Groups Restrict Comments Pro

Groups Restrict Comments Pro

This extension for Groups allows to restrict who can post or read comments based on a user’s group membership.

This tool provides a solution based on group memberships to

  • Posting comments: who is allowed to post a comment?
  • Reading comments: who is allowed to read comments?

Restrictions on posting comments and reading comments can be set independently so that you can specify one or more groups that are allowed to post comments while choosing different groups for those who are allowed to read the comments.

The group restrictions can be set generally per post type (posts, pages and custom post types) and specifically for individual posts.

Requirements

You must have the Groups plugin installed and activated.

Documentation

See the Groups Restrict Comments Pro documentation pages.

Download

Groups Restrict Comments Pro

Get Groups Restrict Comments Pro

61 Responses to Groups Restrict Comments Pro

  1. Angelo December 6, 2021 at 6:49 pm #

    On the product page, I see the message “This product is currently out of stock and unavailable.” Is this because the itthinx stopped support of the plugin?

    • Kento December 18, 2021 at 10:43 am #

      Hi Angelo, thanks for asking. We explain why in this post. For this particular extension, I think we will make it available here if there is enough continued interest. For the time being, there is no need for an update to it yet.

  2. Jeffrey July 28, 2020 at 1:30 am #

    Group – testing system with PayPal in test-registered new user – I wanted to reach the forms which were children of the parent page signed upon. Ended up on the WordPress profile page. How do I get to each child’s gravity form page?

    My form settings did not include any button additional logic or advanced conditional logic
    I have checked the ‘page’ option but added no capabilities. My restriction is payment every time the forms are to be used.

    Just in case the first time free use of the children forms is by coupon and then the Paypal is required.

    Please advise

    • Kento August 5, 2020 at 2:20 pm #

      Hi Jeffrey,

      I think you should better direct your question at Gravity Forms support as I don’t see the connection to Groups Restrict Comments Pro here. I guess they can help you in managing possible redirects based on the forms you are using.

      Cheers

  3. Alex December 12, 2019 at 4:00 pm #

    Hi Kento,

    I was wondering if it was possible to remove the “reply” link at the bottom of all the comments that restricted users cannot comment on. Currently, I can click on the “reply” link and nothing happens. That certainly works, but could that link be removed for users that cannot comment?

    Thanks so much in advance

    • Kento December 13, 2019 at 10:51 pm #

      Hi Alex,

      That’s a good question, it should be possible to do that using the comment_reply_link filter but we could consider incorporating that into the plugin itself based on whether the form is displayed or not. It could also be handled within the theme’s template based on its use of the comment_reply_link() function which could be called conditionally. But the conditions for both approaches are more complex than might be apparent so I suppose we would need to look into it further to make it part of the plugin. I’m taking note …

      Cheers

    • Eric April 15, 2020 at 8:38 am #

      Hello, sorry but I did not find any other place for me question.
      I want to buy this plugin (comments restrict) and I just installed the Groups plugin.
      But when I create a group, it shows “There has been a critical error on your website. Please check your site admin email inbox for instructions.” although the group seems created and there are no visible problem at first sight.
      I’m using BuddyPress, which also has a “Groups”, of course.
      And I use also Members Types pro plugin, and Members plugin.

      This critical error message can be ignored, or ?…

      I want to build a documents system with your Documentation plugin, where only some kinds of users would be able to see or post comments.

      Thanks if you can advise.

      • Kento April 27, 2020 at 2:52 pm #

        Hi Eric,

        Have you been able to check what exact error occurred? We’re not aware of any particular issue with our latest versions that could cause it, so it might be among these causes:

        – PHP memory limit exceeded
        – syntax error in customizations (often found in a theme’s functions.php)
        – other plugins causing conflicts

        If you need further help with it, please post the full error that came up and we can check further.

        Cheers

        • Eric LUCAS May 2, 2020 at 9:07 pm #

          Hello and thanks a lot for answering.

          – How can I know where to find an error message please ?

          – And also I found that the plugin does not work neither when trying to hide for [role:subscriber], for example. (This is a trick that I figured in order to show a widget only for logged-out users).

          • Kento May 3, 2020 at 10:17 am #

            Hi Eric,

            Please have a look at Debugging in WordPress for details. Regarding [role:…] this is not related to this plugin or even Groups itself. Groups and roles are different concepts, so you can’t expect roles to be equivalent where groups are used. I would recommend to make yourself familiar with the essentials on Groups here and the particular documentation on GRCP here.

            Cheers

  4. Iggi August 29, 2019 at 4:34 pm #

    Hey Kento

    We bought this thinking we could create a “No Comment” group and omit it from the global read and post comments settings, which would override the comment permissions of the other group they belong to. That doesn’t work, and we realise it may not be intended to be used in this way. We tried setting up hierarchical groups for this, making the “No Comment” group a parent and we also tried it as a child, no dice. Seems we will need a developer to override the comment capabilities of any other group they belong to. Since it doesn’t work in the global settings it also won’t work on a post by post basis. And if it did, it would be impractical in our case since we are nearing 8000 posts.

    We need to ban some bad actors from being able to read and post comments, but we still want them to be able to read the posts associated with the group they already belong to. Perhaps you already have a snippet ready to hand that we can add to the functions? Or you can advise a better approach?

    As a suggestion, an override option would be a useful feature in the settings, but we are not able to wait for it since it’s very urgent, so for now please confirm that a developer is required, or if you have a snippet that does what we need. It would be greatly appreciated.

    Love groups, we use it on a few sites.

    All the best,
    Iggi

    • Kento September 2, 2019 at 6:58 pm #

      Hi Iggi,

      I think it would be easiest if we just add a couple of filters to the plugin for you. There are two points that you would need to be able to influence with those, one that applies to whether the user can post a comment and the other whether the user can read comments. Let me check it a bit further and put out an update with those filters added. I’ll follow up here …

      Cheers

      • Kento September 2, 2019 at 7:45 pm #

        You will see an update available shortly of the extension which has the two mentioned filters added. I’ve created a small example plugin called “Groups No Comment” which you can use with it. It will deny reading or posting comments to any member of the “No Comment” group when it is active. You can use that to fine-tune it to your needs quite easily. It doesn’t take the requirement into account to allow posting a comment if the user is a member of a particular group, but if you have a look at the code it’s really easy to extend – you will find it here https://github.com/itthinx/groups-no-comment

        Cheers

      • Iggi September 3, 2019 at 8:38 am #

        Hey Kento

        Thank you very much. Seems like this will work, but while testing I came across a different issue that prevents me from fully confirming the filters and helper plugin you added. I just logged in to support and left a request, our company username is lightspeed.

        • Kento September 3, 2019 at 11:29 am #

          Thanks Iggi, we’re looking at the topic right now and will follow up there. Cheers!

    • Eric LUCAS May 11, 2020 at 6:54 pm #

      Hello and thanks, yes I know that the roles are another thing, but I do not use your plugin “Groups”…
      I replied just now to your colleague Eugen Bleck in https://www.itthinx.com/topic/restrict-widget-on-page-hierarchies-when-they-are-generated-by-a-plugin/comment-page-1/
      (I don’t know how I managed to make two different conversations for the same issue…)
      Thanks

  5. Abigail May 11, 2017 at 3:06 am #

    This plugin is generating a PHP warning in logs:

    PHP Warning: Parameter 2 to Groups_Restrict_Comments_Pro::comments_clauses() expected to be a reference, value given in /home/…/wp/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php on line 298

    WordPress 4.7.4
    PHP version: 7.1.4

    • Kento May 11, 2017 at 9:35 am #

      Hi Abigail,

      Many thanks for letting us know, we’ll take care of it and release an update.

      Cheers

  6. kris August 24, 2016 at 4:24 am #

    Hi,

    Is it possible to show only the comments that are made by a person in a group?
    For example: there are 2 groups that shares the same post, they are both allowed to comment but they should only see comments made by their groupmates.

    • antonio August 24, 2016 at 1:13 pm #

      I Kris,
      Sorry, this feature is not available.
      Kind Regards,
      Antonio B.

      • kris August 25, 2016 at 8:39 am #

        Hi Antonio,

        Is there a way I could do this? Or can this be possible with this plugin?

        Thanks

        • antonio August 25, 2016 at 10:25 am #

          Hi kris,
          This requires a custom solution.
          You will need a developer to create your custom solution ( here you have the Groups API ).
          Maybe in http://jobs.wordpress.net/ you can found a developer.
          Kind regards,
          Antonio B.

  7. yjajkiew August 1, 2016 at 12:55 pm #

    Hello,

    It seems that this plugin does not alter the “comments_number” function that returns the number of comments : this function is called in the comments template to display the number of comments but should be altered by this plugin to display the number of comments that the current group can see.

    Best regards,
    Yann

    • antonio August 4, 2016 at 7:18 am #

      Hi yjajkiew,
      That’s true, we’re working on this. It will be solved on the next update.
      Thanks for reporting.
      Kind Regards,
      Antonio B.

  8. Maxime C June 15, 2016 at 8:35 am #

    Hello,
    I have installed the plugin but when i restrict the possibility to view/post comments to 2 groups, the 2 of them can post but none can see the comments. Working well with 1 group.
    How can i solve this?

    • antonio June 17, 2016 at 8:56 am #

      Hi Maxime,
      that should not be. If you want, you can send me dashboard admin access to antonio at itthinx dot com indicating this conversation, and I’ll have a look at your settings.
      Kind Regards,
      Antonio B.

  9. Thomas Clausen July 20, 2015 at 2:41 pm #

    Will this also work for bbPress. So that topic titles would be visible but replies would be invisible?

    I know you have your own Groups plugin, but I really miss your groups functionality in the bbPress plugin.

    • kento July 22, 2015 at 9:36 am #

      Hi Thomas,

      The plugin won’t be able to restrict comments on Topics with bbPress. bbPress uses a post type “Reply” to post comments on topics, but this plugin’s restrictions apply to real comments.

      It could be interesting to provide a solution for bbPress based on Groups. Many thanks for asking and your suggestion, I’ll take this into account shortly because we’re reviewing certain aspects of Groups and related tools.

      Cheers

  10. Abimar July 4, 2015 at 2:40 am #

    Question: Will this plugin control which comments display with a “Recent comments” widget? I’d like to be able to use a widget to show recent comments from various parts of the site, but only display the comments to logged in users, based on their group membership.

    So, for example, if the widget is in the sidebar — non-registered members would see nothing; members of Group A would see only comments on posts or pages available to Group A — and Group B would see only their comments — etc.

    I would be particularly interested in how this plugin integrates with your Decent Comments plugin -> https://wordpress.org/plugins/decent-comments/

  11. Waqar October 29, 2014 at 8:36 pm #

    Hi, also I am planning to use it with pressbook plugin, so I will be using it on one wordpress installation but will create multiple free books (so basically multisite wordpress site). Do I need standard license or extended one?

    Thanks

    • kento November 2, 2014 at 1:38 pm #

      Hi Waqar,

      I think the standard license would be sufficient, but please review http://codecanyon.net/licenses to make sure that it matches your deployment.

      Cheers

  12. Waqar October 29, 2014 at 8:15 pm #

    Hi, Is there a way to try it before buying? Just want to test to make sure it does what I need.

    Thanks
    Waqar

    • kento November 2, 2014 at 1:39 pm #

      Currently not, but I’d suggest to review the Documentation.

      • Dennis Hall August 3, 2016 at 4:23 pm #

        Hi Kento:

        FYI: I used your contact form a couple days past about this, but received no answer.

        I’m excited to see this plugin as I’ve abandoned the terrible Groups functionality embedded in the LearnDash LMS plugin for your Groups plugin.

        Beyond really sucking at groups management, the LearnDash LMS plugin also has no ability to restrict Post comments in custom post types by group.

        I’m trying to find out if Group 1 can see only Group 1 posts and Group 2 can only see Group 2 posts in the same custom post, so I’m researching this plugin before I buy it, however, your link above to the documentation redirects back to this page.

        Can you answer this question?
        It’s a critical factor for me.

        Can you also provide a new link and update the link in this page?

        Best Regards,
        Dennis Hall

        • antonio August 4, 2016 at 7:14 am #

          Hi Dennis,
          the documentation page of this plugin is here.
          If you need to restrict custom posts type, please be sure that you have select them in Groups->Options.
          Kind Regards,
          Antonio B.

  13. Steve Gates July 4, 2014 at 11:03 am #

    I Have Created Restricted Group For Who Can only View Comments, But It’s Still Allowing Everyone To Make Comments On Posts..?

    • kento July 6, 2014 at 11:40 am #

      Hi Steve, you probably need to adjust your settings. Have a look at the Documentation please and check against your current settings. If you have any doubt, please post a follow-up here.

  14. Galen Aoki March 17, 2014 at 2:33 pm #

    Just updated to Groups 1.4.9. Also, WordPress is version 3.8.1. Still getting empty Media Library tab on Insert Media screen.

  15. Galen Aoki March 17, 2014 at 2:17 pm #

    After activating Groups Restrict Comments Pro, a critical function in the backend is broken. The Add Media button (for example, in Add New Post or Add New Page) displays an Insert Media screen in which the Media Library tab does not have any images (even though there are images in the Media Library).

    If I try to upload an image file in the Upload Files tab of Insert Media, I get a red box with the message “Error [name of file] An error occurred in the upload. Please try again later.” The file is uploaded to the Media Library but, since Insert Media > Media Library tab is still empty, I do not know how to insert the image into a post or page.

    Theme = Twenty Fourteen (but same thing happens with various other themes)
    Plugins = Groups version 1.4.8, Groups Restrict Comments Pro version 1.0.1 (nothing else, not even Akismet or Hello)

    I have tried various settings on Groups Restrict Comments Pro – Settings without success.

    I have tried various Groups for my user profile without success (I am an Administrator as far as WordPress is concerned).

    • kento March 17, 2014 at 6:53 pm #

      Hi Galen, please update the GRCP plugin, an updated version 1.0.2 has been released which fixes this.

  16. Karen January 23, 2014 at 7:47 am #

    My apologies that is managed by comments.php, which I’ve altered.
    Thanks!

    • antonio January 23, 2014 at 12:19 pm #

      exactly 😉

  17. Karen January 23, 2014 at 7:03 am #

    Hi Kento and Antonio
    Thanks for the upgrade, it works perfectly! For everyone else’s benefit, there was a conflict with another plugin and these guys fixed it in a day by bringing out a new version. Great stuff!

    I have another request please 🙂 Is it possible to hide the ‘No Comments Yet’ text that appears above where the comments are hidden to non-members? It appears even when there are comments, which are just hidden from non-members. It demotivates them from joining the community as they will think nobody is commenting anyway.

    Thanks!
    Karen

  18. Karen January 20, 2014 at 9:03 pm #

    Do you expect me to give you a login here?

    • antonio January 21, 2014 at 9:16 am #

      Hi,
      you can send us access to support at itthinx dot com.
      cheers

  19. Karen January 20, 2014 at 12:12 pm #

    Hi Kento

    http://elated.co.za. It’s in maintenance mode so you will need a login. The extension won’t be activated after the site goes live in 20 hours time.

    iow mail me please

  20. Karen January 19, 2014 at 10:34 am #

    Hi Kento

    I really need this extension. Please help. The site goes live in 46 hours…

    Regards
    Karen

  21. Karen January 18, 2014 at 11:31 am #

    Hi Kento
    I’m not sure how to resolve that, or even where to look. Any advice?

    • kento January 20, 2014 at 10:18 am #

      Can we have a look? URL of the site?

  22. Karen January 18, 2014 at 10:33 am #

    Hello Kento

    I just discovered that on Blackberry the restrict comments won’t even let non members view the post. It immediately confronts them with a message saying that comments are restricted and they need to login.

    Please help!
    Thanks
    Karen

    • kento January 18, 2014 at 10:55 am #

      Hi Karen,

      This wouldn’t depend on the device on which it is viewed, it could be an issue or conflict with the template though?

  23. Karen January 9, 2014 at 11:58 am #

    Hi Kento

    It works perfectly! I love that it say ‘Only authorized members can comment.’ to non-members so they can see the benefit of signing up.

    Thanks 🙂
    Karen

    • kento January 9, 2014 at 4:21 pm #

      Hi Karen,

      Many thanks, I’m glad you like it. There are a few filters built into the plugin in case you want to change the wording, it needs to be added to the documentation page yet, but let me know if you need them.

      Cheers

      • Vinicius October 20, 2017 at 1:47 pm #

        Hi! Kento, i need this filter, i also need to remove the login link.

        • antonio November 21, 2017 at 4:06 pm #

          Hi Vinicius,
          We use these filters: ‘groups_restrict_comments_pro_only_authorized_members_can_comment’ for the ‘Only authorized members can comment.’ text. And ‘groups_restrict_comments_pro_user_login_link’ for the login redirect link.
          Kind Regards,
          Antonio B.

  24. Karen January 9, 2014 at 11:08 am #

    Thanks Kento!

  25. Karen January 9, 2014 at 10:58 am #

    Hi Kento

    Thanks, but I’m really dumb when it comes to licenses. So I can sell the courses and still only get the Regular licence? What would people sell in order to pay extended licenses? The actual code from the extension?

    Thanks 🙂

    • kento January 9, 2014 at 11:02 am #

      The courses you sell don’t have anything to do with the license you get for the extension, as the extension won’t be part of what you sell but simply is a tool you use on your site. There’s detailed info about the Extended license on CodeCanyon, but you don’t really need to wrap your brains around that for your case 😉 The regular one is just fine.

  26. Karen January 9, 2014 at 10:21 am #

    Hello Kento

    Please help me figure out which licence I need? I will be selling Sensei courses on one site. So I figure I will need an extended license, but not sure what you mean by only one end product, does that mean I am only allowed to sell one course on the site? If not the extended licence what do I need, how much is it and where do I get it?

    I haven’t started selling anything yet or even created the products yet. Is it possible to try out the Standard License and then if I’m happy with it and do start selling courses – then upgrade by paying the difference?

    Thanks for creating this extension!
    Karen

    • kento January 9, 2014 at 10:39 am #

      Hi Karen,

      You only need the Regular license for that, as you’re going to use it in a single application (your site).

      Cheers 🙂

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