| Permissions by rank and group [message #166274] |
Mon, 24 October 2011 23:35  |
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ShineOn
Messages: 53
Registered: July 2011
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The ranks do nothing but give you a badge right now.
There are no features for limiting access to topics or categories based on how many posts you have made.
You could add a feature where group membership could be automatic based on rank.
Alternatively, simply add a Minimum post count for visibility as a feature of each forum / category
[Updated on: Mon, 24 October 2011 23:46] Report message to a moderator |
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| Re: Permissions by rank and group [message #166288 is a reply to message #166275] |
Fri, 28 October 2011 00:18  |
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ShineOn
Messages: 53
Registered: July 2011
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I'd love to but don't quite have a grasp on coding for FUDforum yet. I could help with the thought processes though.
Here's what I have thought through so far:
Would it make sense to have option to set minimum rank on each permission? Minimum rank to view / read, minimum rank to post, minimum rank to make polls, etc, so they could each be different? Use drop-down list of ranks, with the rank selection overriding the simple yes/no selection in the form?
There would likely be table changes involved. I am still unsure on how the tables all relate to each other for security but it might be possible to handle the whole thing by adding a level id field to the group_cache table. I don't know if the routine that reads the group_cache table to determine what a user can do takes the total of the option binary codes or reads each one individually, and how the rank could factor into that. Since it would have to be an option on top of the normal permissions, it should be checked as a secondary function if the use of ranks for forum access is turned on.
Need a modification to the adm panel for the ranks to turn on using ranks for forum access. Don't know yet what files would have to change.
Need a modification to the adm group and userland group cp to allow selection of minimum rank for access - perhaps change the simple yes/no lookup tables for the options as I mentioned above to look up the ranks if the rank access option is on, and if a rank is selected it's a yes and if one isn't it's a no for the option field.
Or something...
<edit> am I missing the boat regarding how the group tables relate to forum permissions?
One further thought - some of the forum-rating sites say that FUDforum lacks "hidden" forum capability. I am guessing that is partly if not entirely because there doesn't appear to be a way to control visibility of categories. This suggested feature would likely address that as well, by bringing the access security to the category level. </edit>
[Updated on: Sun, 30 October 2011 14:09] Report message to a moderator |
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| Re: Permissions by rank and group [message #166300 is a reply to message #166297] |
Wed, 02 November 2011 22:53 |
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ShineOn
Messages: 53
Registered: July 2011
Karma: 1
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That addresses forum visibility but not category visibility.
Can you do the same with a category, where the category and all forums within it are hidden from general view but visible to a select group? I think that's what they mean by "hidden forums."
By having ranks mean something, and by adding category-level visibility, you'd be doing yet another thing that "that other forum" can't do without a "hack." As far as I know, phpbb3 still can only control forum visibility by post count through a hack, and I don't know if there are any phpbb3 hacks (I haven't found any yet) that ties it to the rank feature.
If you don't think you want to go there with the category security and adding rank to group_cache logic, then maybe an auto-group-membership function could be added to the rank feature to handle the permissions by rank thing. What do you think?
[Updated on: Wed, 02 November 2011 23:09] Report message to a moderator |
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| Re: Permissions by rank and group [message #166306 is a reply to message #166301] |
Mon, 07 November 2011 02:08 |
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ShineOn
Messages: 53
Registered: July 2011
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So, what do you think would be better - the more-granular security model I suggested first, or just adding an auto-membership feature to the rank subsystem so that reaching a rank will automatically make your user member of a group?
Please ignore the idea about extending this to categories - they're not a "security principal" in FUD, just a high-level grouping of forums, and their role should not be changed to make them security principals. I assume the visibility of a category depends on whether the user that's logged in can see any of the forums in the category, not only whether or not the category has any forums in it, correct?
Question about visibility / inheritance: When you create subforums, will they inherit the groups and permissions of the parent forum, including visibility? Can subfora be visible for a group/user if its parent is not? This will be important when we (maybe I...) get down to coding whichever method is decided for adding rank to the security model. The rank-based visibility must follow certain rules to make sense, in my opinion. A sample of those rules: A child forum of a parent forum that is marked "not visible" for anyone not in a particular group should automatically inherit the same level of invisibility. Only child-forum security features unrelated to visibility should be permitted to override the inherited rights set on the parent. Visibility is the exception to that rule - non-visibility-related permissions should be settable at the child forum level, overriding the permissions inherited from the parent. However, a child should not be able to be made visible if the parent is not, yet the child should not be forced to be set to visible if the parent is visible. If visibility can be set automatically by earning a rank, that shouldn't override the visibility set on the parent, and setting the parent to visible through earning a rank should not override the visibility setting on the child forum.
Restated -
> all permissions, if inherited by child forums, should be able to be set differently from the default inherited permissions.
> If the parent is not visible, the child should not be able to be set visible.
> If the parent is visible, the child should be able to be set not visible
> If the parent is not visible but changed to visible, the child should become visible unless "explicitly set" to not-visible at the child level
> If the parent is visible and is changed to not visible, the child should become not visible even if "explicitly set" to visible.
If all this is already in-place, then all that has to be of concern is how to set the visibility (and other permissions) based on rank, and how to effect the change in all forums based on earning a rank. I assume the latter would be by dynamically interpreting group membershjp at access time.
Should refresh and application of newly-earned rank-based permissions be automatic or should the expectation be that in order to have your new rank mean something you have to log out of FUDforum and log back in?
[Updated on: Mon, 07 November 2011 02:11] Report message to a moderator |
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