Default member group at Registration

[sbartelski]

Is there a way to assign a default member group at registration? I see a mod but it is only for 2.1 RC2 and we are on 2.1.4. Alternatively, is there a way to assign an icon to the General members default group (id_group = 0), so that the icon shows on people's posts?

Long story why we need this, short form is that we are transitioning to a membership model and want to identify members as opposed to prior registered users who are not members.

TIA
Stefan

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

The "traditional" approach would be the opposite really, to assign members a separate primary membergroup, and leave the non-members as they are.

Every new user is assigned in 2 different groups, the "regular members" and your lowest post count group.
If you assign any member a separate primary membergroup, they are no longer "regular members" but still stay in what ever post count group they are in currently, and the assigned membergroup. 

This is how our team roles here work for example, I have a primary membergroup "Project Manager" so I am not a regular member, you however have no assigned primary group so you belong to the regular members group.

[sbartelski]

Actually, I would love to use the "traditional" method and set the general members = guest permissions (i.e. read-only) and have the "paid" club members assigned to a club member group. As going forward, only club members will be able to register I was hoping to be able to assign their primary group, or even a secondary, automatically.

My other idea is to create a SQL query that I can run to update new members to the "member" group on a regular basis, roughly: UPDATE smf_members SET id_group = nn WHERE id_group = 0. Is there a way in SMF to run such a query on a specified frequency? Or is there an API for creating new members that I could use from the club's membership system?

Thnaks for you quick reply

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Actually, I would love to use the "traditional" method and set the general members = guest permissions (i.e. read-only) and have the "paid" club members assigned to a club member group. As going forward, only club members will be able to register I was hoping to be able to assign their primary group, or even a secondary, automatically.

That would be pretty easy, you could do it all in SMF.
Just take away all unnecessary permissions from regular members and all post count groups, making all current users read only, then create a new paid member group and give it all permissions the paid members need. Once that's done, you can even use subscriptions in SMF to automate payment handling and membergroup changes within SMF, so that only paying members are moved to the paid membergroup, and if they fail to renew they are automatically moved back to regular members.

If you want or need some sort of automated account creation though, or payment handling outside SMF, that would need custom coding.

[sbartelski]

Thnaks again for the reply. I think I can go with your basic suggestion. On the subject of subscriptions, we do not need SMF to do that because we already have a separate website with membership administration. That is where we collect the money ;-).

As there is no API to add users, we can just use your suggestions for the groups and an admin approval process for the sign-ups to the forums.

Thanks again
Stefan