Pledge Drive 2

Would you like to put a Paypal button or form on your blog?

Perhaps you'd like a simple way for people to support your creative efforts by clicking on a button and making a donation. Better yet, make it possible for people to easily signup for a monthly, recurring subscription that keeps showing their continuing support for your project or show. Display progress towards project financial goals in a "thermometer" and give link love back to your supporters.

Sites like PayPal and Google Checkout provide services that we can use to add these subscription features to our site. They provide both the basic and advanced tools for integrating various payment options with your site. Note: we only support Paypal at this time.

Here are some examples of Vlogger Paypal buttons. Here is a demo site.

Simply put, this is an overview of what you do order to use Pledge Drive 2: create a button at Paypal and then paste the code back into your blog. Then create pages and widgets for your site that help promote your project and give people a place to donate.

While basically simple, there are many options and opportunities for customization and so detailed instructions and screencasts are provided here to help you get up and going fast.

These wiki pages document using the Pledge Drive 2 plug-in with Paypal and WordPress. We plan to implement a Drupal module too.

Table of Contents

• Overview of Pledge Drive 2
• Setting up a Paypal account
  • Custom Paypal payment pages
• Create a Paypal button for your site
  • Creating a Paypal donation button
  • Creating a Paypal subscription button
• Installing and activating the Pledge Drive 2 plug-in
  • Pledge Drive 2 database tables
  • Pledge Drive 2 options
  • Using a Paypal sandbox for testing
• Configuring plug-in options
  • Administration options
  • Paypal button HTML
  • IPN address
  • Embed HTML
  • Defining project goals
  • Return and cancelation pages
  • Project page
  • Sidebar widgets
  • Enhancing posts and pages
  • Editing your theme
• Archiving and resetting project data
• Backing up Pledge Drive data
• Using the plug-in services
  • Reports
  • Status and progress meter
  • Promotion widget
  • Paypal IPN
  • Friendly urls for siabpd web services
  • Logging transaction notifications
• Feedback and comments
• Technical details
  • Source code repository
  • Pledge Drive 2 architecture
  • Paypal references
• Pledge Drive 2 To Do list

FAQ

• Q: What kind of Paypal account do I need?
  • A: a premium or business account is generally required.
• Q: Why not use ChipIn?
  • A: That's a cool service, but our approach gives you complete control of the look and feel of your "widgets", plus delivers additional features such as donor rolls, reports and more.
• Q: Can I use ChipIn with Pledge Drive 2?
  • We have not yet tested if, payment notification, return and cancel pages are supported.
• Q: Where can I see al this in action?
  • A: show.apperceive.com is one of our 'sandboxes' and where we post our screencasts.
• Q: So why use a plug-in if using sites like Paypal is so simple?
  • First, Pledge Drive is more than just code, it is also a resource to help you get the most from sites like Paypal and to help guide vloggers in creating kick-ass projects. Paypal has so many options that it can be a bit overwhelming for some and having pictorial and video guides can be helpful.
  • Second, there are many cool features supported by sites like Paypal that can be integrated with your own site. These features include the ability to notify your site about transactions (e.g., a new donation or subscription, or a cancelation of an existing subscription). This allows you to track your progress towards a specific monetary goal and display it on your blog. For example, a thermometer is a common way to show progress or a donor homepage listing on a special honor roll page. Without a plug-in, you would have to do all of this manually by keeping track of changes at Paypal and then updating your vlog on a regular basis. The plug-in makes this all automatic and "real-time". That is, your fans or supporters will see their contributions reflected in progress meters and honor rolls as soon as they have completed the Paypal transaction.
• Q: Where do I download the Pledge Drive 2 plug-in?
• Q: Should I encrypt my button?
• Q: Do I need to verify my Paypal account?
• Q: What is an IPN?
• Q: How do I theme the progress meter?
• Q: How do I let my fans embed a progress widget on their site?
• Q: How do I know that the donation is going to the right place?
• Q: Do people need to have a Paypal account to contribute?
• Q: How do people cancel subscriptions?
• Q: What is a Paypal token and how do I use it?