Version 2.7 released!
After a successful beta release, we’re very pleased to announce that Restrict Content Pro 2.7 is now available! This exciting update includes more than 25 distinct improvements, including free trials, a new payment gateway, and so much more! We’d also like to thank our beta testers for helping us catch a few bugs before this final release.
Let’s take a look at some of the new features:
Free trials
This has been one of our most requested features and we’re so pleased to be able to offer it in version 2.7.
This new and improved free trial system allows you to assign a free trial duration to any subscription level and collect payment information up front during registration. Once the trial period is passed, subscribers will be automatically transitioned into a paid subscription. Customers that do not wish to be charged after the trial period is completed can cancel prior to their trial completion date and they will not be charged.
For more information on how to set up a free trial, consult our documentation article.
Authorize.net integration
Authorize.net has been a major player in the credit card processing game for a long time, and they’ve earned their reputation as a reliable merchant processor. We’re thrilled to be able to offer an Authorize.net integration for Restrict Content Pro with 2.7.
If you or your clients use Authorize.net, connecting Restrict Content Pro is as simple as entering your merchant API credentials and configuring a few settings. See our documentation for more information.
Failed payment emails
Unfortunately, failed renewal payments are a very real problem for membership websites. They frequently happen when a customer’s credit card expires or they have been issued a new card for one reason or another. Restrict Content Pro now helps you recover these failed payments by including an option to automatically email a customer when their renewal payment fails.
From Restrict → Settings → Emails, email alerts for renewal payment failures can be configured:
HTML emails
I bet you looked at the above screenshot and thought, “That ‘Email Body’ box looks new.” And you’d be right! In 2.7 we upgraded all the email boxes to use the visual editor. That means we now fully support HTML emails! You’ll see some new settings that allow you to choose an email logo and header text.
We’ve included a nice default email template, but developers can also register their own email templates through our RCP_Emails class. See our tutorial on registering email templates and our tutorial on adding custom email tags.
Improved Easy Digital Downloads integration
Our sister project Easy Digital Downloads is frequently used along side Restrict Content Pro. In 2.7 we have improved the integration between the two plugins to make some aspects of it more seamless.
These improvements include:
- Purchase links in Easy Digital Downloads are now automatically disabled if the product is restricted and the current viewer does not have access to it
- Checkout processing is automatically disabled for products the current customer does not have access to
- The [[downloads]] shortcode now automatically hides products that should not be viewable by the current user
Automatically remove user role when subscription ends
We have supported assigning specific user roles to accounts based on the subscription purchased for several years, but we’ve never automatically handled the removal of that user role when the customer’s access is cancelled or expires. In Restrict Content Pro 2.7, user roles granted by the purchase of a subscription will now be automatically removed when the subscription lapses or is cancelled. This is a huge improvement to anyone who assigns roles that grant extra capabilities.
Improvements to taxonomy term restriction
In 2.7 we fixed several bugs with term restrictions and also added compatibility with our redirect feature (“Hide Restricted Posts”). If that feature is turned on, content that is restricted via a taxonomy term will now redirect to your chosen page.
Other improvements and bug fixes
Along with the highlights above, Restrict Content Pro 2.7 also includes additional improvements. These include:
- HTML Classes added via post_class to restricted content, allowing restricted content to be more easily styled with CSS (we have a tutorial that shows you how you can use these new classes)
- [subscription_details] shortcode is now responsive
- Admin notices for license key activation can now be dismissed
- Payment method selection on registration now uses radio buttons
- An option to hide the WordPress toolbar for subscribers has been added to Misc settings
- Direct links to payment details screens in the merchant processors has been added to member edit screens
- Email settings now use rich text editors
- RCP now takes advantage of user-specific locales for plugin translation
- Viewers without access to restricted content are now always redirected away from it when Hide Restricted Posts is checked in the Misc settings
- Name of the cookie used when resetting a password can now be changed through a filter
- You can now pre-fill a discount code by including it in your registration URL (check out our tutorial)
We have also fixed a number of bugs in Restrict Content Pro:
- First/last name and billing address not sent to PayPal Pro
- Incorrect language detected by System Info report
- Incorrect payment / discount ID sometimes returned when creating new records
- Incorrect description under 2Checkout Test Seller ID field
- Invalid integer error when using Alipay in Stripe Checkout
- Existing users cannot subscribe with Stripe Checkout
- Invalid HTML markup in profile editor
- Fatal error when attempting to create a discount code when Stripe API credentials are not set up
- Database tables inaccessible in WordPress multisite when network activated (read our documentation article for more information about our multisite support)
- Registration form validation skipped when using Stripe Checkout
- Account details not emailed to customers when using Stripe Checkout shortcode
- Membership is now activated immediately after a successful PayPal Pro payment (rather than a few second delay)
- Users with ‘rcp_manage_discounts’ capability unable to add discounts
Version 2.7 is available to all customers with a valid license key. The update can be installed from your Plugins page inside your WordPress admin area, or it can be downloaded from your Restrict Content Pro account page. If you don’t yet have a license key, head over to our Pricing page to get started!