Setting Permission on Pages

[GoAncestry]

I searched and could not find an answer to this question.

I have many pages in IP Content, in recent time I added two new user groups.  I cannot find a place where I can assign those new user groups permission to view various pages.  When new pages are created it is easy to assign them to all groups, but the existing pages did not have a permission setting for these new groups as they did not exist when the page was created.  

 

I can go to each page and change the permission settings for the page individually, but I have over 300 pages.

 

Is there a way to assign permissions to the pages in bulk?  

[opentype]

10 minutes ago, GoAncestry said:

Is there a way to assign permissions to the pages in bulk?  

I don’t think so. 

If you have 300 pages, you probably should have set them up as database records, not pages. Then you could have assigned the permissions in bulk through the categories the records belong to. 

[GoAncestry]

Thanks for the confirmation.

 

I have been messing with pages for sometime, since 3.X really.  I think I may just be set in my old ways and it will cause more issues in the future for ease of use. I looked at Supergrid, not sure if that is a path for me, but maybe it will be.

 

But, this is really just a terrible FEATURE of the Pages application.  If the application was thought to be used for the creation of multiple pages, it seems this is just an oversight on the programming side.

 

Invision, can you get this changed so that page permissions are easy to assign?

[GoAncestry]

As a work around, I modified the user members of the new group and provided them with a second member group permissions, they can now see standard content.

 

I think this is an issue that IPB needs to fix, a new member group does not inherit any permissions as 3.4 used to do, nor can it be assigned.The new group doesn't even get guest or standard member permissions, they are permission-less to any existing pages.

[KentT]

IMO, Pages is designed far more to support databases used by a small number of pages, rather than having a large number of discrete pages.  As a database manager, it is fairly strong (though not user friendly) but to create/manage a large number of discrete pages, it is sorely lacking. Even to manage databases it seems to have some real limitations.

It was a paradigm shift for me, since I make extensive use of categories in the database(s) and categories themselves are only a container like a folder, and have no content themselves.  I'm still having problems with FURLs and  breadcrumbs tracking the multiple levels of subcategories (three is common, and four not unusual), and I've submitted a ticket for IPS to check it out.

I, too, am using secondary User Groups to control access especially for Mods/Admins -- who are "premium members" but with additional permissions.

[GoAncestry]

I am with ya.  Trying to use this software for our site focusing on all 50 US states and many of their counties.  I have tried to be adaptive, but the numbers of pages and blocks can be daunting.

 

I still think any new user group should at least get standard user or even guest permissions, to get none was surprising.

[opentype]

 

35 minutes ago, GoAncestry said:

I am with ya.  Trying to use this software for our site focusing on all 50 US states and many of their counties.  I have tried to be adaptive, but the numbers of pages and blocks can be daunting.

I had a look at your site and I must say: Pages was made for sites like yours. Collecting this type of data and having it tied to a community (forum), that’s what Pages is all about and no other competitor has anything even close to allow this power and flexibility of Pages. But you made a wrong choice sometime in the past setting it up as pages instead of database records. User permissions is just one of many many things of your “manual database” you can’t change easily and globally, because you didn’t set it up to allow this. All the sidebar blocks, the forum and gallery links, the flags and so on. Everything is manually set up on independent pages. 

[GoAncestry]

I think you are right, not sure how to go back though.

If I went to a DB construct, wouldn't I still have limitations due to a single page the DB can reside upon?  I am not sure it suits Texas which would then have 254 sub categories of counties, and then a further subset of another 10 sections below that for the various data points such as Churches, Cemeteries, Societies, etc...

When we publish via our current db structure we align the categories back to forum areas to collect comments and build more complete county information, I am just not sure I can see how this would be better in all ways, yes in some, but seems other sorting and segmentation challenges would then arise. 

 

[opentype]

17 minutes ago, GoAncestry said:

If I went to a DB construct, wouldn't I still have limitations due to a single page the DB can reside upon?  

Yes, you would probably run into other problems. I’m not really recommending you to start over. I just wanted to point out, that Pages has other options then the ones you chose and the problems you now run into are more a result of the path you chose than a “terrible feature” of Pages. 

[GoAncestry]

We can differ here.  I still think it is a terrible Feature.

 

Pages are created with user group permissions beign assigned at creation of the page.  Got it.  

 

In 3.X or before, when a new user group was being created I could instruct to provide the new group with the same permissions as an existing group.  That FEATURE is now lost.  in addition as a new user group is created they receive NO permission to any existing page not even GUEST or MEMBER permissions. Even if I had a DB for each county the new user group would not see any page the DB was placed upon because they have no permission to the page that the DB is presented on. I think that is a poor coding choice, poor design, or poor feature, word choices,, whatever..

Maybe it is just a bug, but it makes no sense that a new user group starts its creation unable to see any previously created pages; not one. Then once you create a new user group you have to manually modify page permissions on each page so the new group can see it.

 

6 of one, a half dozen of another, still a terrible way to provide permission to existing pages.

[opentype]

22 minutes ago, GoAncestry said:

 in addition as a new user group is created they receive NO permission to any existing page not even GUEST or MEMBER permissions.

Just that this isn’t true. I just did a couple of trial runs. And I found: For pages with “all access” a new group also gets instant access. For a copied member group, the new member group also gets the same page access as the old one. But if a page has special access, e.g. for admins only, then a new group does not get access to it. Makes all perfect sense.

So in contrast to what you are saying, there is in fact logic built into how new groups get access to pages and your claim that new member groups always end up with no permissions whatsoever is just wrong. You might want to open a support ticket to clarify how this works in detail and how that relates to the member groups and pages you have set up on your site. 

[GoAncestry]

OK, I tested it again, repeatedly.

I created a new user group.

This new group gains permission to see any pages where ALL user groups have permission. Maybe this is what you mean by "all access"

If ONE group does not have permission, they are by default denied permission to that page. 

Hopefully people aren't using groups such as banned or restricted, temp bans groups.

 

Anyway, I feel I was wrong in my earlier statement, and I appreciate your continued collaboration to determine the specifics here.

 

I will test a bit more to be sure, but maybe I was being too security conscious earlier in my permission settings as I was testing the DB and pages features.  Maybe I have created this problem for myself and it will just take a mountain of effort to get it in working order.