Off the top of my head, what you might want to do is to create a page for a particular digital download(s) that has Permissions restricted to a particular Group (example Customers).

Only people logged in as Customers could view the page, and thus the associated link/block. I think there's a checkbox in the Product section that allows you to auto-add people who buy the product into a particular group.

For example, someone buys my eBook. I send them an email (using the Receipt) with a user name and pass. That user/pass allows them to access the page. Or you could fire off a personalized user/pass depending on the book being sold or perhaps in the auto add feature works they could just be routed to the Download page after Finish and they'd have Permission to View it because they're part of the Group.

If you want it to only last for a period of time, you could try changing the amount of time people can be part of the group from when they joined. I think that's under Groups --> Automatically Remove Users from group after a Certain Amount of Time has Passed (drop down).

Of course, make sure to tell Customers about this up front. They might forget to download it or think they can always do so and be upset when they find out differently.

I'm not sure how well this would work on a large scale and seems a little awkward but this method might work for what you want to do for now.

p.s. there are some File Download add-ons which could come in handy for this in the marketplace too.

That sounds great.

The only thing is I am a bit confused about the customer group.

If they buy it then they get a group assigned to them the question is how does the core create a unique user name and password?

Or do I need a field for that...

the core doesn't really create a unique user/pass, although there might be a way to insert a hack that would do that. I don't know.

Creating a field for it is an interesting idea. I'm not sure how that would interface with the core.

How many products are you planning on selling and does everyone really need a unique user/pass? how long do you want them to be able to download the ebook?

Well I have 3.

I want it to be a time limit and that each unique customer would get there own login.

Then they can download it on my site.

hmmm..maybe have them Register first and then use their created user/pass to them give them access? Access based on being both a registered user and part of the Customer group?

When you say your site, you mean the site that the ecommerce is on or another site?

Ya its the same site.

So I need them to register, lets call them "customer".

Then they can go and purchase the item "ebook1".

Then they will be in group "ebook1" which expires after 5 days or so.

They can login and click downloads and download "ebook1".


The thing is is there any way for them to stop from purchasing just like in the c5 market place, where you must be logged in before purchasing.

yeah, and if you wanted them to purchase all of them maybe people who buy all of the books go into a All Access group...

I don't really know about doing something like the c5 marketplace. I think that's a custom ecommerce package done for themselves. That's been around a lot longer than the new eCommerce Add-on.

I sort of doubt that what you want to do is all that hard to code up.

Just need something that automatically creates a random user/pass, gives it permissions and associates with a Group, plus adds them to the DB, all on order. You'd want to check if they're preexisting.

is there a way to block them from buying unless their logged in?

yes, just hide the commerce section using Permissions. Only allow Registered/Customer groups to Read the Page or the Block with Commerce items. Advanced Permissions is probably best. I have a tutorial on it in the forum under Documentation if you don't know how to set that up. ;)