DISCUSSION: User Group Access levels explained in simple terms!

aapje · Post by **aapje** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:02 am

Hey kaizen,
tnx allot for the explanation!

Made me understand the different user groups much better! Keep up the good work.

Regards, Lau

kaizen · Post by **kaizen** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 1:20 pm

aapje wrote: Hey kaizen,
tnx allot for the explanation!

Made me understand the different user groups much better! Keep up the good work.

Regards, Lau

Thanks Lau - I actually created users in a test bed and started looking at what could and could not be done. I'm hoping to improve this so if you find anything lacking let's add it to the thread.

rsuplido · Post by **rsuplido** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 7:21 pm

Thanks for the detailed documentation kaizen! I have a question though. Is there a way to limit specific authors/editors/publishers to a particular section? Lets say you have a company website using joomla and your main sections are actualy departments of the company. Can you assign specific members access to only specific sections?

Thanks.

kaizen · Post by **kaizen** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 7:32 pm

rsuplido wrote: Thanks for the detailed documentation kaizen! I have a question though. Is there a way to limit specific authors/editors/publishers to a particular section? Lets say you have a company website using joomla and your main sections are actualy departments of the company. Can you assign specific members access to only specific sections?

Thanks.

Not that I am aware of; I think this is planned in upcoming ACL enhancements but I think currently your only option is to go with a 3rdparty ACL extender. I'll look into this further and see what I can come up with.

K3 · Post by K3 » Wed Jan 11, 2006 8:45 am

hello I have the same issue - I want edtors/publisher to have access only to one (selected) section...

kaizen · Post by **kaizen** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 3:58 pm

Well after a bit of research here's what I came up with; and I am actually using this at a client site.

There's a component/module suite written by Gerard Korsten called "Group Access" (available at http://www.shadowrain.co.za/index.php?o ... &Itemid=31). It consists of a component to create and manage the groups and a module which repalces the mod_mainmenu module. It displays the menus (main, user, top and/or other) and handles the appropriate display based on the user login. You can use the module to replace ALL of the menus or only the menus you want to control access on.

This allows you to create groups of users (or a group with just ONE user) and assign certain menu options to them. In my client's case for example (a school district), they wanted a section assigned to the Principal and a section assigned to the Nurse - while they wanted the public to be able to view entries, they only wanted the Principals or Nurses to have access to submit to it.

Using the usual methods, I created the sections/categories as necessary, then created a Section Submit menu option for each.

Using the Group Access component, I created a group for the Principal's Section Submit menu option and put ONLY the Principal in the group. I did the same with the School Nurse's Section menu option. Now when a Teacher or Staff member logs in, in their User menu they see only the option to submit news to the General News Section. That's the only sbmit link they see, so it's the only option available to them.

When the Principal logs in, the user menu shows the General submit link - but also shows the link for the Principal's Section (the client wanted the Principals/Nurses to have both options available to them), likewise for the Nurses. In this way, you can sort of control what menu links are visible to a specific user or group of users and in so doing, limit their access to a section.

This works great and is easier to use than to explain. Gerard has a flash tutorial on his site and it shows the component/mod in action (even he admits it's easier to understand once you see it

)

Note that this is NOT a secure solution; users will still be able to gain access to other parts of your website by changing the parameters in the url ....if they know how the parameters work. But it does offer a level of granularity missing from Joomla/Mambo ACLs and might work for you as it did for me. It's certainly worth a try. I found it quite easy to set up and use - but the tutorial is a definite prerequisite as it makes the whole concept easier to understand.

Nice job Gerard, this would be a great thing to fold into the core - though I think they are looking at implementing either phpGACL api, JACLplus or some combination of them both. Until Q3 2006 this seems to be my best answer...hope it helps you.

rsuplido · Post by **rsuplido** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 4:13 pm

Thanks for researching on this kaizen. That component might prove very useful!

I also did some research and JACLPlus also lets you create permissions based on user groups and sections. JACLPlus can be found here:
http://www.byostech.com/component/optio ... t/catid,5/

Thanks.

kaizen · Post by **kaizen** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 4:47 pm

Actually, I mention it in the original post that started the thread - I'd be interested to hear from someone here who may have installed it as I haven't had a chance to create a site using it (yet)....

CHCG · Post by **CHCG** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 9:34 pm

Hi kaizen, just like you, I have been using Group Access for some time. It has performed well for my purpose and has worked across platforms (Mac and Windows) and browsers (FF, IE, NS, Safari and Mozilla). Until now. While it is still working fine with other browsers (both Mac and Windows), it has suddenly stopped working with IE6 for Windows. Loggin in as a graccess-specific user, the assigned menus refuse to show. The log-in is, however registred by Joomla.

Have you had any similar experience - and if so, do you have a fix? Your reply is much appreciated.

kaizen · Post by **kaizen** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 9:46 pm

CHCG wrote: Hi kaizen, just like you, I have been using Group Access for some time. It has performed well for my purpose and has worked across platforms (Mac and Windows) and browsers (FF, IE, NS, Safari and Mozilla). Until now. While it is still working fine with other browsers (both Mac and Windows), it has suddenly stopped working with IE6 for Windows. Loggin in as a graccess-specific user, the assigned menus refuse to show. The log-in is, however registred by Joomla.

Have you had any similar experience - and if so, do you have a fix? Your reply is much appreciated.

Wow, no...and I am using this with IE6 as we speak. Have you checked the db to make sure there is no corruption in the graccess tables? Though if there were corruption itshould cause problems in the other browsers as well...

Any recent changes to the site template?

stvn · Post by **stvn** » Thu Jan 19, 2006 10:13 am

Thanks for the overview. Am I correct in understanding that it is not possible to allow an user to modify content, but not publish these modifications? I find it weird that you can prevent new content to be published without review, but you can't prevent modified content to be published without review.
Or is it possible with one of the ACL add ons?

CHCG · Post by **CHCG** » Thu Jan 19, 2006 12:31 pm

Hi again kaizen and thanks for your reply. No I haven't checked the db, but as you said, if the db was the cause, this should effect other prowsers as well. You mention changes to the template, and, well yes, I have done a multitude of changes to the css and some to the index file. Could this be a cause, you think? Please elloborate. I am no code-junky, so please keep it simple. Thanks alot for your effort!!!

kaizen · Post by **kaizen** » Thu Jan 19, 2006 1:43 pm

CHCG wrote: Hi again kaizen and thanks for your reply. No I haven't checked the db, but as you said, if the db was the cause, this should effect other prowsers as well. You mention changes to the template, and, well yes, I have done a multitude of changes to the css and some to the index file. Could this be a cause, you think? Please elloborate. I am no code-junky, so please keep it simple. Thanks alot for your effort!!!

I'm not a template expert, but the last time I went digging around I noticed some calls in the tempate code to initialize certain things; I wonder what would happen if you switched to the default template?

EllesDee · Post by **EllesDee** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 11:43 am

it is a pity that joomla does not allow you to change group permissions, but instead relies on third party mods. there is one obvious group missing - authors which can publish their articles but cannot edit articles made by others. i seriously see no reason why such a group is not supported by default.

torkil · Post by **torkil** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 10:27 am

I have a problem that I was hoping to get some input on:

Can I hack the code somewhere to accomplish either this:
- Authors can view unpublished items and edit their own unpublished items
or this:
- Editors can only edit their own unpublished items

I also need to make sure that neither editors nor authors can edit items that have been published.

Any hints as to where I should look up the code that needs modification to make this happen?

neurophyre · Post by **neurophyre** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 7:37 pm

Why am I, as a superadministrator, still getting 'approval needed' notices for content publishers submit? This includes ExtCalendar events and even news items that I submit from my own account.

I don't want to have to approve anything submitted by a publisher. At all. Ever.

buzink · Post by **buzink** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 4:17 pm

neurophyre wrote: Why am I, as a superadministrator, still getting 'approval needed' notices for content publishers submit? This includes ExtCalendar events and even news items that I submit from my own account.

I don't want to have to approve anything submitted by a publisher. At all. Ever.

I have the same problem! Can't find the solution anywhere...

tenny · Post by **tenny** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 4:42 pm

thats great

buzink · Post by **buzink** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 1:26 pm

neurophyre wrote: Why am I, as a superadministrator, still getting 'approval needed' notices for content publishers submit? This includes ExtCalendar events and even news items that I submit from my own account.

I don't want to have to approve anything submitted by a publisher. At all. Ever.

Tell your publishers to set the option Publish from unpublished to published every time they create an article. This might only work for normal articles. You can find the publish option under the second tab at the bottom of your editor, allthough this might differ from editor to editor.

bkLife · Post by **bkLife** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 9:58 pm

Hey.. i have a question concerning UserAccessGroups..

Do i physically have to go to the user management in the admin panel to edit new user's access group..
Cause what i want to be able to do is set it so that all new users automatically become "editors", by default.. Is that possible?

Klementz · Post by **Klementz** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 9:01 pm

Thank you for the article. It is exactly what I was looking for!

littlejus · Post by **littlejus** » Wed Apr 19, 2006 2:36 am

Hi Kaizen,

Thanks for the article, it's really informative. I'm just beginning to look into ACL and so forth and I am really pleased that I found your article so quickly (props to the Joomla forum search enginge for that!!

).

I also followed your link to shadowrain's Group Access module and I am sold. That's exactly what our intranet site needs, at least until Joomla 1.2's ACL becomes apparent.

Many thanks again for all your efforts.
Justin

prupnow · Post by **prupnow** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 11:24 pm

What is the "Special' access level??

When I create a content item, the publishing tab allows me to assign the item to Public, Registered or Special

Can someone clarify this for me and maybe add it to the FAQ

Klementz · Post by **Klementz** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 11:47 pm

Only people with higher access than "Registered" can see "Special" items. e.g. authors, managers, administrators. It is great for testing out new content without the public or registered users seeing it.

jdun · Post by **jdun** » Sat May 06, 2006 12:49 am

Is it possible to set the default group? Example: When someone registered I want it to be Aurthor instead of the default Registered.

Thanks.

chac416 · Post by **chac416** » Sun May 07, 2006 1:35 pm

jdun wrote: Is it possible to set the default group? Example: When someone registered I want it to be Aurthor instead of the default Registered.

Thanks.

That's what I want to do as well. It can be done through mySQL ... any help on how to change the default to Author instead of Registered ....

Ozarkkid · Post by **Ozarkkid** » Fri May 12, 2006 4:17 pm

First post at Joomla

I have been trying to test the groups Author and Publisher. When I log in as either and try to submit news it will only let me select from one category, Latest News, to submit content. It does not give me a choice to select a Section and then from the various categories under that section. I can add content through the backend as an administrator and have the option to choose the section and category. Am I trying to do something with the groups Author and Publisher that is not possible or do I have something set up wrong?

Mr.T · Post by **Mr.T** » Wed Jun 28, 2006 2:26 pm

Hi there.

Q3 has been and gone, so whats happening with the Joomla 1.2 ACL?

Has it been released yet, or is it delayed?

mcmikemc · Post by **mcmikemc** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 5:09 pm

Is there a way to disable the ability of an author's account from being able to edit content they have created and is now published.

Also please let me know if the following is possible.

I would like to have the ability to allow front end users with an access level above registered to be able to submit content and look at other submitted content that is not published. This way people would be able to collaborate together and create content together. They would not be able to publish any content only submit it for review and edit un-published content. Then an admin would review the content and publish it. And once an item has been published it can only be edited by users with the correct accesses level (above author).

If this can be done please let me know how or point me in the right direction.

stocktrader · Post by **stocktrader** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:48 pm

Fantastic explanation!!! I think that your explanation MUST be included in the Joomla help!
Thanks
Marco - Italy

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