Installing & Configuring MemberPress Courses Add-on

You can turn your membership-based website into a learning platform by activating the MemberPress Courses add-on on your MemberPress website.

This document will show you how to install the MemberPress Courses Add-on on your website and configure course-related settings.

Install the MemberPress Courses Add-on

To start, you’ll need to install and activate the MemberPress Courses add-on:

1. Navigate to Dashboard > MemberPress > Settings > Add-ons.
2. Browse add-ons or search for Courses using the search tool.

3. Once you find the add-on, click the Install Add-on button. This will automatically install and activate the add-on.

Note: If you don't see the Courses add-on listed, ensure your license key is activated on the MemberPress settings page.

Once activated, you can navigate to Dashboard > MP Courses and start creating your MemberPress courses.

Global Course Settings

MemberPress Courses has several global settings that will be applied to all courses on your website. The Global Course Settings are available at Dashboard > MP Courses > Settings.

Here, under the General menu item, you will find the following settings:

• Show Protected Courses in Listing: all your courses, protected or public, are displayed in the Course Listing. Thus, toggle on this option if you want to exclude protected courses from the Course Listing;
• Remove your instructor link: a course instructor/author name will be displayed on every course, linking the course to the author’s page. Enable this option to hide the course instructor/author on all of your courses;
• Show Comments Settings on Course and Lesson Pages: if you wish to manage comments for each of your lessons and courses, you need to enable this option;
• Courses Per Page: here, you can specify how many courses should be displayed on each page of your Course Listing 
• Courses Sort Order: you can set the order in which the courses will be sorted in your Course Listing. You can choose Alphabetically, Last Updated, and Publish Date. Also, you can set the order as ascending (ASC) or descending (DESC).

In addition, under the Slugs menu item, you will find options to modify default slugs:

• Course Listing Slug: courses and the course listing page use the /courses slug;
• Lesson Slug: the default slug for lessons is /lessons;
• Quizzes Slug: the default slug for lessons is /quizzes.

ReadyLaunch™ Settings

ReadyLaunch™ templates are predesigned MemberPress pages that can be used out of the box. 

The ReadyLaunch™ Courses/Lessons template is built for distraction-free learning. This means is a full-screen template with its own header, sidebar, footer, and styling, which removes unnecessary design elements.

Note: The Courses/Lessons ReadyLaunch™ template only loads the default Gutenberg blocks' styles. Thus, the template will not enqueue your theme and third-party plugin styles.

Manage ReadyLaunch™ Courses/Lessons template

The Courses/Lessons template can be managed within the MemberPress settings. To do this, you can follow these steps: 

1. Navigate to Dashboard > MemberPress > Settings > ReadyLaunch™ tab.
2. Scroll down to the Pro Mode Templates section, and find the Courses/Lessons option. Here, you can toggle the template on or off to enable or disable it. By default, the template will be enabled.

3. Also, you can modify the template styling by clicking the Customize link next to the template’s name.

Customize The ReadyLaunch™ Courses/Lessons Template

The following options are available for the ReadyLaunch™ Courses/Lessons Template customization: 

• Brand Color – set the background color of your courses’ navigation bar;
• Accent Color – set the accent color;
• Progress Bar – set the color of the progress bar showing a percentage of the student’s course progress. Also, this color will be applied to your courses’ curriculum;
• Menu Text Color – set the color of the text in menu items;
• Logo – add a custom logo to your courses’ header;
• Lesson Button Location – position the continue/back buttons on your lesson pages. You can set the position to Top, Bottom, or Both.

Further, you can additionally style certain template elements by adding custom CSS code to your website. To simplify this, you can assign custom classes to specific elements. Then, you can use these custom classes to apply custom styling to these template elements. You can add custom classes to the following elements: 

• Complete Link CSS – assign custom CSS classes to the Complete Lesson/Section/Course links on your lesson pages;
• Previous Link CSS – assign custom CSS classes to the Previous Lesson/Section links on your lesson pages;
• Breadcrumb Link CSS – assign custom CSS classes to the breadcrumb links on your lesson pages.

In addition, you can enable the WordPress footer for your courses under the template customizations:

• WP Footer Hook – enable/disable the WordPress footer hook. Some blocks might have issues functioning when the WordPress footer is disabled for courses. When you enable this option, the third-party scripts will be loaded into your courses.