The Users module allows visitors to have usernames and passwords for logging into the site. You can assign users to different groups, grant different levels of access to each group, and have a subscription-based service where you charge users a fee to be a member.
To begin, you need to install the Users module. This is the first module you see in the list when you click "Install New Module", and it is highlighted in orange.
The first thing to do after installing the"Users module is to go into the Preferences and configure it to your liking. The major options are:
- Administrative Email Address: It is important that you enter your email address here so you can get administrative notices.
- Automatic Registrations: If you want users to be able to sign up for the site without going through you, you want to set this to "Yes". If you only want to manually sign people up, leave this to "No".
- Groups: If you want to be able to put users into various groups for granting group-level access to various modules (e.g. people in an "Advanced" group get access to more stuff than people in a "Basic" group), then set this to "Yes". This module is most useful in conjunction with site subscriptions, where you set different prices to be in different groups.
- Subscriptions: This allows you to sell subscriptions to the site. You have to have a Business or Premier level PayPal account, and make sure you enter your PayPal address in the Preferences or else it won't work. This option must be used in conjunction with groups, and you can set up several levels of group membership with different prices.
Setting the Users Module as a Teaser
After you have the Users module configured, you probably want to give people an easy way to log in and log out. You do this by going into the Main Preferences and setting the Users module as a Teaser.
Setting the Users module as a teaser provides an easy way for people to log in, log out, register, and see other information about their membership status. If you don't set the Users module as a teaser, the only way people will be able to log in is when they try to access a restricted page, and they will not be able to log out unless they close the browser.
Restricting Module Content
Once you have everything configured for the Users module, you will now want to restrict other modules to only grant access to registered users.
In the "Preferences" section of each module, there will be a section near the bottom of the page titled "User Access". In this section you will see an option to restrict the page to registered users, and also further restrict the page to specific groups if you are using Groups and Subscriptions.
Whatever module that you restrict in this way will prompt the user to register or subscribe before being granted access.
You can do this either to your current modules, or you can create new modules that are specifically for the members.