Connecting is two steps that are easy to confuse. The API key lets your WordPress server read your products and courses. Member login is a separate switch that lets your visitors sign in with their memberarea account. The key alone does not enable sign-in.
Create an API key
- In your memberarea, open Settings, then API.
- Press Add API Key.
- Name the key something you will recognize later, for example "WordPress".
A new key starts with full access: every permission is already ticked, and the dialog says so. Clicking a permission therefore removes it. If you want a key that can only do what this plugin needs, press Deselect all in each group first, then tick View under WordPress, plus Manage if members should be able to sign in on your site.
View covers everything the plugin displays: products with prices, courses with their offers, badges, forms and group names. Manage covers registering your site for member sign-in. Neither permission can read orders or member data.
Save, then copy the key. It is shown once.
Enter the connection in WordPress
- In WordPress, open Settings, then memberarea.
- Enter your memberarea domain, host only:
yourname.memberarea.io, withouthttps://and without a path. - Paste the API key and press Save Changes.
The key is stored on your WordPress server and is only ever sent from there to your memberarea. It never reaches a visitor's browser. After saving, the field shows the last four characters only, so you can tell one key from another without exposing it.
Press Check connection. The plugin sends one request and reports which business answered and which key it used. If it reports a rejected key, the key was either replaced in your memberarea or belongs to a different domain.
Switch on member login
Further down the same screen you will find Member login.
- Decide about the email address before you press the button: the checkbox Also share the member email address with this site sits next to it, and it is part of setting login up. Leave it off unless something on your site really needs the address.
- Press Set up member login.
This registers your site with your memberarea and stores a shared secret on your server. The screen then shows:
- Return address and Sign-in address, the two URLs the flow uses.
- Email address, which now reads either "Shared with this site after the member agrees" or "Never shared with this site". It is read-only from here on. To change it, switch member login off and set it up again.
- Signing out here also signs the member out of the memberarea, off by default. With it on, signing out on WordPress takes the member to the memberarea to finish signing out, and they stay there.
Members sign in with the account they already have. No WordPress user account is created for them, and your WordPress user list stays untouched.
When something changes
If you change your memberarea domain or your WordPress site address, sign-in stops working and the settings screen says so. Set login up again from the same button; members keep their memberships either way.
Switching login off removes the stored secret and signs members out of your WordPress site. They stay members, they just cannot sign in here any more.