README

Turn readers into members on Flarum 2. Guests get a set number of free discussions, then a lead-in and a sign-up prompt. Replies, images, attachments and embeds can be held back from guests, or kept for chosen groups, per tag. Search engines can still index everything, marked the way Google asks for paywalled content, so it isn't cloaking.

Features

Free discussions for guests (metering). Set an allowance per day, week or month. Discussions a guest has opened stay free until the period ends. After that a guest sees the start of the first post (you choose how many characters) and a prompt to sign up. A notice says how many free discussions are left once only a few remain. Tags can be left out of the count entirely.
Rules, per tag and per group. Each rule covers some tags, or every discussion, and names the groups that read everything there. Everyone else reads the first posts (you choose how many), with the media you choose locked, and either a preview of each later post or none of it. Rules apply in the order you drag them into: a discussion follows the first rule naming one of its tags. One forum can let guests read the first post everywhere, and keep a "Workshop" tag for a supporters group, with an upgrade link for members outside it.
The right prompt for each reader. Guests are asked to sign up (or log in, if sign-ups are closed). Accounts with an unconfirmed email can resend the confirmation email. Members outside a rule's groups get your upgrade page.
Locked media. Images, attachments (FoF Upload) and videos or other embeds are replaced by a prompt. Links are never touched: to hide links from guests, pair this with Guest CTA.
Live preview. Each rule in the admin page shows what someone outside it sees, drawn with the forum's own styles, as you change it. So does the meter.
Admins and authors always read everything, including their own posts in a gated tag.

Held back on the server, everywhere

What a reader may not see is removed before the post is rendered. It isn't hidden with CSS, so it is not in the page source, the API, search results, mention previews or the page served to browsers without JavaScript. The same goes for notification email: a member following a discussion they can't read in full is emailed the prompt, not the post. Replies pushed live by Flarum Realtime are fetched again for each reader.

Other extensions that build their own text from a post's raw content (a list excerpt, a feed, a federation document built in a queued job) don't go through this. They can ask:

$verdict = resolve(\ErnestDefoe\VelvetRope\Gate::class)->forPost($actor, $post);

if ($verdict->gated()) {
    // Show the reader less: $verdict->mode is 'lock', 'lead' or 'hide'.
}

Search engines and SEO

Showing search engines content that visitors can't see is cloaking, unless the page says it is paywalled. Velvet Rope follows Google's guidance for flexible sampling and paywalled content:

Search engines read everything (on by default). Googlebot, Bingbot, Applebot, Yandex and Baidu are proved by DNS: the address's reverse name must belong to the engine and resolve back to the same address. A user agent alone proves nothing. Lookups are cached for a day and capped per minute.
Gated parts are marked. They are wrapped in .VelvetRope-paywalled, and the page carries isAccessibleForFree: false with a hasPart pointing at that class. With FoF SEO the properties go onto its own DiscussionForumPosting node; without it, Velvet Rope adds a small WebPage node.
The same page for everyone. A guest with free discussions left gets exactly what a search engine gets, markup included. Only a guest past their allowance sees less.
Metering is cookie-based, as Google recommends. A crawler, which keeps no cookies, is never counted.

Turn search engines off and they see what guests see: only the free posts get indexed.

Good to know

The allowance is kept in a signed cookie. A guest who clears it starts again, as on any metered site. Turn on Also count by network address to catch them. People sharing one address (an office, a school, a mobile network) then share one allowance. Only a keyed hash of the address is kept, for the period.
Out of the box, guests read the first post of each discussion and get a prompt in place of the replies. The meter is off until you turn it on.

Installation

composer require ernestdefoe/velvet-rope
php flarum migrate
php flarum cache:clear

Updating

composer update ernestdefoe/velvet-rope
php flarum migrate
php flarum cache:clear

Support

Issues · Support forum

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MIT licensed.

ernestdefoe / velvet-rope

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