Incremental Plugin - New Mod Features

Over the past month or so I have been designing with Alex some mods to the incremental content plugin.
As it stands now if you wish to use the plugin when you log in and view the member page under each subscription is a long list of delivered incremental content. If you have LOTS of separate content (eg one lesson or file delivered each day) then this becomes a LONG LONG unwieldy list over time running down thru the page that forces a lot of scrolling.
The new version of the plugin that we specified does the following:
It allows you to set up GROUPS of incremental content.
You then attached each lesson/file etc of content to a group.
When a user then goes to the member page he/she only see his product subscription heading (as in Amember without the incremental plugin) and when they click on that they are taken to a page that writes the incremental links within Group subheadings, showing live links for content already delivered, and non live links for content that has not been delivered yet due to not having reached its activation date.
So if your site is a course based site this mod allows the incremental plugin to be FAR more functional.
It still has one minor bug and a couple of formatting deficiencies but these should be fixed within a week.
I will keep anyone interested in this mod to the plugin (which I think will eventually become a permanent feature of this plugin) updated in this post

Sounds like some nice improvements!
Looking forward to seeing it.

David

David,
The bug that we found (although minor) has been fixed as have all the formatting deficiencies except one which I guess wont take long now. I sent the specs for it in 2007 Word format rather than 2003 format and they couldn't read the file. So here's hoping it will only take a day or so. Its not a necessary change but just adds another field displayed in a list of maintenance choices.
Im not suire how many people use this plugin but unless you only use it to display a handful of incremental content pieces, then this mod is definitely worth getting. I hope Alex will add it to the plugin as standard as it makes it a really useful addition to amember now

The plugin is completed and tested.
All the fixes have been done and reformatting completed.
Anyone using this plugin who delivers more than a small handful of content incrementally over time should be asking Alex for this very substantial rewrite of the incremental plugin.
Its now killer plugin
Any users interested in details of its capabilities just leave a message here and I will post screen captures shots and specs of what it now can do.

No Probs Skippy. Am just going to bed right now and am out of the office tomorrow but will do caps and post them in 24 hrs from home

Here is a PDF file with screen captures plus a write up explaining the new version of this plugin. Im not sure whether it will be delivered as standard with purchase of the plugin yet but it can be had by asking for it if you purchase the product by contacting Alex.
You can download the PDF file from our sandbox site at the following:
http://www.caldemo.info/files/IC_Specs.pdf

All pages shown in the PDF file come with the plugin.
Headers and footers of course which weren't shown in the PDF are under the control of the user as they are with all installations of Amember. And some screen captures were cuts from the screen meaning that only part of the screen was shown that illustrated the features new to Amember with this plugin.
If by your question, that you were referring to the last page in the PDF which is headed MDR Course Content and shows all of the content links (some active, some inactive and as yet delivered all categorized in groups) ?
If so the answer is that, that page is automatically generated by the plugin for you and it becomes your index page for the entire product or subscription that you set up. It also is controlled by a template file and can be modified as well.
If you had multiple products/subscriptions with multiple sets of incremental content then you would have multiple editions of this page. To link to that particular page under the new version you simply link to ...

yoursite.com/amember/plugins/protect/incremental_content/?product_id=Z

....where "Z" can be any number and is the 'Product #' of the product/subscription.
All additional links for this product will be displayed there automatically divided into their categories or groups. You also have the option of displaying the active content links PLUS the as yet undelivered content links (as shown in the screen capture) or by changing an option in setup showing only live delivered links with the new links appearing as they meet their delivery date. You can also have uncategorized links which will show separately on that page as well. The only confusing thing with the plugin still and because of all the hard work done by Andrey and Alex I didnt bother mentioning as they have other tasks to perform as well for other people is group priority sorts in reverse order to what youd expect. i.e. rather than sorting priority 1 then priority 2 then 3, 4 , 5 etc it sorts highest priority number first to lowest 100, 99, 98, 97 ....3,2,1 etc. Its a very minor thing and its only a conceptual thing and doesnt effect the user once you realize whats happening. You can change priority orders for content after groups been set up anyway and the "index page for the subscription will chage order automatically.
The great thing about the plugin in general is that it will maximize your retention rate of subscribers.
In the past without incremental content, if a user subscribed after your site had gone live for a year, he or she would log in on day 1 and see 12 mths worth of content, download it all and unsubscribe. This way they have to remain a member for the entire length of the "course to get all the product, hence you make more money. The beauty also of showing inactive and undelivered links is that the subscriber can see how much more they can get from your site if they remain subscribed, hence once again, you make more money, and for most of us although not all Amemeber sites that is the goal.

Hi Steve,

This plug-in sounds cool -- good work!

How much customization control do we have over the subscription page (ie how many columns it displays the content in, the font, the wording placed before the groups, etc.) or is it fairly rigid? Also - does this work with the latest version of AM released this week?

Thanks,
C

It specifies in 2 columns, but Im sure Alex might do a special 3 col for you.
Font size, color, heading style etc can all be easily changed in the template.
Whilst you might easily display 3 cols with a small mod the fact is users eyes have a harder time reading 3 columns than 2. So for usability factors with your sers 2 columns is more optimal.
Because the page like most pages in Amember is templated, you can put as much wording before of after as you like

Steve,

Does this work with the latest version of Amember just released?

Thanks!

Yep, but 3.0.9, and 3.1.x use different versions. you need to ask for the specific version.

David

There ya go. Even I didnt know Alex had tricked it up for 3.1+. I still use 3.0.9.
Just wondering if anyone else has played round with it yet?
If anyone needs any help with it, I'd be glad to lend a hand, it's easy to install and once you get a grasp on how it works it's dead easy to drive, just don't get behind the wheel of it if you're drunk !

Hi Steve,

I have what I believe to be the latest version of the IC plugin...everything appears as you mentioned in the .pdf, except the "Groups" screen. Where do I find that to set up groups? (On the product settings page, it does have the drop down box to specify what group a piece of content belongs to...but I can't find where to set up the groups).

Thanks!

Ah -- appears you need to log out and log back in to refresh that part of the system (everything else was appearing just fine). FYI - I didn't do any special requests...I'm using the last AM version as of today, and just bought the IC plugin from online. I'll let you know how it works once we get it up and running this week...

Thanks!

I got caught on the same problem (no group maintenance option showing when I installed it.) Problem was page caching so you have to log out and re-enter to make it appear for the first time.
If you have any program errors with the new version put in a trouble ticket but if you require any conceptual help or help setting it all up send me a message Id be pleased to help

Great addition, will get it!

Just one question, does it integrate with the wordpress plugin?

I mean can articles or pages be "time delivered"?

Thanks

Peter

Yep!
I've figured out some neat hacks to allow wordpress to serve amember incremental content.

David