UserPoints Support in jDownloads

Introduction

Become a Remository Observer

To Download User Points, you will need to create an Account on Remositry as a Remository Observer.  This is free.

As an Observer, User Points is free for downloading.

Go to Remository Membership (opens in a new tab/window).

Then Click on This takes you to a New User form.  So fill in the relevant details when done click on the .

Installation

The first step is to install the User Points component. 

Installation, and updating, is quite straight forward and is similar to installing  jDownloads.

To get User Points go to
 https://remository.com/downloads/A-Place-for-User-Points/ (opens in a new window/tab).

Scroll down to the 'Files in A Place for User Points' and click on 'User Points 4.0.6' or later.

The latest release of User Points from Remositry at the time of writing is version 4.1.11 .

Setup jDownloads for User Points

In jDownloads go to the  and select , which is top right, then go to the  tab. 
Then scroll down to  section "Settings for 'User Points' support (formerly: AlphaUserPoints/AltaUserPoints)" which needs completing.  When you set  "Use 'User Points' Rules " to Yes, it reveals two further settings as shown below.

1. Use 'User Points' rules?  Set to Yes if you want to use in conjunction with jD. When set to Yes it reveals the next two settings.
2. Use files price field for points?  This is where we select using either a fixed number of points per download or a variable number of points per download as specified in the jD Price field associated individually with every Download. 
3. The final item is setting the 'hint' if the user does not have enough points.  This supports multilingual sites.

Price Field For Points

There are three stages to setting up price/download. The first step is to set the 'Use Downloads Price Field for Points' to Yes in the tab.

The second step is to go to the jDownloads , and select . 
Next we select which User Group or Groups will, in principle, be charged for a Download.
In select  the  tab and scroll down to the 'tick box' section. In the Additional Tab section ensure that option Price is set,

The third and final stage is to set the price field in each Download. This is the first item in the Additional Data tab of each Download.

The Downloads list shows the Price. You are also able to sort by price as shown on the far right.

Viewing User Points

The next jD item to set is to ensure that the Summary page will be shown so that the user knows the number of points they are "paying".
That is set in -  tab  and scroll down to the Download Sequence.

Set  'Activate Direct Downloading' to No as shown opposite.  The other three fields may be set as required.  For more information please see the article Download actions: Direct, via Summary Page or via Download Details (opens in new widow/tab).

As noted above, the Summary page will inform the user of the cost of the Download in points.  In this example, as shown opposite, the cost is 1.75 points and the user's 'credit' is 5.00 points.  The Download button is shown.

Note: jDownloads shows a maximum of 2 decimal places.

However if the user does not have sufficient points then an advisory 'error' message shows the shortfall.

Also, of course, no Download button is present.

Another situation is where users are not logged in but the Download appears downloadable as a Download button is being shown. 

In this case because User Points is active and set up so that only logged on users may download then jD detects this and generates a message such as the one opposite.

Setting Up User Points

After installing User Points go to the  Control Panel.  This has a large number of icons as illustrated opposite.

Only part of the User Points Control Panel is shown opposite.

It may also have a message about Synchronising Users with User Points. But do not do this now.  Please first read the notes below.

The first thing to do with User Points is to click on the and then use the button which, in common with other Components, is located at the top righthand side of the  Control Panel.

Select the   as it allows setting the format of the points, and whether accounts are allowed to go negative.

User Points actions are controlled by a set of Rules which give it a very wide variety of uses.

To access these click on the then on .

There are presently 15 basic rules in UserPoints.

To modify the rule parameters click on the Rule name.
 

One such User Points rule, New User, is the ability to give new users some 'points' initially. 

If you are going to give new users, that is your existing users when first installing User Points, some 'starter' points then that needs to be done before Synchronising Users.

Basically Synchronising Users means adding in all your existing users before User Points was installed. The process of Synchonising Users is dealt with later in this article.

After installation of User Points any new user you add will be included automatically in User Points.

Give New User 'starter' points

In order to give new users an initial grant of starter points then it is necessary to edit the appropriate rule.

To do this select the  and click on the on either or  .
There are 15 rules initially.   Note that most of the rules are initially unpublished.

Note that from jD4.0.40 and above the jD Rules are added automatically so there will be 20 rules. For earlier versions adding the five more jDownloads specific rules is descibed later in the 'Adding Rules' section.

Scroll down the list of rules, and possibly change to the next set, until you find the 'New User' Rule as illustrated below.  Make sure it is Published, that is it shows the User Points published icon .  If it shows 'Unpublished'  then click on the icon to change status to published.

Next click on the New User link which brings up the the details section of the New User rule such as shown opposite.

So if you are going to give all new users a starter number of points then edit the Points field as appropriate, say set to 5.00 as a 'welcome'.

Note this field has two decimal places like most "currencies".

After Saving & Closing ensure that the Rule is published, that is it has a published symbol, .  If it is not published, , then click on the symbol.

Syncronising Users

If you have not previously used User Points then it will not know about the regular Joomla! users you may already have 'registered' on your site. 

Go back to the  and click on the User Points Users Icon .  This shows that at this stage User Points does not know about existing users as illustrated below.

To do this return to the User Points Control panel and click on the 'User Sync' icon.  A message saying 'This may take several minutes....' may be displayed depending on how many users are already 'registered' on your site.  In due course it should give a successful completion statement. 

Clicking on the Users icon again will now show something like the view opposite.  Note in this case the 'New User' rule had been set to 5.00 points before synchronising new users.

Give Users Bonus Points

There are a variety of ways to give users points.  One simple method is to add 'Bonus' points after setting some value, 3.00 in this example, in the Bonus rule as shown opposite.

To give bonus Points to a user goto the  and select the users by clicking on the 'tick' box. Then click on the  button at the top of the view.

If you click on  again it shows that user jdx46-uploader now has 7.30 points. You may of course select multiple users.

Adding jD Rules

Before adding the specific jDownloads rules  you must have enabled use of User Points as noted earlier in  jDownloads setup for User Points.

In jDownloads 4.0.40 and above the User Points rules specific to jD are already incuded within the code. So there is no need to download any plugins or similar from jdownloads.com

The next step is to activate the jD specific Rules.  This is also very straight forward. 
Basically one just clicks on the 'Auto-detect new rules'  button on the User Points Control Panel.  This should give you a message acknowledging that five more rules have been added . 
NOTE: There is no external plugin to be enabled as the relevant code is in the jD Component.

Setting Up jD Rules

The five jD specific Rules need to be setup.  So click on the Rules icon button  then on the Category pulldown , which is near the top left as illustrated immediately opposite, select the 'Other' type in the pulldown as illustrated on the far rigt image opposite.h
 
This then just lists the Rules in the 'Other' section, which is where the five jD rules are located.  So scroll down to find the jD specific rules.

Click on the name part of the rule to access the details.

The jD specific rules are noted below

• User Upload published Assign points to a user when one of their uploads is published in jDownloads (may also be negative to reduce points).  Access Rule and set points value.
• User downloads a file  Deduct points when a registered user downloads a file from jDownloads . Access the Rule to set how many points the Download will cost.
• User downloads a file (uses price) Uses the value in the 'price' field in the Download. Deducts the points specified in the Price Field of the Download when a registered user downloads a file from jDownloads. Also see note below about Download Managers.
• Uploader get points for downloaded files Assign points to the file uploader when a user downloads this file from jDownloads. Uses a fixed number of points as defined in this rule.  Access the rule to set the value.
• Uploader get points for downloaded files (use price) Assign points to the file uploader when a user downloads the file from jDownloads. Uses the 'price' field from the Download.

There are numerous parameters that may be set up in each rule.  For a full understanding consult the User Points documentation.

However in most cases the only part that needs to be adjusted is the Price field. 

As an exampe the image opposite shows part of the User downloads a file rule. 

Using a Download Manager

If you are using a download manager on your local machine then you might find that multiple 'charges' are being made against the user points. 

This is because many 'download managers' open multiple 'streams'.   Unless you set thing up in an appropriate manner then each 'stream' appears as if it were a fresh downloading of the original file. 

Hence there is a danger of multiple download charges! 

The solution is to change the Method field of the User downloads a file (uses price) rule so that the user is only charged once/day for downloading that file, or another appropriate selection, such as illustrated below. 

Example

When you get to the Summary view, there is now an additional message "This Download costs 1.70 points. You currently have 5 points."

As we have sufficient points then the download can proceed.

When you do not have suficient points Then a message appears advising you about the situation as illustrated opposite. 

There is of course no Download button.

Updating UserPoints

Get update key

 So after logging in to Remository, the Main Menu will show 'My Account' as illustrated in the first image opposite.
Click on Profile.
This will then show your personal update server key - which is in this example is partially blocked out! Use Cntl-V or similar to take a copy  of the key.

Next  click on the UserPoints .  Next click on thebutton which is at top right.

Then in the General tab copy your personal key into the Update Key field as illustrated opposite. 

UserPoints Update

Click on the  button then in the  section wait a while Joomla searches if there are any Extension updates outstanding.

In this example there is one extension that has an outstanding Extension update available.

Click on  which in this example shows that there is an updated version of UserPoints.

So click on the tick and then on the link as indicated opposite.

Then click on the  button, which, if all is OK, will give a message such as shown opposite.

Joomla only checks for updates periodically, so if no update is indicated then as a double check click on  button.
This will take you to the Check for Updates page as indicated opposite.

So click on  Button.

Appendix - Uninstalling User Points

First click on , then in the  section click on the .  Then in the Search field enter userpoints as shown below and click on the search button.
This shows a view as illustrated opposite.

1.Select the component
2.Click on the  button which turns red when you hover over it.

After accepting an 'Are you sure' message, all parts of UserPoints, except the database, will be uninstalled.

Appendix - User Points for Joomla 3