access rules in MemberPress, one of the easiest ways to avoid chaos as your site grows is to rely on custom taxonomies and custom user roles. In this article, I’ll explain the benefits of each approach; how to implement them; and how, when used together, they can make your life immensely easier.
MemberPress Notification System Extended
MemberPress has a pretty robust notification system. But it can’t address every conceivable requirement. Here’s an overview of how I solved a client’s unique problem by extending the MemberPress notification system using Advanced Custom Fields (Pro) and a custom script that runs when a specific MemberPress action hook fires.
Create Accordions & Toggles in WordPress with HTML and CSS Only
Many WordPress themes have blocks or patterns for accordions and toggles. Also, there are more block addons for accordions and toggles than you can shake a stick at. But you don’t need special blocks to create accordions or toggles, and I strongly encourage you to roll your own, using either the classic editor or the Custom HTML Gutenberg block.
How To Use MemberPress to Protect Posts that Contain Custom Fields
If you’re trying to use MemberPress to protect posts that contain custom fields, relying on MemberPress rules alone will not work. Why? Because MemberPress rules only protect content that is outputted through the WordPress the_content() function. There are two primary approaches to solving this problem, and this article elaborates on one of them: using the WordPress “current_user_can()” function.
Responsive Tables with Minimal CSS
HTML tables have been around since the beginning of the web, when they were our only layout tool. Nowadays, we have much better layout tools (like Flexbox and CSS Grid), but HTML tables still serve a purpose: they remain one of the best tools HTML offers for presenting structured information in a matrix of rows and columns — except when the user’s device is too small for the content to fit.
Here’s how to make tables mobile responsive with just 12 lines of CSS markup.
Custom Front-End Member Listing for MemberPress Website
MemberPress is a great tool for creating membership websites, but it doesn’t offer much in the way of reporting functionality. This deficit is an opportunity for developers. Availing myself of that opportunity, I’ve created custom front-end member listings for some of my clients’ MemberPress sites. In this article I dive a bit into the member listing I created for the website of the Southeastern Bluegrass Association (“SEBA”).
Create a Membership Card for a MemberPress Site
A few days ago, someone in the “MemberPress Unofficial User Group” on Facebook asked how he could offer his website members a membership card that can be accessed on a phone to prove membership. It so happens I created such a membership card for one of my client websites, using the MemberPress Account Nav Tabs addon, a few standard MemberPress shortcodes, a bit of CSS, and one custom shortcode. This article documents that solution.
WordPress Custom Post Types: 6-Minute Video Summary
I write and talk a lot about Custom Post Types, and when I do, I’m painfully aware that people who aren’t WordPress developers are having their eyes glaze over. I’m hoping this short video conveys what Custom Post Types are and, more importantly, suggests ways that you can implement them on your own website.
Make a Poster Graphic with HTML and CSS Using Grid Template Areas — and NO Graphics Program
A client asked me to create an improved version of a poster graphic to be embedded in a marketing email. The main problems with the original graphic were color contrast and readability (too much prose text where bullet lists would be better). My initial approach was to open the original PDF in Adobe Illustrator and make the modifications there. However, the file’s layer palette was a hot mess of nested groups and clipping paths. Abandoning Illustrator, I opted to create the new graphic with HTML and CSS — specifically, CSS Grid and Grid Template Areas. This blog post shows how I did it.