"Members only" section of a WordPress site - self signup and no backend access

Question

I'm working on a site which is mostly static content and one main blog. Because of this, WordPress looks like the best option to construct this site. However, the client is now looking for the following feature:

• There needs to be a "members only" section, with sub-pages, containing some slightly sensitive information
• Users need to be able to request an account and have their email address verified
• After verification, the admin wants to manually say "yes" or "no" to each registration request before the users are added as members
• Members shouldn't ever have access to the backend, but should stay on the site after registerring and logging in

Is there some plugin, or series of plugins, which makes this more straightforward? Does anyone have advice on how this is best set up?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Take a look at theme my login which covers:

• Redirect users upon log in and log out based upon their role
• Require users to be approved and confirm e-mail address upon registration

and in order to create you member only pages you can use your regular pages and simply add this function to your theme's functions.php is_user_logged_in()

add_shortcode('member_only','member_only_shortcode');
function member_only_shortcode($content){
    if ( is_user_logged_in() ) {
        return $content;
    } else {
        return __('You must log-in to see this content ');
    }
}

usage: [member_only]content to show your members[/member_only]

Answer 2

There's a few plugins that you can look at. There's a few of these that you can look at and write your own membership plugin catered to your client's needs.

• Members Only - Makes the entire blog available to members only. You can perhaps use some of the code here in your own plugin for your client.
• Membership - A Paid solution and I'm not sure what all it exactly does, but the link's provided for you to investigate.

Hope these help. If I come across any more, I'll throw them in this response for you.

Answer 3

I'm using Theme My Login in combination with Members for that.