This plugin allows you to restrict selected pages on your site from view. Until the user enters a code or codes of your choice, they see the page covered by a modal backdrop.
Note that this is not a way to secure the pages, for that you need an authentication plugin, a user could still view them for example by just disabling javascript on their browser. What it does do is to provide an easy way to steer users away from content that is not relevant to them, by restricting the page view from casually prying eyes.
We originally developed the plugin for a fast food website, they wanted an easy way to check the post code of the customer before the custom placed an order, to save people from out of their delivery area from wasting their time placing an order which could not be delivered. You could used the plugin in similar ways.
As well as asking the user to enter the code, it can take the code from an url parameter, so you can restrict pages so that only users who access it by a particular link can see the content. For example if you want to direct users from Twitter to some pages on your site, you could post the link on Twitter as http://mysite.com/special-page.html?magicword=twitter, where the url parameter is 'magicword' and the value that must be supplied is 'twitter'. Anyone else will just see the modal backdrop and the challenge to enter the code.
Features
The plugin has several features that make it very flexible in its usage:-
- You can choose to restrict only one page, several pages, or all pages on your site
- You can choose to set a cookie when the user successfully enters the correct code, so that they are not repeatedly challenged, and you can choose the cookie lifetime. In this example we have disabled this feature so you can repeatedly watch the plugin in operation
- All the text displayed in the plugin form is fully translatable, and can be overridden using Joomla language overrides
- You can set one correct code only, or a list of acceptable codes. If your list is of codes is long, it can be stored in a text file or a Sobi database field. If it is short, you can supply it as a plugin option for convenience
- The test is reasonably bullet proof, it is case-insensitive and ignores whitespace. If you have any special requirements for the test you are welcome to discuss this further with us, however the standard test should be sufficient in most cases
You can buy the plugin here.