A beginner's question about Mambo & aMember

I am currently used aMember on my site, but would like to make a new site - transferring all my info and members, using Mambo.

I am struggling to get a handle on how Mambo works by playing with it, but would like some info. on how I should set things up so that I can integrate it with aMember when I'm ready. I have read all the posts about Mambo & aMember, but didn't find what I was looking for and/or wasn't sure if the info was out of date now since some of the posts were quite old.

Here are the questions I have now...

1) I would like to have my home page be a mambo page that any user could see and then there would be a sign-up link and a log-in link for existing members. But, right now my mambo pages that I am playing with are at www.mysitename.com/mambo. How would I ever get my first mambo page to be my home page?

And do I use the log-in that is offered through Mambo's admin panel, or do I insert the login link that I have for aMember, somewhere on my home page?

And do I insert the link onto my Mambo page to the log-in using the /amember/login address?

2) I would also like to have some pages (other than the home page) that are free/open access for anyone -dont' need to register or anything, in addition to the pages that would only be accessable to paying subscribers. Is this possible? If so, what do I need to do to set them up in Mambo? In aMember?

3) Does the plug-in come with documentation that would answer these questions? I haven't purchased it yet.

I really just wanted to start setting up my Mambo site, but don't want to put time into it if I am doing it wrong and will have to change things in order to work with aMember...

One person I had asked thought I'd have to have a "regular" non-mambo page as my home page and then the members would log-in to get the the Mambo pages...Does that make sense? Do I have to do that? If not, is there any reason why I might want to?

I know this is a lot of questions, but I've searched through the Mambo forums and these forums and am not coming up with the answers I need. Please keep in mind that I don't have any strong programming knowledge or anything! THANKS!

Lisa

Thanks Alex.

Am I understanding correctly that I would NOT use Mambo's log-in at all, just amember's? And then people who sign up would have access to the pages I mark in Mambo as viewable by registered users only?

Also, I am going to have some memberships that allow access to those webpages and some that don't. Could you explain how I would set that up in aMember, so that the memberships that include web access give it to them and the ones that don't don't?

Thanks!
Lisa

Ok, so I turn on the log-in through mambo...but what about the sign-up - that would have to be directed to amember/sign-up/php , right?

Lisa

I've done what you're trying to do

Hi Lisa

Your site is identical functionality wise to my own. What I did was install Mambo in the root dir as Alex said then I removed the login module in mambo altogether and put the amember one in instead. I don't use Mambo's login at all.

I have two types of users, public and registered. Registered are my subscribers and they can only get a login through the amember signup form. Which I have put a link in my static content to.

Public users don't need any login to see freely available content they can just browse it.

So far it's working but there have been a few minor headaches along the way. You have to expect that whenever you integrate any software. But by and large it works. I'm really happy with the managability Mambo gives me site even though it was a big effort to set it up and understand it in the beginning.

The hardest thing about understanding Mambo is to get used to not changing code. Everything is handled in the admin panel and it's only when you want to change the physical layout, colours and modules in the template that you need to alter code.

Mambo's integration with amember is almost seamless. You do have a tweak a few things here and there to get it to disappear into the site but it's possible with perseverance. Probably the hardest thing is customising amember and mambo's templates to give you a uniform appearance. Weird things can happen if you have both Mambo's login and Amembers login on your site at the same time. To save these hassles I simply use Amembers login for everything and forget about the Mambo one.

Don't worry about making mistakes with mambo too much it's possible to move the entire installation to a new dir fairly simply and without any data loss.

I found getting the paypal plugin working much harder than Mambo's one. Mainly due to a lack of my understanding rather than the plugin itself.


Cheers
Claire

Oh, I'm so confused!

Claire,
I just responded to another post you wrote before I saw this one of mine that you responded to! : )

But, if you look at my question and Alex's answer, doesn't it seem that he is telling me to use Mambo's log-in and not aMember's?

Do you have Yahoo's instant messenger? I'd love to IM you about this and see if maybe you could explain a few things for me about the set up since you've done this before! I'm getting frustrated and my current subscribers are expecting my site to up and running (at least with minimal content to start with) by next week! Ahhh!

My Yahoo Messenger id is LTHOMPSON42003

Plus, I have a bunch of questions in to Alex, but he hasn't responded yet and it's been almost two days now.

Thanks!
Lisa

Hi Lisa

If you don't intend to allow registered users to add their own content to your site then you can use Amembers mod login instead of Mambo's. Then you'll get one login for your users. I had no problems using it for simply viewing already published pages. It worked perfectly.

I did run into trouble when using the Mambo feature that allows a registered user to add pages that are then admin approved and published. For some reason the single sign-in doesn't work with that.

Cheers
Claire

But how. . .

How did you incorporate the aMember log-in into your mambo site? Did you use a wrapper and direct it to ...amember/login.php or something else?

Thanks,
Lisa

I am also on the verge of integrating amember with mambo and just wanted some advice really.

The site itself is simply a newsletter site that has chargeable content. Users would NOT be able to add content to the site. All I want to do is charge for this content. Would I use the mambo login mod and point it at the amember signup page or buy the integration mod from amember (more money!) and use that. How easy is it to install this integration mod?

Mambo is currently installed in the root while amember is installed in a subfolder of root called amember. Is this correct? as I've seen on other forum posts that mambo needs to be moved to amember/protected/

I'd also want to use the 'my account' links to point to amember user account links. How easy is it to incorporate the amember pages into the main frame of mambo?

Any help appreciated.

Matt

No, wrapper not needed. The AMemberLogin Mod simply takes the place of the Mambo one. In the site modules screen unpublish the Mambo login and publish the Amember one giving it the same location details as the Mambo one. Done deal! My Signup page loads in a new browser window without nav controls (like a popup). Just add a menu link or URL link from any Mambo page. Works fine.

I've also wrapped the Amember signup page in Mambo and that works too if you specially want it to load within the Mambo site itself.

I would prefer to load the signup page within the mambo site so that it truly integrates. How did you go about this?

Also, how does amember update the mambo database with the user who just signed up as it seems all the module does is to route the customer through the amember signup process instead of the mambo one, if this is the case then $40 is a bit steep!!

Integrating mambo and amember

Hi Matt

It depends on how you want to run your site. My site features paid content and free content so I can't put Mambo under the amember/protected dir. It's installed in my root dir same as yours and works fine like that. What I've done is used the Mambo integration plugin (extra $$)

When someone signs up for my paid content Amember makes them a "registered user" in Mambo. If someone wants the free content Amember makes them a "public user" in Mambo. The integration plugin ensures that Amember signups are added to the Mambo database automatically.
I simply publish my content as either public or registered depending on whether it's paid or free content.

The Amember login mod is then installed and displayed on the site in place of the mambo one. So that once a user signs into the site they are signed into Amember as well and can access their account details without having to login again. Very nice!

But if you didn't have any free content as such then I suppose you could stick your Mambo install under the protected dir, publish all your docs as public so a Mambo login isn't required to read it and do without the integration plugin. But since I've never implemented it that way I have no idea how that would work or even if it would.

Amember pages are all PHP based which doesn't work in Mambo. You have to either put the Amember page in a seperate pop-up window which is an option from within Mambo when you are publishng links or you can use the Mambo module called "wrapper" which basically puts the PHP page in a frame and makes it look like it's running from within Mambo. I've tested this also and it seems to work ok. But for me it's just easier to have the Amember pages load in a new window. There is also an 'Unofficial" module for Mambo that allows it to execute PHP on a Mambo page but I've never been able to make this work due to lack of technical ability and patience.. You can find this on the Mamboserver forums.

Cheers

Using wrapper

To use wrapper and get amember pages loading in a Mambo page you go to site modules, make a copy of the wrapper module in there and edit the details so it loads the amember page into it. You can then play around with locations to have it display where you want it on the page.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my queries. Thinking about it now the site does have public content, just one section that I want protected, so I expect it's a similar setup to yours. If the wrapper function works then I guess I'll try that, will just need to read up on it before I delve in. It's just a shame that they charge $40 for something that a lot of other companies would give a way free or at least for a minimal charge.

Difference between Amember integration plugin and Amember login mod for Mambo

OK just want to clear this up in case of any confusion.

Amember Mambo integration plugin (optional extra) actually does the job of adding an amember signup into the Mambo database. It's a backend process that the user never sees.

Amember login mod for Mambo (packaged with the plugin) is a visual component in Mambo that is installed through site modules and does the job of logging a user into both Mambo and Amember after they have signed up.

Hope that helps

Yeah got that thanks. So would you create a wrapper for the signup pages and one for the 'user details' section of amember?

Yep, you need to create a new mod copy for each item you want to wrap because it only allows it to point to a single URL. So just rename each mod copy....

signup
subscription

etc...

Seem to have gotten the hang of the wrapper, wasn't all that hard. Although I did it through the mainmenu manager just adding a new menu link called signup and selected the wrapper option.

Thanks for all your assistance.

Matt