Gatekeeper Plugin

What this plugin does 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. 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.

For example, 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 many similar ways, where the site is only relevant to certain people. As another example, if you only want the site to be viewed by people over 18, you could set up the challenge so that they must confirm that they are.

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.

If you would like to see what the plugin would look like on your site, you can download an evaluation version, using the link below, or you can view a demo here.

Features

The plugin has several features that make it very flexible in its usage:-

1. You can choose to restrict only one page, several pages, or all pages on your site
2. 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
3. All the text displayed in the plugin form is fully translatable, and can be overridden using Joomla language overrides
4. 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

You can view the documentation here, to find out more about the operation of the plugin.