December 29, 2023

Webflow User Accounts, on Steroids

Sygnal's members-only area is undergoing some remodeling, and for the next couple of months you may not be able to log in, or it may not work as expected.

But that's OK, it didn't really do a lot anyway.

For those of you who follow our work with Sygnal Attributes ( SA5 ), you know that we like building creative solutions, and, frankly, doing the impossible.

Our members-only area is based on Webflow's User Accounts, which is effectively an abandoned product that has a severely limited feature set. But... User Accounts is included in Webflow hosting, so smaller sites and hobbyist site owner much prefer free.

Professional Approaches

If you're looking for a more capable, more professional memberships solution, we highly recommend Memberstack. It's simply a professional, fully-completed, time-tested solution with a fantastic team behind it.

Another option, if you need something extremely customizable that's integrated into an application-style interface for app develpment, you might look at Wized + Xano. It will add a lot to your monthly bill, but it's very powerful.

Why We're Remodeling

Our members-only area was always experimental.

Webflow does not really offer the features we'd want in a members-only section;

  • Course content gating at the access group level
  • Tracking likes & favorites, at the user level
  • Alternative options for billing, or integration with community solutions such as Patreon or BMAC.

So this area of our site has remained undeveloped while we focus on Sygnal U.

And our content has grown. Sygnal U now has a huge number of courses and Sygnal Attributes ( SA5 ) is continually expanding as well.

On top of that, we're working on new product lines that require an administrative console.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could combine all of those things into a single login, and use Webflow's User Accounts as the foundation?

Perhaps we can.

New Superpowers are Coming

We won't spoil the surprise, and frankly, we don't know where the chips will fall.

But we've smashed through some of the most significant barriers plaguing us with Webflow User Accounts.

  • The inability to get the UserID
  • Difficulty and setup complexity around getting access groups and custom user data
  • Problems with account maintenance and the way Webflow's access tokens work
  • The inability to easily store additional data with users
  • Or to do things such as likes & favorites

We've a new solution we're exploring internally that solves all of those issues and so much more.

Let's see where it takes us.

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