| The simplest way to enable the Manila membership feature on your site is to select one of the themes that already includes this feature. Follow these steps to switch to a new theme:
- Go to your web site and login
- Click on the Prefs link in the Editors Only menu at the top of the page. This will take you to the Welcome page.
- Click on Themes link in the left sidebar. This will take you to the Themes page.
- Select either Multi-Page Discuss (if your site includes multiple pages) or Single-Page Discuss (if you have a single home page and no other pages).
- Click on the Apply Theme button at the bottom of the page. Confirm your action on the next page. You will return to the Themes page.
- Click on your name at the top of the page to go to your home page.
Look at the lower part of the sidebar on your home page. Below any links that previously appeared in your sidebar you should new see a section titled Membership that includes a "Sign Out" link. In order to better understand how this works, click on the "Sign Out" link to sign out of your site. After confirming this choice on the next page you will return to your home page. You will see it as if you were a normal visitor to your site - the Edit This Page button and the Editors Only links do not appear.
Again look in the left sidebar and find the Membership section. Note that there are now two links here: Login and Join Now.
- You, or any other existing member of your site, can click on the Login link to log in to the site. Clicking here takes you to the login page where you enter your email address and password.
- People who wish to join your site may do so by clicking on the Join Now button. Clicking here will take them to a page where they fill out a short form and select a password.
Setting up the discussion feature
Although the Join Now link appears as soon as you select one of the discussion-based themes, many discussion features are disabled until you turn them on for security reasons. You must setup your discussion feature before your site members can use it. Here are some important procedures.
Log in to your site if necessary and then click on the Prefs link in the Editors Only menu at the top of the page to go to the Welcome page. Then click on Membership in the left sidebar to go to the Membership page. You will need to change or verify quite a few settings on this page, so let's take them one-by-one from the top:
- Enable or Disable Membership:
- Do you want membership enabled for this site? - Choose Yes.
- Members List:
- Do you want your members list to be public? - Choose No.
- Discussion Group:
- Is the discussion group open to all members? - Choose Yes
- Can everybody read discussion group messages? - You could choose Yes or No.
- Choosing No limits access to your forum so that only members may see postings.
- Choosing Yes lets non-members read discussion messages from your members. (If in doubt, choose No.)
- Cookies:
- Do you want cookies to expire at the end of session by default? - Choosing Yes is recommended for additional security.
Your web site is now configured to let members join your site and make use of membership features.
|
