4.6 E-Commerce and multiple levels of paid subscriptions

By Ogredude on 24 Feb 2006 at 18:51 UTC

Okay, so this will be the home of the project to bring multi-level paid subscriptions with automatic Paypal recurring debits.

Here are our project requirements.

(This is just a kickstart to the discussion)

(From a discussion with ae2005)

4.6<\li>
automatic recurring debits via Paypal's recurring subscriptions function<\li>
ability to also use ecommerce module simultaneously (After debating the pros and cons, I personally think it'd be best to make it a contrib module to ecommerce, because I expect that they will support that module through all future releases) There are people on the thread who want it to not require ecommerce. what are your thoughts?<\li>
ability to still sell subscriptions via a one-time item paypal button (because that button will accept credit cards from people without a paypal account, whereas paypal's recurring subscription feature requries a paypal account)<\li>
more than one type of subscription (unlimited would be great.)<\li>
automatic removal upon expiration via cron<\li>
automatic upgrade to correct role before cron is run (ecommerce does this now, but not for multiple roles)<\li>
abililty to add people manually (e.g. people who mail in a check.) I believe ecommerce can do this currently via the cod module, but I haven't tested it.<\li>
correct timezones. (right now for paypal subscription to work I have to set timezones to gmt and disable local timezones.)<\li>

"nice to have" extras

some maintenance over time would be nice.
porting to 4.7 would be easy

Comments

This sounds good

rgbman commented 24 February 2006 at 19:00

I think you have a nice list of options. I second the ability to add users in manually and automatic removal.

Also it would be nice to have it where we can setup the payment lenght of time. So people can be encouraged to purchase a full year at one price but if they want to do it every month they can as well.

Good idea

Ogredude commented 24 February 2006 at 19:33

Actually, the way I'm planning it, this shouldn't be a problem at all.

It'd just be another "subscription level" with a different period and a different price, but the same role(s) assigned.

no address

kae commented 25 February 2006 at 01:44

per my reply to roddy in comment 96403 below, i would like to not collect shipping and billing addresses for subscriptions. thank you.

not conflicting with other node access modules

kae commented 26 February 2006 at 15:54

Ogredude,
there is an important issue that we need to think about. will this turn out to be one of those "node access" modules that cannot be used together with og? current practice is that "node access" modules such as organic groups and taxonomy access will conflict with each other and cannot be used together.
http://drupal.org/node/43488

in a worst case, they can destroy your site. My site (a test one) is ruined right now in that I installed devel (2 people had admin roles), organic groups, and ecommerce (before your code). It got completely messed up to the point where no one could get admin access (yes, I edited the mysql tables). Finally, by changing the code in devel I got back in enough to disable devel and og.
node 49273
Right now my site looks like it needs a database wipe. the problem is that if I enable og (without the devel I hacked), then anonymous has ALL rights over site (including all admin rights) WITHOUT logging in.

I'm planning to use this module and run og at the same time. (I haven't looked into whether I can use og group membership as one of my subscription roles but in an ideal world that's what I'm aiming for.) Jeff below plans to use taxonomy access to provide access to subscribers.

it would be important for this module to not conflict with other node access modules, if it is a node access module. if that's a difficult problem, let's discuss (perhaps offline) how much more money would be entailed. thank you.

Should be no problem

Ogredude commented 6 March 2006 at 21:27

This shouldn't be a problem. The desired effect of the subscription system is simply to assign the user to one or more roles, and remove those roles upon subscription expiration. Any access from there on out is up to the user.

I would suggest contacting

sepeck commented 24 February 2006 at 19:50

I would suggest contacting Gorden (http://drupal.org/user/959) the current ecommerce maintainer. I know there is a lot of back end work going on for 4.7 updates. This way you can coordinate what you are doing with everyone else.

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
_{Drupal Best Practices Guide}

Yep!

Ogredude commented 6 March 2006 at 21:28

We're already in touch with him. (at least, ae2005 is.)

email notif

kae commented 24 February 2006 at 22:23

I forgot to add on the list
11) proper sending of email notifications (paypal sub sends them at the wrong times, but that might get fixed once other problems are fixed)

extras, nice to have's
*) localization. I only need English for now, but I don't know if this is required for checking code into cvs
*) conforming to cvs standards. I don't know if there are strict standards about number of blank spaces at the beginning of lines, naming, etc. I've seen comments asking code to be fixed to this effect.

sepeck -- thanks. we've been emailing gordon but I'll drop him an update so we can stay synched.

anyone else, if you are willing to contribute cash toward the bounty, please send me a private message. thank you!

again, thank you Ogredude!

Just checking :)

sepeck commented 24 February 2006 at 23:57

Just checking

As it is, I need to figgure out ecommerce soon for my own use. I imagine it will be fun never having used it. :)

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
_{Drupal Best Practices Guide}

subscriptions module

SheilaRuth commented 25 February 2006 at 00:42

I personally would rather not do this via the e-commerce module. I tried e-commerce and found it to be too complicated for my needs. For example, I didn't like that people had to add the subscription to a cart and then check out. For something like a subscription, a shopping cart is unnecessary and the extra step will make it more likely that something will go wrong for the subscriber or they will bail before checking out. I would rather just have a straightforward pay button like the Paypal module.

The other requirements (some of them are already on the list) that are important to me are:
- Ability to manually add members to the role (so that they won't be automatically removed)
- Different subscription lengths (1 month, 1 year, etc) that can assign to the same role
- Ability to view/display the expiration date.
- Ability to use regular one-time payment buttons as well as recurring payments. I would not use the Paypal recurring payments.
- email to members when their subscriptions are about to expire, like the current paypal subscriptions module.

Hi,

Roddy commented 25 February 2006 at 01:14

Hi,

Pretty much everything I have to say on the matter is already over at 44295, and I imagine the most pertinent points are already filtering through to this discussion via the tireless ae2005. On the issue of basing work here on paypal_framework + paypal_sub vs ecommerce, I'd like to add the following, bearing in mind that I've tried both (neither with complete success)

Ecommerce subscriptions are in themselves a hack to the ecommerce set-up. You'll see this when, for example, you have no choice but to enter a shipping address for a subscription. I don't know how many modules you have to activate to get one subscription up and running, but I suspect it's around half a dozen.

The two paypal modules however, were built from the ground up to do what is needed here, and if you are running a very simple one sub / one role set-up they should already work fine. I think all that is needed is some fine-tuning of the cron code and multiple subs will be right there. Combine that with a file download module and you can sell both site subscriptions and / or programs / podcasts, etc very easily. There's some additional stuff that could / should be done, but it's that cron code which is the killer right now.

I'm on record as saying that ecommerce is great work - but how many people want to be selling physical products? And how many want to take umpteen forms of payment? I suspect most people want to be able to assign various user roles, take Paypal automatically, and anything else can be done manually, because they'll only need to do it once in a blue moon.

I think taking the ecommerce route will slow things down, and put people off installation when they see a whole load of stuff they don't understand / need. People want a small, simple arrangement that will allow them to bring in a little cash from the content on their site, and that's about it.

Thanks for everyone's work in keeping this moving.

EDIT: As an afterthought - is the framework module being used in any other modules just now? Perhaps the two could be merged?

p

kae commented 25 February 2006 at 01:42

roddy,
thanks for your thoughts
paypal framework was also used for tipjar, i think.

i also want to sell digital downloads. it is possible we may sell physical goods.

i believe the fact that ecommerce requires a shipping address for subscriptions is a bug.

i agree. i do not want to collect shipping addresses on my site for subscriptions, so I suppose I'll add that as a feature request.

agree

jeff h commented 25 February 2006 at 06:12

I agree with this - in my tests eCommerce seemed a very intrusive process as far as user experience goes.

What I would like is:

* user clicks one of several Paypal buttons on my site, each representing a different "subscription"

* the user is taken to the paypal site to pay, then returned to my site where they will be greeted with a "thanks for paying" page and links to new info that they did not have access to previously

* the user's role will be upgraded automatically as soon as they have paid in paypal

* each "subscription" is in fact just a taxonomy term on my site. Thus content tagged with a certain term will only be viewable by certain roles, which require payment to have assigned (using taxonomy_access module)

Hope that makes sense. I don't want/need any payment history in the user profile, and especially not any delivery address collection etc

I am unsure re eCommerce vs upgrade of paypal framework & PS modules.

(+) eCommerce is probably going to have very assured future development, which is always comforting

(-) eCommerce has SO MANY modules! And it seems so rigid in its checkout process :( I just want to do one simple thing as outlined above.

I think my vote leans toward a single, unified "paypal subs + PS" module, but only because of the current rigidity and complexity of eCommerce. If eCommerce could be made such that its workflow is far more flexible, that benefits not only us but the eCommerce crowd as well :)

Whichever path is chosen, it would be nice to be able to sell physical products in the future (ie if we go with paypal framework it would have to be compatible with eCommerce).

Also... PLEASE I will need 4.7 compatibility :)

Thanks heaps to all involved in this effort.

Jeff

_________
http://marmaladesoul.com

taxonomy access

kae commented 26 February 2006 at 15:43

Jeff,
you make an important point about taxonomy access. I'll be using organic groups instead of taxonomy access. we do need to think about this role upgrade not conflicting out access modules.

Simple access

sangamreddi commented 26 February 2006 at 15:58

Have a look at simple_access module simliar kind of functionality.

Sunny
www.gleez.com | www.sandeepone.com

same

kae commented 26 February 2006 at 16:16

sunny,
thanks for your suggestion. based on what I know (node listed near top of this thread) simple access conflicts out og the same way taxonomy access does. However, if you are using multiple node access modules together without problems, please post here what you are using! great "fancy" theme you made!

No ideas on Multiple access modules

sangamreddi commented 26 February 2006 at 18:06

I haven't used mutiple access modules, I prefer taxonomy access, but based on the clienst requirments i'll be using simple access modules. It was true there are conflicts when we use multiple access modules.

Some one wrote a module which supports mutiple access modules, That module hasen't been in the contributed section, it was there in the forums, if my memory is right it was more than six months back, I'll try to search it, if I get the link, i'll post it here. Thanks for the comments on my fancy theme, more in my wish list, if time permits i'll design and contribute.

Sunny
www.gleez.com | www.sandeepone.com

here it is

kae commented 2 March 2006 at 00:51

thank you. here's the link
http://drupal.org/node/43488#comment-80874

a little confused

jeff h commented 2 March 2006 at 05:00

Are you saying that modules which upgrade a user's role (but don't do any access control themselves) are liable to conflict with the access-control modules? If so, I agree with your comment - it's essential for my project that I can still use taxonomy access.

It sounded to me a little like you were implying this new paypal subs module would do some kind of access control in itself? That's not the case is it?

Jeff

_________
http://marmaladesoul.com

not the case

kae commented 2 March 2006 at 21:09

Jeff,
ogredude believes that ps is not a node access module, and I agree. At this point, we think this will not be a problem.

Not a problem

Ogredude commented 6 March 2006 at 21:33

This should not be a problem at all, as the subscription module will merely assign role(s) to users, and remove those role(s) upon subscription expiration. All node access will be handled with whatever module(s) the end user installs on their system.

This is an excellent idea

phoebe-1 commented 25 February 2006 at 08:48

As we are about to look at installing PayPal modules, I found this thread and its predecessor and started worrying about all the issues.

The functionality of being able to upgrade users once they pay a subscription is a very common need and we ought to have a dependable way of doing it, so thank you for taking the initiative to get one worked out.

The only thing I didn't see in your list of 'wants' above that I think is absolutely essential is the ability to be able to connect the user's Drupal ID with their PayPal e-mail, which more often than not isn't the same as the e-mail they've registered with the Drupal site. On our community, people often protect their privacy by using a pseudonym for posting, with a matching e-mail, but will have their 'real' e-mail on their PayPal account. They don't mind us, as site admins, knowing them both but they don't want the real one made public by using the for registration.

I wouldn't have any problem with it being linked with e-commerce, but as others have said, we don't really want to force people to go through a long involved set-up for a simple access subscription.

I may also be able to contribute some funds to this if it could deal with the e-mail issue.

Phoebe
--
Visit The Town
meet ~ discuss ~ connect
www.the-town.org

Drupal and Paypal email addresses not synched

kae commented 26 February 2006 at 15:42

Phoebe,
thanks so much. you make a good point. we haven't made it a feature request because it would entail additional work. Can you please private message me and let me know how much you can contribute for this feature! thank you!

E-Commerce and multiple levels of paid subscriptions

coupet commented 28 February 2006 at 01:58

Thanks ae2005 and Ogredude for this initiative!

I think this module should be independent of e-commerce and work concurrently with e-commerce if required.

This module strength should be:
- subscription management
- subscription reports
- subscription payment gateway extension by adding a plugin (see node 21589)
- Integrate with Taxonomy
- Integrate with Node relationship modules (no preferences)
- Integrate with LoginToboggan

Apache is bandwidth limited, PHP is CPU limited, and MySQL is memory limited.

What abt other payment gateways

sangamreddi commented 28 February 2006 at 10:47

Hi all,

I am presently working on an ecommerce project, I am looking for paid subscriptions solutions, this thread has the useful info.

What about other payment gateways, like authorize.net and e-xact.com have any ideas?

I am not able to find a solution to create a subcription form like this http://www.dv-lottery-green-card-state.org/dv_online.php
Is there any possible ways to create a form like this.

Thanks in advance

Sunny
www.gleez.com | www.sandeepone.com

other gateways

kae commented 28 February 2006 at 15:53

civicactions has something for authorize.net but is not recurring.

gordon heydon might do something using authorize.net but is not an urgent priority.

your form subscription is an interesting question. to me it's separate from subscriptions but I see it is also different from a file download.

Thank you

sangamreddi commented 28 February 2006 at 16:04

Thank you ae2005. I appreciate your hardwork, as an after thought I got an idea for my problem. I'll use ecommerce package, it has support for authorize and exact payment gateways. For the form solution i'll use AJAX, for the form display, so all the subsequent pages will be loaded on that page. It's only a partial solution. I didn't try. I'll have a word with my client too.

Edit: I am lucky i dont need recurring payment, only one time payment.
Sunny
www.gleez.com | www.sandeepone.com

running multiple sites using Paypal autoreturn

kae commented 2 March 2006 at 00:42

I just remembered there may be a problem with using Paypal recurring subcription feature, IPN, and autoreturn with multiple sites. I've only found one place where I can specify a return URL. I was planning to run several sites. (Paypal limits you to 1 business account.) If anyone knows where Paypal lets you use multiple sites for IPN and autoreturn (and recurring subscriptions) please post it here!

multiple websites using paypal IPN

guckie commented 3 March 2006 at 03:12

You can modify paypal.module so that the variables sent to the paypal payment screen will include 'notify_url'. The 'notify_url' value you send will override the default IPN url designated in your profile (on a per-transaction basis).

FOR PAYPAL MODULE RELEASE 4.6, do this:

1) FIND this line:

$cancel_url = (!strstr(variable_get('paypal_cancel_url', 'node'), 'http://')) ? $base_url. '/'. variable_get("paypal_cancel_url", 'node') : variable_get("paypal_cancel_url", 'node');

Immediately below, INSERT:

$ipn_url = $base_url .'/paypal/ipn';

2) FIND this line:

                     'return'         => $return_url,

Immediately below, INSERT:

                     'notify_url'     => $ipn_url,

3) FIND this line:

    if ($key == 'return' || $key == 'cancel') {

REPLACE with:

    if ($key == 'return' || $key == 'cancel' || $key == 'notify_url') {

You can install this altered version of paypal.module from site to site to site and it will send the respective IPN url to paypal (corresponding with each transaction).

Hope this helps!

thank you

kae commented 4 March 2006 at 01:24

guckie,
this is great! thank you very much. sounds like you can help. perhaps you can private message ogredude. (perhaps we can even build in!) also let him know about the other problem you wrote about with ecomm, that roles was upgraded even if user cancelled payment. ae

you're welcome

guckie commented 4 March 2006 at 02:25

Glad I could be useful in some way. =)

To try to keep from confusing things, since this thread is about 4.6 e-commerce, I'm going to withhold explanation of the issue with role upgrades occurring prior to completion of payment (I've only found that issue in current cvs, which is 4.7-oriented code).

IF (big IF, I haven't tested for this).. but IF there is a role upgrade/downgrade issue in e-commerce 4.6, about all I can do at the moment is to suggest taking a look at code surrounding where function store_change_role() is called in store.module. I've tried narrowing down precise code responsible for the role upgrade/downgrade to figure out if it's failing a conditional check of some kind, but to be honest with you, I'm not a programmer.. so it takes me a hundred times longer than it should to figure out what I'm looking at.

If I do manage to arrive at any breakthrough information that I think would help, I'll drop you a note on this thread. =)

autoreturn

kae commented 4 March 2006 at 15:22

guckie,
do you have this up and working?
i think we can build it in as comment in the code
i'm going to post some questions on your other thread. 52168 specifically, what are you doing about autoreturn?
thanks also for the note below. ae

okay

guckie commented 4 March 2006 at 20:40

see 52168#comment-78544

in patch form ---

dreed47 commented 24 April 2006 at 04:33

in patch form --- http://drupal.org/node/60048

Easy with PayPal's "Buy Now" buttons

Ogredude commented 6 March 2006 at 21:36

If you're using Paypal's buy now buttons, the code for those includes the return url and cancel url. This is on a per-button basis. So conceivably if you're offering up multiple products (be they physical, download, or subscriptions), each one could return to a different node after payment. No problem.

Some ideas ...

keym commented 3 March 2006 at 09:55

Hi all,

Just found this thread, and also read through ae2005's related threads. Boy... lots of work.

Thought I would point out a few ideas I think most people might want but have not seen yet.

1. notification emails sent to subscribers prior to expiry, reminding them their subscription is about to end and offering an easy link to renew.

2. Admin reports indicating:
- how many paid subscribers
- on which plans
- their starting dates
- their expiry dates
- # subscribers in each plan and total
- # new subscribers in last month

3. Susbcriber "My Account" area
- Susbcriber can view which subscriptions he has subscribed to
- Susbcriber can see when his subscriptions will expire
- Susbcriber can upgrade his subscriptions.
- Susbcriber can cancel his subscriptions.
- Susbcriber can add additional subscriptions

etc.

For ideas for features/requirements you may have overlooked, see:

http://amember.com/p/Main/Features

It seems to do exactly what we want here, (and most importantly) it professes to already integrate with Drupal, but it may be on the expensive side for many used to opensource and on a tight budget: US$135.

However, it is probably more solid than the module this thread will produce (at least for the first few months until the bugs are ironed out), and may be a possibility for those needing a solution now. There are others like it on the market, maybe some others also integrate with Drupal.

Anyways, if this product gets off the ground and is open source, it will help everyone.

BTW, Joomla has also done something similiar, still reatively immature though.

http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,37724.msg207629.html#msg207629
http://joomlapalooza.com/

Anyways,

All the best.

features

kae commented 6 March 2006 at 19:14

keym,
thanks for your thoughtful note.
1) i thought that's in the current ps
2) would be quite a bit of extra work. were you interested in contributing?
3) same as 2)

I agree. It really is impt to have these features. subscribers expect to see their account data. we didn't request this yet because it's not currently in ps and would cost quite a bit of money, I imagine.

I thought about using a commercial modules. this is why I decided against it.
1) I didn't think it would integrate well.
2) I wanted something opensource that I could customize.
3) I wanted to have something built into Drupal so that others can use the functionality and write more enhancements down the road.
4) I wanted to support Drupal

I agree that another module would be the right choice for many people. Andread went off to investigate one but unfortunately did not post back. Please do post back with whatever you learn! thank you.

I'd like to help

alext-1 commented 6 March 2006 at 02:25

Hi -

I am php developer, new to drupal, and have a project due in a month that needs to sell time-based subscriptions (recurring would be great) for users to get access to site content.

I would like to help if I could and get my project finished as well.

What is the status of this project? How can I help?

I am still wonding if paypal framework and subscription would be the best solution, but I would prefer not to use paypal.

Thanks

I'd like to help

coupet commented 7 March 2006 at 02:00

For time-based subscriptions, paypal framework and subscription would be ideal but are very buggy, the initial concept for these modules is very good, and Ogredude is working to resolve those issues.

ecommerce module can also be used for time-based subscription, but only allow for one role assignment. Your contribution in expanding the role assignment functionality when creating products would be welcome.

Apache is bandwidth limited, PHP is CPU limited, and MySQL is memory limited.

getting updates

kae commented 7 March 2006 at 00:34

Ogredude has graciously set up a website where we can get updates. If you want access, send me or him a private message.

by the way, Ogredude's first step is to try fixing ps since it has all the code already, just does not work.

anyone want a Drupal ecommerce mailing list? I'm willing to set one up using googlegroups.

by the way, it took drupal.org 3 minutes and 45 seconds for this page view. I have a lot of trouble with delays on drupal.org but not other sites. anyone else have this?

getting updates

keym commented 7 March 2006 at 08:04

Hi ae2005,

Rather than a mailing list, wouldn't setting up a threaded discussion forum be better?

Maybe the people at Drupal might be willing to create a sub-forum for this project (he asks naively)?

Thumbs up

sangamreddi commented 7 March 2006 at 08:37

Rather than a mailing list, wouldn't setting up a threaded discussion forum be better?

+10

Sunny
www.gleez.com | www.sandeepone.com

yes

kae commented 7 March 2006 at 17:01

do you mean a mailing list like the developers mailing list? maybe if we got a petition together. the core team is so busy trying to get 4.7 released I don't think this would get done just because of other priorities. who are the people who have the authority to set up a new mailing list? Dries is the only one I know of.

Threaded Forum not a mailing list

keym commented 9 March 2006 at 08:04

Hi ae2005,

Actually I didn't mean a mailing list. I meant a forum. Just like the forum this thread is a part of.

So, under:

Home » forums » Support » Module development

Perhaps we can get a new subforum created entitled:

Home » forums » Support » Module development » Subscriptions

Then you could have multiple threads, each can be replied to.

I think this is definitely a much more attractive option than a mailing list. Alternatively, anyone with a drupal site can slap on a forum for this project.

Do you have an issue/feature/bug tracker set up?

I am willing

sangamreddi commented 9 March 2006 at 13:49

Alternatively, anyone with a drupal site can slap on a forum for this project.

If interested I will setup a subdomain for this project on one of my sites.

Sunny
www.gleez.com | www.sandeepone.com

thx

kae commented 9 March 2006 at 16:49

sangam,
thx. i think it would be nice if we can't get something on drupal.org. how would we track it on your site? I check this site all the time.

Welcome

sangamreddi commented 9 March 2006 at 19:14

Hi ae,

My doors will be open all the time, if you can't get it done thorugh drupal.org or for any other reasons, if we need a space for this project just contact me.

It would be better on this site, i dont know whetehr they will agree it or not.

Sunny
www.gleez.com | www.sandeepone.com

possible

kae commented 9 March 2006 at 19:05

keym,
as far as i know, this has never been done. (just checked this page:
http://drupal.org/forum/4)

I think it would be a great idea. In fact, I would go farther and say that we should make it possible to create that for any and every (important) module.

I believe sepeck and someone else had a discussion about this possiblity when sepeck's handbook reorg thread was on the front page and sepeck didn't favor this idea. perhaps i
misunderstood.

i think it would make drupal.org about 100 times easier to use (take 1/100 of the time to find something)

is there a subforum like what you are proposing set up elsewhere on drupal.org?

I set up an issue for ps at 53231 and an issue for ecomm at 53234. I guess I should have named it paid membership being worked on instead of paypal sub being worked on, but you can't edit headers there. I tried to assign it to ogredude but i only have privileges to assign to myself.

try but if they say no... try elsewhere

keym commented 10 March 2006 at 08:03

Hi ae2005,

I don't think it has been done here either.

I have spent a bit of time in the Joomla and XOOPS arenas, and they seem to be ahead of Drupal in how they manage the communication and organization of individual projects. That's ok, every project has it's strengths and weaknesses.

Joomla is best at it in my opinion. A project has an entry in the Joomla forge, but the project also has it's own independant site with forum, bugtracker, download area, wiki, gallery, news, newsletter etc.

That said, there is no point trying to boil the ocean. If it is not currently possible to do within the main drupal site, that doesn't have to be a showstopper.

What you can do, is list your project in the drupal module list.
http://drupal.org/project/Modules

Include a good description of the project there, detailed enough to arouse people's interests. Show it is active, alive and likely to get somewhere. A plan of some sort will do the trick for this. Then, in that description, include an URL to a "project site".

In the Drupal universe, the best example of this approach is http://civicspacelabs.org/home/

Another good example is the civicCRM module
http://www.openngo.org/

You don't have to have as large a scale as them, but the basics of forum, bugtracker/issue tracker, download area, wiki, gallery, news, documentation, login ability, need to be there.

You could use Drupal for that site. That might be easiest for this crowd. I imagine all the fuinctionality is already available already as drupal modules.

if sangamreddi is willing to offer his site space, it may be a good idea to take him up on it. A few people should keep site/DB backups also in case for whatever reason the site disappears and sangamreddi is unreachable.

That's it.

The main thing is communication, regular news updates on the site, and you will soon see the reader list grow.

Someone has to takecare of administration

sangamreddi commented 10 March 2006 at 13:22

I am busy with other works, so someone has to take care of the administration. although I'll take the nightly backups.

if sangamreddi is willing to offer his site space, it may be a good idea to take him up on it. A few people should keep site/DB backups also in case for whatever reason the site disappears and sangamreddi is unreachable.

Its good for site admins to take regular backups using db module or sympal scrpits.

Sunny
www.gleez.com | www.sandeepone.com

done; www.drupalecommerce.com

kae commented 10 March 2006 at 19:17

keym and reddi,
keym, thanks for describing how joomla works. that certainly sounds like it would work better.
reddi, thanks for offering your space.

after thinking this over, i decided the best course of action is to set up www.drupalecommerce.com. I've been thinking about something like this for awhile, because i'm keeping voluminous notes about how to do things in drupal, and I need a way to organize my notes, as well as give an opportunity for anyone else who wants to write notes and tips.

i set it up just now with 4.7.0b5. I've only used civicspace up to this point (4.6) which has many more modules installed by default. so i don't know how to do a lot of things in 4.7 yet that i could do in civicspace. and some of the modules i'm used to (urlalias) are not in the default install. i installed theme-editor by hand but couldn't get it to work. i might have missed a step. (my earlier experience with 4.7 contrib modules is that many aren't ready.)

anyway, as i tried to set it up i remembered why it's so difficult to navigate long lists in drupal. the pulldown list gets too long.

i'll have to try one of the taxonomy management modules. any suggestions on which one to start with first?

this is a good dry run for the site i'm trying to build, in that i need content to really figure out how to use drupal.

i believe my host (opensourcehost) does weekly backup automatically but i'll look into nightly backups once the site has some content.

please look at site and post and make suggestions here or there. i'm sure many of you understand drupal far better than i do.

Nice work

sangamreddi commented 10 March 2006 at 19:50

This would be best deal anyway. enable the drupal module, so no need of registration for druplicans again, they can login with drupal id. i'll follow up there and finally thanks for using my theme.

Please use the cvs version of theme for sifr to work perfectly. I see you're using different version of fancy theme for 4.7 b5. There are certain changes in 4.6/4.7b4 to 4.7 b5 in base path issues.

Sunny
www.gleez.com | www.sandeepone.com

thank you!

kae commented 10 March 2006 at 20:11

done. drupal id enabled. i meant to say above I was using your theme. great theme! Will get cvs version of fancy. that explains why i get the error messages.

Drupal.org pages

nedjo

he/him/his

English

commented 10 March 2006 at 20:36

Note that there are developers' pages on E-Commerce,
http://drupal.org/node/52325
plus a place you can post tips and tricks
http://drupal.org/node/52744

thx

kae commented 10 March 2006 at 20:45

Nedjo,
thanks. the drawback for us users is that comments for handbooks have to be approved (and may disappear into the approval queue) and that comments might be deemed not important enough (and removed).

I also have about 300 pages that I want to organize in a way that seems logical to me (and perhaps not logical to the handbook team), and so the handbook doesn't seem like the place for it! I know managing the handbooks is an enormous job. Many thanks to you all who do it.

new project site

keym commented 11 March 2006 at 19:18

Is http://www.drupalecommerce.com/ the new site for all postings/status/updates from now on? Is this thread officially defunct?

Does this project/module(s) have a name (is it drupalecommerce)?

no

kae commented 14 March 2006 at 00:05

keym,
no. i'll still put updates here, but not the minor announcements.

i'm trying to set up the other site so each module can have it's own page, but i'm realizing drupal does not handle long lists well. (check out the long pulldown box if you submit a book page on drupal.org). it'll take me a while to figure out a way to make the site do this.

thanks for asking.

DrupalEcommerce.com

reg commented 13 August 2006 at 23:01

I was looking through for multi-level PayPal and role assignments, found this thread and decided to looking at www.drupalecommerce.com.

It's blank. Is it still up for being created or has something happened?

_{--

Reg | www.AceWebGroup.com}

Paid Subscriptions Levels and Listings Visibility

marcoBauli commented 14 March 2006 at 11:03

Hello,

followed this with lot of interest!

Would the project be suitable to configure different Subscription Levels for advertisers (eg: basic, premium, top) so they can buy more or less visibility of their Listing on the site?

I explain better:

. Suppose a Directory site with 'Restaurants' and 'Shops' listings organized by states and cities.
. Advertisers register to the site and insert the Listing for their activity (a flexinode or CCK form)
. Based on the membership level they subscribe, they get:

1. listing higlighted on search results
2. an image gallery
3. their listing on specific pages (eg: on a right-sidebar block of a particular city page or state page)
4. listing featured on homepage

I am currently looking for this kind of feature, do you reckon it is fesable within this project? Eventually i would be interested in co-sponsoring / donating.

Keep this going!

that'd be great

kae commented 14 March 2006 at 19:35

i agree that this would be terrific for many people. i think there's a lot of coding before we get there. not knowing how to code, i'd say it's weeks of programming hours.

Hi,Since the paypal subs

jeff h commented 21 March 2006 at 00:46

Hi,

Since the paypal subs module will be ugrading a user's role after payment, your goals are more built upon roles than around subscriptions ie "based on a user's role" rather than "based on the membership level they have subscribed to". Not a major difference, but in terms of building your Drupal site, a different mindset may open up different possibilities.

Using roles and role-based taxonomy access, you can achieve:

* 2 via administer > access control.

* 3 and 4 via taxonomy_access, allowing members with a certain role to create content under a certain taxonomy term, which is then listed on a specific page either by a taxonomy summary page or with the new views module.

* 1 is trickier. The built-in search won't provide a facility to highlight certain nodes, but it should be possible to provide node listings which would be able to highlight certain nodes based on whether they are assigned a specific taxonomy term (as in 3 above). I expect this would have to be done via some PHPtemplate theme code which would apply a CSS style to each node that has a specific taxonomy term applied.

I think there might be PHP snippets that will return node listings filtered by the role of each node's author. It's possible the views module will do something along that line too (?).

Just a couple of ideas - I haven't looked into my suggestions fully but I hope you find something that will work! Sorry if my post isn't the clearest - my brain isn't fully here right now :)

Jeff

_________
http://marmaladesoul.com

Yes! Or..

marcoBauli commented 12 April 2006 at 11:05

Thanks Jeff, what you suggest is a good way to puzzle and get the feature i am looking for!

Also now know a little more about Drupal ;) and in the meanwhile i tryed to figure out another recipe for this task (i posted below here).

As soon as i will start experimenting and getting things to hopefully work i will update here.

thank you

marco

move subscriptions to own module

coupet commented 14 March 2006 at 16:30

move subscriptions to own module
http://drupal.org/node/53888

gordon - I have been looking at subscriptions a lot today for a client, and I think that the subscriptions could be completely moved to a stand a lone module by using the nodeapi, the formapi, and some of the other e-commerce api's that exist.

This would make the core a lot cleaner, and easier to maintain.

new list

kae commented 17 March 2006 at 22:52

NEW ecommerce developers email list

Good news! there is a new official ecommerce developers mailing list. When Dries comes back this will be moved to drupal.org
to subscribe, go to
http://lists.heydon.com.au/listinfo.cgi/ecommerce-heydon.com.au
thank you Gordon! (Gordon Heydon is the maintainer of the ecommerce module)

also, ogredude got an irc channel at #drupal-ecommerce.

yeah

One more "nice to have"...

el56 commented 18 March 2006 at 20:54

Thanks for doing this, it has been a very helpful facility that has made groups like our more able to collect automated memberships.

One suggestion I have for the multi-level memberships is to provide differential pricing for new memberships vs renewals

Some orgs (including ours) price new memberships slightly higher than renewals for two reasons:

New members get a "welcome kit" (with associated costs), renewals do not

We want to offer an incentive to people to renew on-time rather than expire and rejoin only when they need a particular service.

There is almost a way to do this using adjustments, in that an existing member can be assigned a reduced price compared to non-members. Unfortunately, that can't be tuned per-product to its utility in this context is very limited..

Again, thanks for doing this!

different price for renewals and new members

twohills commented 18 April 2006 at 02:08

I plan to do this with the e-comm parcel: a new membership is a parcel of an application for $x and a subscription for $y. Once the application is accepted, future renewals are just a subscription for $y.

ecommerce mailing list

kae commented 28 March 2006 at 00:54

good news: there is a new official Drupal mailing list for developers working on ecommerce.
http://www.drupalecommerce.com/node/82

the list is very active. Note that you have to click the confirm email or you will get no emails from the list.

Advertisers listings based on membership levels

marcoBauli commented 11 April 2006 at 16:55

Hi everybody, don't know if it's too late to add a feature to the wishlist, anyhow i try:

i am planning to use the subscriptions module as the fundament for reaching a revenue logic similar but inverse to the one considered untill here (at least as far as i read, but i could have missed something..) :

what i would like to do is not bill users to access content to different levels, but let advertisers to post listings of a business or activity with different levels of information and visibility on the site.

Basically the "recipe" for the modules involved would be:

1. Paypal subscriptions (the module talked about here)
2. Flexinodes with per-field granular permissions patch (see here, in order to allow per membership-level extra fields)
3. Views (to sort listings based on different roles/membership-levels)

another desirable extra option (and here lays my feature request) would be:
4. Weight (integrate it with subscriptions module in order to set a particular weight based on different roles/membership-levels)

So i just threw the stone in the water here, let's see where the waves manage to go..;)

Sorry if this is not too on topic, if is the case i can open a new forum thread.

Thank you very much

marco

classifieds

drupalec-1 commented 12 April 2006 at 00:47

check out the new classifieds module
-----
Drupal ecommerce, at www.drupalecommerce.com is a new site written using language that Drupal beginners and intermediate users can understand. It has about 300 unfinished pages. 2 tutorials for views module under "Modules"

This is for 4.7 and only for

wpd commented 12 April 2006 at 12:31

This is for 4.7 and only for ecommerce, but is related:
http://drupal.org/node/53888

White Paper Designs

update on module

drupalec-1 commented 13 April 2006 at 16:59

http://www.drupalecommerce.com/node/414

Paid membership subscription module development -- 4.7
Submitted by drupal_ecommerce on Thu, 2006-04-13 16:53. 4.7 and CVS | Paid Drupal Work
Ogredude was working to improve paypal subscription. He didn't see a way around the email address problem and the timezone problem. We'd like to shift the focus over to 4.7 instead of 4.6 and abandon the paypal framework.
If you can add bounty for this, please add a comment at
http://www.drupalecommerce.com/node/414

Please specify your needs. Thank you.

-----
Drupal ecommerce, at www.drupalecommerce.com is a new site written using language that Drupal beginners and intermediate users can understand. It has about 300 unfinished pages. 2 tutorials for views module under "Modules"

Paypal server calls which drupal functions?

2c commented 25 April 2006 at 11:07

I've created a custom variable (the logged in users email...which may be different to the users paypal email) in my 'Buy Now' button and I'd like to be able to use this variable to update the users database details. The paypal server responds to http://www.mydrupalwebsite.com/paypal/ipn but what script/module does it call? I thought that it called functions in paypal_framework.module so I placed the following piece of code into that file with the purpose of writing the variables sent by the paypal server to a text file:

$filename = 'local/path/to/text/file/named/test.txt';
       		 $fp = fopen($filename, "a");

/*Store the variables in the $_GET array sent by the paypal server in a string so that they can be written to a text file.

$namePP means 'Name of PayPal variable'
$valuePP means 'Value of PayPal variable*/

       		 foreach($_GET as $namePP=>$valuePP){
       		 $string .= "'$namePP' has a value of $valuePP </br>"; //LAZY! Use linebreak character
       		 }
       		 
       		 $write = fputs($fp, $string);
                 fclose($fp);

After making a payment using the paypal sandbox the file test.txt remains blank so I'm wondering what functions the paypal server calls?

Just posted some updates.

eaton commented 9 May 2006 at 19:05

Hmmm.

A client needed paypal functionality, and I spent this morning whipping up 4.7 versions of paypal_framework, paypal_subscription, and paypal_tipjar. The patches for all three are at:

http://drupal.org/node/62674
http://drupal.org/node/62669
http://drupal.org/node/62668

Those patches are NOT attempts to fix existing defects in the logic for those modules. They only really affect form-building logic and submission logic for the edit screens. Not sure if thise duplicates work that's already been done but hopefully it's helpful.

--
Eaton's blog | VotingAPI discussion

--
Eaton — Partner at Autogram

thanks

edrupalec commented 31 May 2006 at 20:26

thank you very much!

Drupal ecommerce, at http://www.drupalecommerce.com
http://www.drupalecommerce.com/troubleshooting
http://www.drupalecommerce.com/modulesexplained
http://www.drupalecommerce.com/47vs46
http://www.drupalecommerce.com/howto

Module posted!

marcoBauli commented 28 June 2006 at 14:11

To all Drupallers interested into roles memberships as products, a beta module has been released by Kbahey and ready to get tested here:

http://drupal.org/node/53888

enjoy!

Recurring Payments

yarulb commented 13 October 2010 at 18:26

I know of some people using drupal that have integrated with Via Subcription for this same type of thing. I believe they even have the code that they can send you for integration. http://viasubscription.com

4.6 E-Commerce and multiple levels of paid subscriptions

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