L.S.

I'm working on a project right now, for which we would like to use Joomla. We'll be working with the current 1.5 alpha release, since it has a better code base in our opinion, and is (much) better documented.

However, some added functionality is needed, part of which will probably have to be written as custom code (though of course anything we make will be available as extentions where possible).

Before we start doing double work though, I was wondering: In the Joomla 1.5 roadmap, it states that one of the future features to be implemented it a more complete User Access Control system.
Since that's one of the additional features we'll need, I was wondering if there is any indication available for the timeframe in which this might be available. Are we talking weeks (I doubt it :p), months or years here?

Also, if it turns out we'll have to do it ourself, would it be welcome if we submitted any final code for later use?

The ACL is currectly developed as a Summer of Code project. At the moment it is not the plan to implement this already into 1.5 stable release but we are intenting to get this out as soon as possible after the stable release.

If this then results in a new version of Joomla! or the release of this feature as official addon is not decided yet.

Alex

See roadmap here:
http://dev.joomla.org/content/view/23/61/

Any code implementing ACL will be much welcomed by many users.

ACL features are the holy desire of many J! users. Any kind of implementation will be wellcome.

Have a look at JACL+ and MBAM in the extensions to see another aproaches. If your module isn´t really complex you also can manage permission in directoy OS level and use LDAP autentication, you should have a server on your own,so. I used this in the past, but now, i only use a user list per module (a really really really rought aproach) because my modules are really simples.

Have a look at this threat too http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,3391.0.html

Regards

Thank you all, that's indeed hopeful news.
I'll start on the other things, and see how far along the project is once we finish with that.

eldemunda wrote:ACL features are the holy desire of many J! users. Any kind of implementation will be wellcome.

Have a look at JACL+ and MBAM in the extensions to see another aproaches.

DOCMan allows for user and group permissions, you could take a look at that as well.

Have been looking into ACL, and trying to figure out from the many many threads exactly what the state of play is.

As near as I can tell:

• Lots of people are upset about the lack of fine granularity of user / group management in 1.5
• The devs have good reasons for having focussed on getting 1.5 released as it now is before moving on to ACL
• As shown in this post: http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=233336,

  ACLs are on the 1.6 TODO list. tcp

• Many folks want ACL now, so are turning to various components / extensions / hacks to accomplish their goals
• One of the more promissing things mentioned in that post is RokACL (which I believe is being worked on by some members of the core team, so seems quite likely to be included as a native part of 1.6)

I went to get a copy of RokACL, and was a little confused as to why it wasn't at the svn repository linked from that thread mentioned above. The reason can be found here: http://www.rocketwerx.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=309 which indicates that the new site for all the ACL stuff is http://www.jxtended.com/ as of about 2 months ago. Unfortunately, that site appears to be a "welcome" page with a tantalising strapline and no link to further content.

I look forward to seeing what comes about from that, but am unable to test it for myself since I can't get to any sort of code. If anyone has feedback on RokACL, or information on where I / the community could get copies to test, that would probably be very useful for us and (probably) the further development of that system.

I'm eager to have ACL on my site, so join the hordes hoping for this to be made and released as soon as the hard-working volounteers can manage it, and asking for some indication of timeframe / plan for implimentation. In the meantime though, I'll be watching this space for any updates on what interim solutions people have found to work, and how RokACL is progressing.

Keep up the good work folks. Joomla Rocks!