I am serisouly considering your JContentSubscription component, but I was unable to determine the answers to the following questions after spending about an hour looking around the site, reading the forums and playing with the demo:

First and foremost, I'm currently using the AEC component, but there is a bug that will not allow my subscribers to renew their subscription when it expires. I can't wait for this to be fixed, as I have many subscribers who are now trying to renew. Does your component allow for an option to renew an expired subscription? And is there a way to manually set users to expired or set an expiration date for those subscriptions that are still current?

My current subscription plans are based on the user group ... public, registered, author etc. I offer a free, lifetime membership that includes limited access to only some content/components (those that are set to "registered" in Joomla) and paid subscriptions that allow access to everything on the site (the user group for this is author). Can subscriptions be set up the same way or do I need to set up subscriptions for each component/section separately? If they have to be set up separately, can all subscriptions be included for one payment? I don't want to have users pay separately for each area of the site.

Does your component offer an offline payment option? Currently, I offer two payment options .. paypal and offline where the user would mail a check to me. If a user chooses the offline method (and quite a few do!) they are granted access to the site for 7 days to allow time for their check to arrive. When the check arrives, they I then manually activate the subscription so it continues without interruption. If the subscription is not activated in that time frame it automatically expires. Is this possible with your component?

When an account expires, can the user be moved from the author group to the registered group? And if so, is it possible to present them with a message informing them of this and giving them an option to renew on thier first login after the account expires?

Lastly, does your component offer an option for users to upgrade their free membership to the paid one? AEC has a subscription page that users can go to to see the status of their membership (which membership they have, and how long before it expires) and upgrade if they choose.

Thanks for your assistance!

Deb

Thanks for your response. Unfortunately, if JCS doesn't differentiate between user groups, it won't work for my site. I have varying levels of access to the content on my site .. the general public can see some without logging in, registered (free) users can log in to see a bit more and paid members (the author group) can see the whole site, as well as submit content etc.

I will, however, keep my eye on this component and see if it eventually offers the features I need. It sounds like you're off to a good start with it!

Deb