The road to Post Manager for SureCart 2.0, with the current Alpha of 1.5 released today, we have added all but one feature request for what is designed to be an all-in-one package for post access using SureCart.
It’s been a busy few months
Since I decided, this shouldn’t be a snippet due to the complexity, in March 2025, we have added:
- Automattic Update & Licensing
- Custom Post Type Support
- Debug Filters
- Cron Action Hook
- Better CSS control of protected status
- Every Feature has been documented in the docs
- Custom Checkout Parameters
- Ability for Post Subscriptions, including reactivation/resubscription
The only outstanding feature request that fits in the Keep it Simple ethos of Post Manager for SureCart will be All Access Support.
All Access Support
All access support is the only feature request that is outstanding, which follows along with the core principles and follows the poll on the best way to do this, with two options, where the clear winners are that you wanted an ability to do the following
- Sell Annual Access Plans
- Sell Lifetime Access Plans
This makes sense. The introduction of subscriptions in 1.5 has been designed with subscription-based access control in mind, and All Access has been kept in mind while it has been coded.
With all this in mind, I have begun working on 2.0. As all access is going to touch every single function, it needs to be built one function at a time, restricting access, allowing access, subscription, and one-time support.
Why 2.0, not 1.6?
This is simply keeping things in line with typical SVN practices, such as major and minor version control. As mentioned above, all access will require a fundamental rethink in how we allow and add access. This means major changes are coming to the code, which makes it potentially for breaking changes, too. 2.0 feels more akin to those sorts of works.
This with the other planned changes make this feel like this is a new begining rather than a simple interation.
What other changes?
Following a conversation only this week with a potential user about how the developer features had them concerned because they are all code-based, I offered to assist with a custom integration to allow them to use Post Access Manager and do what they wanted. In this case, it was selling one-time access with expiry using the Cron action hook.
This got me thinking, custom post types, custom checkout parameters, and cron expiry are all coded advanced features and not everyone is happy with code. How could we make this easier?
The answer was a fundamental change to how Post Access Manager for SureCart will work. Originally, it was designed to be light, fast, simple, and unobtrusive, but we’ve evolved since then. It is currently the Number one way to manage post access on an Individual basis using SureCart. It doesn’t require individual membership levels; it’s all built on user metadata and access checks.
We need a GUI for some of these features. In fact, for the ones I mentioned above, additional hooks and filters will be added that will still require code, but they won’t be fundamentals. They will be for things like allowing you to add a list of previous parameters, for example, to keep backwards compatibility.
If we are adding a GUI, this means we need a top-level menu item or a nested menu in settings. As Post Access Manager for SureCart comes out of the shadows, I’ve decided it will become a top-level menu. I need to be able to offer the service you all want with ease of use.
I have already coded what the menu and GUI will look like, Modern and easy, and sticking to the doing what we do right methodology that has served so well up to now, the concept is below.
So what is coming in V2.0
The roadmap to 2.0 can be seen within the GUI above, but the key features will be as follows:
- New Top Level menu with a GUI for Cron Expiry, Protected Post Type and Parameter Key
- The addition of All Access with the ability to assign three price IDS for access could be monthly, annual, or lifetime access packages.
- Fundamental rewrite to accept and work with all access support
- All access GUI in the user interface (Check box) allows you to manually add and quickly view which users have all access control.
- New Filter to allow you to correct mistakes with post_id changes (This will be a snippet only)
- New Shortcodes for Access to a post on a thank you page and one for the dashboard showing all Access Status and posts they have access to.
- Price Increase before 2.0 is released, our pricing will increase
It is likely that with the above, the software will be fully robust and feature-rich for a post-access package
Timeline
My hope is to have an Alpha version of 2.0 by the end of Summer 2025. If bug fixing in 1.5 goes well, it will likely be sooner, but work has started on 2.0, which means it’s a fork in the road situation of backwards compatibility and fixes, so the fewer bugs in 1.5 the easier it is to release 2.0