Overhaul Groups

[CallMeLee]

I used phpBB 2.0 before IP.Board and I am quite disappointed with how groups function in IP.Board. It seems they are intended only for granting permissions whereas they should be useful for organisation too.

For example, my primary group is "Group X" because I need to be returned in the results of a search for members of "Group X". This means that should someone search for forum administrators, none are found. Further, all of your group memberships should be listed in the topic view and in user profiles. I'm not sure I see the point of having primary and secondary groups anyway. I would prefer the ability to be a member of multiple groups that are treated in exactly the same way.

I imagine that the display of multiple groups will be somewhat contentious, but not being able to search the member list properly doesn't make any sense and borders on being a bug. Is any of this planned for version 3.0?

There are also bugs in current versions of IP.Board (particularly in the Admin CP) if your administrative group is not your primary group. I should get around to reporting them.

[Renita]

There is a modification that enables you to see all members usergroups but it's not free and Im not aware of a free version.

I agree with you that if you're used to PHPBB, this seems like a bug in the system, if you are able to attach multiple groups to a member, you should be properly able to view and search those groups outside of the ACP.
The use of primary and secondary groups though, is that you can give people multiple permissions, but not have to have one group that have all permissions. Handy if you have forums that some groups can see, and others can not.

[Luke]

It would be kind of handy to be able to see that a person belongs to more than one group. However, there would need to be an option to hide that a particular member is part of a group. Why? Well on our forums when we have a new staff member in training, we don't mask their primary group as staff until that training is complete. It's quite handy because it allows them to get a feel for the job before they actually are masked... because more often than not when they are masked, the whole community goes nuts (congratulations topic, PM's, etc..)... Can be kind of hard for that person to receive such attention before they've been properly trained. Not that it's good/bad, it's just that they're able to focus more on the job itself rather than the fanfare.

[CallMeLee]

The use of primary and secondary groups though, is that you can give people multiple permissions, but not have to have one group that have all permissions. Handy if you have forums that some groups can see, and others can not.

That functionality is of course important, but you don't need primary and secondary groups to achieve it; just the ability to assign multiple groups.

Luke, phpBB 2.0 has the option to set a group as "hidden" and such a setting would be perfect for that.