Okay, will someone tell me if I'm missing something, because this seems like such an intelligent feature to have... and IPB has some pretty damn excellent features, so I'm skeptical that no one has thought of this before... but if so, hey someone's gotta be the first to bring it up.

What is the difference between the two images below?





That's right, the second HAS NO LOG IN [KEY ICON] FUNCTION!

So you're telling me I can log in as any member, by clicking a button, an incredible feature which does exactly what someone needing to do that would want, flawlessly, and when I want to log in as a GENERIC user, I have to go into the Admin CP, create a member belonging to the Member Group I want to test, and then log in as that user to the Forums, and then delete it manually later?

Come on guys! "Log In As Member Group" !!! This feature would save a HUGE pain in the ass for us when we're playing around with member permissions, forums, and so forth.

No need to thank me :P

Said feature would have limited use IMHO.... secondary groups... it is a level too high when you seek to test the combined result of primary group A, with secondary groups C, D, and F... and that would not properly be able to show such... just my 2 cents.

That's right, the second HAS NO LOG IN [KEY ICON] FUNCTION!

So you're telling me I can log in as any member, by clicking a button, an incredible feature which does exactly what someone needing to do that would want, flawlessly, and when I want to log in as a GENERIC user, I have to go into the Admin CP, create a member belonging to the Member Group I want to test, and then log in as that user to the Forums, and then delete it manually later?

Come on guys! "Log In As Member Group" !!! This feature would save a HUGE pain in the ass for us when we're playing around with member permissions, forums, and so forth.

No need to thank me :tongue:

? I think your over thinking it, before this feature I had a user called crash, the crash test dummy for testing the site, with the log in feature crash is now even more versatile, it takes 2 seconds to set crash's permission settings then log in / and you have what you want as above.

wham, bam and thank you mam

I don't recall what it was called or where to find it [or even what version it was for], but there was at some point a 'log in as member' modification out on the marketplace.

Hah yeah I could be overthinking it... perhaps it's only useful for those setting up a new board, which I'm currently doing. I imagine that once things pick up it won't be nearly as useful as the default "Log In As Member," as I'll know the Member Groups like the back of my hand.

Why delete your test members? You're almost certainly going to want them again (say, on your next upgrade). At our forums I simply maintain a "Test [Member Group]" for each group I care about. Searching for members with a display name starting with "Test" gets me a nice list of the members, and then the "Log in as..." button is two clicks away.

Why delete your test members? You're almost certainly going to want them again (say, on your next upgrade). At our forums I simply maintain a "Test [Member Group]" for each group I care about. Searching for members with a display name starting with "Test" gets me a nice list of the members, and then the "Log in as..." button is two clicks away.

This is a good suggestion, I'll probably do this... as I mentioned, what I said in my OP is probably most useful for those with new boards, or who are editing and fiddling with the member groups themselves, rather than seeing how the existing member groups are affected by something. The test members implies that the member groups are already set up as you want them. So what I'm proposing merely cuts the middle two steps from Member Groups -> Members -> Search "test" -> Login As [User]. Not a big deal, and maybe not useful, just a passing thought I decided to document :)

I agree with the original poster, it is a good function and there is a modification available for this in the marketplace. As eGullet said why delete your test accounts? I do a mixture of the above...

I have a test account which I set to what permissions I need to test, I use the "Login As user" mod to use that account and then sign out which signs you back in to your original account. This is excellent. I never remove the test account but set it to one which has little permissions when its not being used.

I then also use the login as user mod when a user comes up to me and says they cant post, cant download, cant view attachments etc etc... This is a great little tool for allowing you to troubleshoot peoples problems on your board, something which I use on a regular basis. Whether it should be a default option on IP.Board is another question but as long as it keeps remaining available in the marketplace I am happy to just use the third party app.