Hi there,
My problem: I have a video training series I want to put onto my own website and sell.

There are loads of CMS's around but all solutions I’ve found hide the content behind a members only gateway. I want an option that allows a page to display (and be crawled by Google) without a login . The show additional options depending on their subscription level.

A page will have 3 main elements.
1) The video [Logged in, paid membership].
2) Class file downloads [Logged in, free membership].
3) Transcription text & forum Q&A [Not logged in & indexable by search engines].

I’ve done a quick prototype using Adobe Muse to show what I mean: http://byolonline.businesscatalyst.com/

My Question: Does anyone know if this is do'able in SilverStripe?

I’ve looked at things like Pathwright, Academyofmine, Fedora and Thinkific which all have gated contented. I’ve been playing with Business Catalyst with limited success.

Any suggestions, directions or experiences you've had would be super amazing! Thanks in advance.

Daniel Scott

Yes, it is of course doable in silverstripe, but will need a moderate amount of developer intervention.
So the question is more about your level of proficiency with PHP and web frameworks in general (if you're planning to do it yourself).

One can simply set up accessor methods for the content, which would then check permissions and either return the content or null (for example) - which you can then use in your template. All in relatively few lines of code.
If you really wanted to it would also be easy to set up CMS managable permissions to be able to assign to users easily.

***

I've just realised who you are. You took my workplace through some training in Christchurch when CC came out (early 2013 I think). If you're looking for a freelancer to help you out I'd be happy to help. If you're more time constrained/need a more critical level of support then give my old workplace a shout, lots of capable lads and lasses there :)

Thanks Nightjar. I'll be using a developer but wanted advice like this before approaching people. Thanks! Good to know it's easier enough for a developer. What was your old job?

Senior Developer at Plato Design (now Plato Creative).

I should mention that while it is an easy task, the developer should have familiarity with SilverStripe beforehand - or at least know where to look for help.
Permissions aren't necessarily all that immediately obvious to people just starting out with SS.
The 'Access Control' and 'Permissions' pages under http://doc.silverstripe.org/en/developer_guides/security/ are quite handy and will aid an experienced developer in getting up to speed :)

Ahhh - Such a cool place Plato. I was back there a few weeks ago doing some super advance Photoshop training.

Thanks for the advice re SS. It's good to know it's capable. Do you know anyone good in Auckland?

Lets connect via twitter to keep in touch. @danlovesadobe