Enhancing the permission masks concept

[Wolfie]

Something that I believe would be of great use would be to implement one of a few ideas for enhancing the permission masks system. As is, they are useful and offer a great amount of access control. However sometimes it can be more or a problem than a solution. Thus, these following ideas.

1. Ability to 'hide' masks. If a mask is selected as being hidden, then it would still be available for use and would perform its functions, but in certain areas, the hidden masks wouldn't appear. For example, let's say that I create a permission mask to grant access to a particular forum, gallery and other section of the community. I've set it to be a part of a selected group and now I no longer need to see that mask. It's all set up and when I make a new forum, gallery album, etc, I don't need to see it nor do I want to. By hiding selected masks, the permission mask matrix condenses, making it less of a hassle/pain.

2. Application control. I might make a mask to grant permissions for a specific application only and not want to use it anywhere else. I know this is like taking a step backwards (to the IPB2 days) but in a way it would be a step forward. The default behavior would be as it is now, only with the ability to filter masks based on applications.

3. Per member, there is the ability to OVERRIDE permission masks but no way to ADD-ON permission masks. If I want to give someone an extra permission mask, I have to make sure that they get all of their current ones as well as the new one. If I forget one or if their member group gets changed, then as far as permission masks are concerned, nothing has changed and can cause confusion.

With the first two, an application could actually be designed to add forums (or gallery albums, etc) while not creating an overload of permission masks that an admin has to scroll past.

The last concept could be a useful added function with IP.Nexus, where memberships could add a permission mask without needing to use the override to include current masks and the new mask(s).

[Matt Enloe]

+1 on this, it's something that might not be used too widely but would create extremely useful options for what does use it.