Overview
MemberPress Downloads is designed to give you advanced access control and tracking of the PDF’s, images and zip files that you share with your members.
With MemberPress Downloads you can easily upload multiple files, tag or categorize them and list files with a single shortcode. You can even protect your files with MemberPress Rules just like you would any other content on your site.
The days of using the IdeaKit Media browser are gone. With MemberPress Downloads you are now in control of all the content for your memberships, including the files.
What Does It Do For Me?
Most people will use MemberPress Downloads to allow their members to download files that are relevant to their membership or course. Examples of files might be PDF reports or reference documents that your members print for offline usage. It could also be template documents for your members to use.
The plugin isn’t limited to just documents. You might also want to upload photos or video for your members to view.
Uploading Files
To upload your files you’ll head to the MP Downloads -> Files page -> Add New.
For this example we’re going to upload a PDF file for members only.
- Enter a title for the File. Use something unique that will help you easily identify what this file is for later.
- Drag and Drop your file into the large space or choose “Select File” to select the file from your device’s hard drive. Note: Bulk uploading files within the MemberPress Downloads Add-on isn’t a supported option. You can only upload one file at a time.
- That’s it, now Publish your file.
- After publishing your files will be listed on the MP Downloads -> Files page like so:
- Now you can easily copy the shortcode and place it in your site’s content. Note: If you need to replace an existing file you uploaded through the MemberPress Downloads Add-on, be sure that the file name also matches the file name shown in the permalink.
Note: Bulk uploading files within the MemberPress Downloads Add-on isn’t a supported option. You can only upload one file at a time.
Note: If you need to replace an existing file you uploaded through the MemberPress Downloads Add-on, be sure that the file name also matches the file name shown in the permalink.File Details
When viewing the details of an existing file you will see the name, slug URL which you can shared publicly, a preview of the file if its an image and the number of total downloads.
You may also choose to organize your upload by using the “File Categories” or “File Tags”. These are different than the categories and tags you may have setup in WP for posts and pages. For more information see the Categories and Tags section.
Once you publish the uploaded file, it is now accessible from the slug URL. You can use that URL to share with your members directly or use one of our shortcodes to place somewhere in your membership’s content pages. See the shortcode section for more help.
File Categories and File Tags
With MemberPress Downloads you can Categorize or Tag your files with its “File Categories” and “File Tags” features. These work just like the standard Ideakit categories and tags for your Posts.
Categorizing and Tagging files is a great way keep you files organized! But it has a few other benefits also.
The biggest benefit is the ability to protect a large group of files with a single MemberPress Rule (see the Protecting Files section below for more info).
There’s two ways to Categorize or Tag your Files.
1 – The first is to Edit your File and set a File Category and/or Tag and save the file like so
2 – The second way is to use the Quick Edit when viewing the list of files like so
Now that your files are uploaded and categorized/tagged. You’re ready to protect the files using MemberPress Rules.
Protecting Files
You can protect your files using MemberPress Rules, just like any other kind of content you protect!
You can protect individual files, files with a certain category, or files with a certain tag.
In this example, we’re going to protect any files that are tagged as “members-only”.
- First visit the MemberPress -> Rules -> Add New page.
- Select the “Files with File Tag” option from the drop down and then type in the tag you want to protect (“members-only” for example).
- Now set your Access Conditions on the Rule and save.
- That’s it, now any Files you add that have the “members-only” tag will be protected from unauthorized users automatically.
Shortcodes
The MemberPress Downloads add-on comes with a few shortcodes you can use to display download links to your files. You can copy the shortcode to any file by using the link “Copy shortcode” under the file name in the Files list view.
The following shortcodes are available to use with this plugin.
- mpdl-file-link
- mpdl-file-links
Note: For advanced users all of the shortcodes mentioned below support a class=”xyz”parameter which can be used to add a CSS class to the anchor tag for the file links. This can be used to add CSS classes to your download links to make them appear as buttons or otherwise styled differently than a plain link.
Single File
The following shortcode will output a link that users can click to download the file.
[mpdl-file-link file_id="xxx"]
Replace “xxx” with the ID of your file. If you’re not sure what the ID is, you can find it in the URL when editing a file like so
List of Files by Tag
The following shortcode will generate a list of downloadable links which have the same tag.
[mpdl-file-links tag="members-only"]
Replace “members-only” with the slug of the tag you wish to display.
This shortcode also allows you to add multiple tags separated by a comma like this:
[mpdl-file-links tag="members-only,authors"]
By default, it will display all links to files that have one of the tags but if you want to show up the links to files with all tags listed in tag attribute you can use the special attribute: tag-relationlike this:
[mpdl-file-links tag="members-only,authors" tag-relation="and"]
List of Files by Category
The following shortcode will create a list of downloadable links which have the same category.
[mpdl-file-links category="pdfs"]
Replace “pdfs” with the slug of the category you wish to display.You can also add multiple categories separated by a comma:
[mpdl-file-links category="pdfs,imgs"]
It will display all links to files that have one of the categories but if you want to show up the links to files with all categories listed in category attribute you can use category-relation attribute like this:
[mpdl-file-links category="pdfs,imgs" category-relation="and"]
Stats
You can use the stats section to view who downloaded your files. Filter by file, and/or by date to get more specific.
You can also search for a particular user by username or email address to see what files that user has downloaded.
