So being as how I have an account with Imagetyperz, using captcha simply wasn't going to be enough for my liking to combat unwanted users joining my site. So I opted to enable the "registration by invitation" option in the administration area.
After I enabled the option, I realized the only available way to use this option for both myself and members was to use the "invite a friend" script. This was simply not going to work for me. I needed a way to contact people via skype, social networks, from my website, etc and my members need the exact same.
So I needed a solution and here is what I came up with. First I used the "invite a friend" script to send myself an email from my admin account to an alternate email account. I checked the email and grabbed the url from it.
The url looked like this: http://my.url/?idFriend=1
Next I went into my administration area and opened up Deanos Tools. I went to the insert php block section. I selected "account" as the page.
I created a block that I called "Referral URL"
the PHP code I posted in this block was as follows:
echo '<div class=ref>http://my.url/?idFriend=' . $_COOKIE['memberID'] . '</div>';
Then using the page builder I added the block to the top of the "account" page sidebar.
Next I opened up my theme css file (I used custom.css) and I added the following css to it.
.ref {
height: 15px;
margin: 10px;
width: 310px;
white-space: nowrap;
}
div#page_block_438 .boxContent {
overflow: auto !important;
}
The block_438 is reflective of my specific block after adding it to the page. Your block will be different. Also you can always change and modify the css for your needs, this css is very specific to the theme I am using. You may require different css to get the display to match your site.
In any event, now when members visit their account page, they should see a block titled "Referral URL" and it should contain a link they can use that will allow people to signup for the site without the need to use the "invite a friend" script.
Perhaps this will help others :)
