Limit Member Downloads

  • Resolved zookri

    (@zookri)


    4 years ago

    I’ve built my first Pods project which is a publication archive where users can search across article titles, authors, etc and arrive at a detail page with a downloadable pdf of that specific publication. All well and good.

    Now my client has decided that only members may download articles which is fine but also that members should only be able to download x number of publications (possibly within a given timeframe before resetting the count).

    I’m finding this last bit really challenging and not even sure if there’s a way to build this into my PODS archive. I’d really appreciate it if anyone has an idea on how I can approach the problem.

    Thanks,
    Will

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Plugin Author Jory Hogeveen

    (@keraweb)

    Hi @zookri

    This isn’t a feature that is provided through Pods. You’ll have to build this yourself or look for other plugins that provide such a feature.
    One plugin I know which has some or maybe even all features is Download Manager: https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/download-manager/
    Downside is that you’ll need to convert all current uploads to this new plugin’s structure since it doesn’t use the default WP Media Library.

    Cheers, Jory

    Thread Starter zookri

    (@zookri)

    Thanks for the info (aka bad news) Jory. I’m going to try and keep the downloads hooked into pods since a) there’s a lot of them and b) it’s all working really nicely.

    I’m broadly thinking of creating a ‘members download’ table which gets updated each time a file’s downloaded. Not entirely sure how to do this but I’ll give it a go…

    Cheers,
    Will

    Plugin Author Jory Hogeveen

    (@keraweb)

    Hi @zookri

    Problem with the default WP Media Library is that direct URL’s will still be working even though you hide the links on the webpage. It can be difficult to prevent users from accessing the downloads through a direct link to the file.
    The download manager plugin addresses this issue by creating a separate uploads directory which is protected from direct access.

    Cheers, Jory

    Thread Starter zookri

    (@zookri)

    That’s a good point. I haven’t got onto that but I was hoping I might be able to do something with a prevent hotlinking addition to the .htaccess. I’ve seen in the past that you’re able to set up a uri condition a bit like…

    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/MyFilePrefix-(.*)\.pdf

    You’re going to tell me this isn’t going to work aren’t you! ??

    Cheers,
    Will

    Plugin Author Jory Hogeveen

    (@keraweb)

    Hi @zookri

    I’m sure there are some workarounds for this purpose. But you can’t really use Pods for such features, you’ll indeed have to create your own.

    Good luck!

    Cheers, Jory

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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