Permissions Settings & Display For Articles Database

[FZ]

Hello,

I am having a problem with the Articles database. I use this database to store my articles which are shown on the front page of the website with one of the templates that IPS 4 ships with (3 columns and featured image). At the moment all article records are visible to all members and guests of the site. 

I want to start adding premium content in the Articles database that will only be accessible to subscribing members. I can do this by creating a database category and setting custom permissions on that category so that only members in the subscriber group can see the articles. This works. 

HOWEVER

If I do that the index of articles on the home page hides the articles that the non-subscribers can't access. I don't want this to happen because I want the non-subscribers to see those article listings but when they click on them be shown a "Subscribe" message (the message is easy). This seems like a fairly rational thing to do with your website, but I cannot figure out how to set this up in v4 of the software. Maybe I'm missing something? In v3 I would have created a custom block and this would have been a cinch but the template system in v4 is so radically changed I just can't figure out how to make a template that looks like the one used by the articles database. 

Is anyone able to assist me with this using the articles database settings or at least point me in the direction of some kind of template manual for v4 so I can make a block that does what I want? 

 

[opentype]

You can certainly edit the record view template, check the member group and then output the content only to premium members and a note about premium memberships to regulat members.

If you don't want to touch the templates, another option would be to add the premium content to an additional database editor field. For that field you can then control who sees it. So again, you could show that content to premium members and a note about the missing content to all other member groups.

[FZ]

I wish I knew how to do that. The jump from v3 to v4 template wise has me firmly in the darkness of compost with lots of mushrooms around me. 

So, a question I have for you about your Pages SuperGrid (which I like the look of) is this: do you have a template for blocks that looks the same as the grid for the articles index templates? That would solve this problem for me by replacing the database index view on the home page with a block that looks the same but can be configured to ignore the permissions of the content it is drawing. 

[opentype]

13 hours ago, FZ said:

do you have a template for blocks that looks the same as the grid for the articles index templates?

That’s currently not an option and not planned. 
I also don’t think it would be a good solution for your problem. Every post would look the same to all members, but some posts would then lead to the “Permission Denied” error that doesn’t even explain why that error appears. That would be pretty annoying and confusing for the non-premium members. 

[FZ]

I don't know that we're describing the same thing. 

If you have some time go check out my site. What I want is to have markers for ALL articles on the home page (as is currently shown). If an article is in the Premium category I want it to show the marker, but then when the visitor clicks on the marker they get shown a "Subscribers Only" message and a link to where they can subscribe. 

The whole idea is to mix free and premium content on the homepage so that it leads to more subscribers. If readers find the marker to the premium content interesting enough they will hopefully subscribe. However, if they don't see the marker how will they ever know that the premium content exists? 

[opentype]

Yes, I fully understand what you want and I have offered options and considerations about the ways to achieve this. It needs customization for a good result. If you want to do it yourself and have specific questions, e.g. what’s the template code to check the premium member group, feel free to ask. Otherwise you maybe want to hire someone to set this up for you. I could certainly do it. 

[FZ]

PM sent.