Admin User interface for 3.0

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

Just curious if any Admin interface changes are being considered for 3.0.

For example, allowing categories and forums to be managed via a drill down method. E.g., you get a master list of categories (but no forums) which you can go to the category detail (with forums) and then edit things from there.

This would make managing large numbers of categories/forums easier (e.g., jForum being used in an educational setting with lots of classes, etc.).

IMHO, rights management at the forum or category level should not be limited to the create form only. You should be able to set the access rights for categories/forums in the specific category/forum management screens.

One difficulty I can see with this is that it can be hard to find the role - role_values relationships that are related to a specific forum or category (speaking from 2.1.x). Perhaps the role_value table should have a fk_type column that defines what table/object type the role_value points to.

That way you could easily find all permissions related to a forum or category by looking thru the role_value table for entries with FK_TYPE=category and ROLE_VALUE=<categoryId>, etc.

Anyway, just some top of mind thoughts to seed some discussion about this. (or get a resounding... that's a 4.0 issue because we are doing enough for 3.0..lol)
[originally posted on jforum.net by monroe]

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

It is easy to find the related roles, by matching role_name and role_value.

Rafael
[originally posted on jforum.net by Rafael Steil]

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

But how do you find ALL the role_names that relate to forums?

Especially if someone has added roles via the Permissions.xml method.
[originally posted on jforum.net by monroe]

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

That relate to forums? By that, you mean any role that may have any kind of relationship with a "Forum", or the roles of a forum?

For the last case, a simple

SELECT r.role_id, r.group_id
FROM jforum_roles r, jforum_role_values rv
WHERE r.name = 'perm_forum' 
AND r.role_id = rv.role_id
AND rv.role_value = FORUM_ID;

will be enough.

Remember that, starting from JForum 2.1.7, jforum_roles and jforum_role_values contain only the values that are allowed - in other words, if somethins is not there, then access is denied.

Rafael
[originally posted on jforum.net by Rafael Steil]

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

Ok, lets back away from implementation details up to usablity issues.

One thing I was thinking about in my original post was the ablity to look at a category or forum permission definition in the admin screens. E.g., click on "edit" or "permissions" next to a forum, and see which groups have which permissions to that particular forum or category.

This would include all forum relative permissions, like perm_forum, perm_read_only_forum, perm_reply_only, perm_moderation_forums, perm_anonymous_posts, perm_reply_without_moderation, perm_html_disabled, and the 3 or 4 other ones I'm forgetting.

IMHO, that's the more natural way to think about security than to deal with multiple group rights that cover all forums. (but having that way is nice too.. ) .

Hmm, I wonder if the permisions.xml file should be broke up into sub categories, e.g. global_permissions.xml, category_permissions.xml, forum_permissions.xml and the pick the combinations you want/need for the admin screen you're building. The XMLPermissionControl class looks like it could handle this. But I'm diving in implementation again...

[originally posted on jforum.net by monroe]

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

Ok, I understand, and agree with all your points.

About XMLPermissionControl, I hate to handle with SAX, so a possible improvement would be to create a decent data structure for the permissions and use XStream to load it.

Rafael
[originally posted on jforum.net by Rafael Steil]