[Hayah]

Hi.

I have started learning joomla, and I have built some very easy websites.

Now I'm going to build a new website about how to build websites, how to get traffic and other information I think is valuable and wanna share. It's going to be in a blog-kinda-way. Newest post on top, and many different categories, like "articles" "guides" "resources" etc... But also have a very simple archive with old posts. I would also like to set up some kind of "premium content" (as a category) where people will need to become a subscriber to my website to get access to the premium content. I don't know how I'm going to do that.

Should I make a membership website, where subscribers would have to log in to get acces to the "premium content"?, or is it another way to do this. I think I could do it this way easily with joomla. I haven't tried wordpress, but is there a way to do something like this?

[Spit-wad]

I have used both Joomla and WordPress, and I prefer Joomla (and it could accomplish your task).
I made a post about it a while back: Made a Joomla Website
(since the website link is no longer in my sig, it's North American DotA Syndicate)

Anyways, I had a restricted area on the website for a while.
Since Joomla does not (yet) have customizable user ranks, you can use "Author" as your premium member skin, since it has the least power (essentially none) of any special rank.

Make the category/section you want restricted to Special, but still visible to anyone (so they know it's there). People will end up getting 403 - Forbidden errors when trying to access the page, so what I did is I made a custom 403 page (and a custom 404 page, but that's not relevant for this) that said something like, "Restricted area. If you are trying to reach the premium content area, you must be a subscriber. Link: asdfasdfsf)

Here's how to create a custom error page (replace the 404 with 403) if you want to do it that way:
How to create a custom 404 error page


Otherwise, you don't need that if you just make the premium content only VISIBLE to your subscribers, but then people might not know that they're missing something.


That was my solution - let me know if you have other ideas... I find Joomla pretty interesting (and amazing).

[Hayah]

That's a really nice site. It looks like you have a lot of experience with joomla.

That error-page idea is what I had in mind. A restricted area category, but visible to anyone. I want visitors to know how they will benefit from becoming a subscriber/member. Gonna read that guide.

I'm gonna try a few things and see how it works. Maybe a category called "blog" which will be the frontpage(index-page), and a "premium content" which will be restricted to registered members/subscribers, and everyone else will get a message "This category is restricted to subscribers. Click here to become a subscriber (link)" and also let them know what kind of content they will get access to if they subscribe. And also maybe a module showing what kind of information people can get if they become subscribers. Like "become a subscriber, and get access to this guide..."

Thanks

[Spit-wad]

Heh, it was actually the first site I had ever made with Joomla... but I sure spent enough time on it


Yeah, that plan sounds good - always a good idea to let people know what they're missing.
Let me know how it turns out

[swibit]

There used to be several exploits for Joomla. I'm just saying, if people are going to be paying for premium content.. you need to just to watch in case there are ways of gettting around paying or accessing the premium content without you knowing. Perhaps the exploits have been fixed now.. I just remember a while back.

[SapperX]

WordPress is a very nice piece of software that I'd recommend to anyone. It also has the functionality to do everything you mentioned, if not right out of the box then with the thousands of add ons. I use WordPress daily at work and joomla often, and always seem to prefer wordpress.

[Spit-wad]

Everyone definitely has their preference between the two.
I think everyone can agree that both are great tools, though... and they really are very similar.