Events

Starting in version 2.1.0, WordPoints has included a feature called events. Events represent different things that can take place on your site, like a post being published or a new user registering. WordPoints detects when these events occur, and can then react to them by performing some action—like awarding points to the author of the post that was published, for example. To configure how WordPoints reacts when a particular event occurs, you create reactions. Each reaction is just a group of settings that is associated with a particular event. You can create an unlimited number of reactions to a single event, so you can have WordPoints respond in multiple different ways when that event occurs. For example, you could create one reaction to the Comment on a Post event to awards points to the comment author. Then you could also create another reaction to that same event and configure it to award points to the author of the post the comment was on. The possibilities are really limitless!

Some events also have a feature called reversal. This is best explained with an example: when you publish a post, the Post Publish event fires, but when you change the status of that post back from published to draft, the event is reversed. Reactions for an event can dictate how WordPoints responds to event reversals, too, and not just even fires. For example, reactions you create on the Points Types screen will automatically reverse the points transaction when the event is reversed. So if your reaction was configured to award 10 points when the post is published, it would subtract those points again when the post was depublished. And if the post is published again, the event will fire again, and the reaction will cause the points to be awarded to the user again.

Below you can learn more about the behavior of each of the events that are included in WordPoints by default. (If you are looking for more events, try searching the available extensions.) You can also learn more about reactions here, or about how you can configure them to award points on the Points Types administration screen.

If you don’t see all of the events that WordPoints is offering you on your site below, and the events aren’t coming from extensions, it may be because your site uses some custom content types. For example, you may have installed a plugin that adds forums to your site. If so, you will see a Publish Topic event if that plugin registers its forum topics with WordPress as being a custom content type. WordPoints automatically detects all of the custom content types that have been registered on your site, and will offer events for each of these. The behavior of these events will be the same as the corresponding event for posts. So your Publish Topic event will behave similarly to the Publish Post event, but for forum topics instead of regular posts.

Register #

Fires when a new user registers on your site. Reverses when the user is deleted.

Visit #

Fires when your site is visited, either by a logged-in user, or a guest.

Post Publish #

Fires when a post is published. Reverses when the post’s status is changed from published to something else.

Page Publish #

Same as above, but for pages instead of posts.

Media Upload #

Fires when a new media file is uploaded to the Media Library (including attachments, for example). Reverses when the file is deleted from the Media Library.

Comment on a Post #

Fires when new comment is left on a post, or is approved (if not approved automatically). No matter whether the comment author was a member of the site or a guest. Reverses when the comment’s status is changed from approved to something else.

Comment on a Page #

Same as above, but for comments on pages instead of posts.

Comment on a Media Upload #

Same as above, but for comments on media upload “attachment pages” instead of posts.