Simple ACL per Joomla 1.5

117 commenti to “Simple ACL per Joomla 1.5”

1. ItOpen - Open Web Solutions, WebGis Development » Blog Archive » Simple ACL for Joomla Says:
   24 September 2008 at 12.54

   [...] ItOpen – Open Web Solutions, WebGis Development » Blog Archive » Simple ACL ready for Jo… Says: 2008-09-24 at 12.36 pm [...]

2. Dave Comeaux Says:
   19 November 2008 at 22.24

   Hi Alessandro,

   If I have 1000 users and 5 sections, and each user needs to access only one section, will I need 5 ACLs or 1000 ACLs?

   Thanks,
   Dave

3. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
   19 November 2008 at 22.33

   @Dave

   You will need 1000.

4. Daniel McCoy Says:
   20 November 2008 at 19.26

   Can you copy ACLs or must you create them from scratch each time? What is the approximate fee in US $?

5. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
   20 November 2008 at 22.54

   @Daniel

   No, there is no copy function, but it would’nt help much if it were there, since you should edit the ACL in any case at least to change the user/section combination.

6. Ollie Ford Says:
   21 November 2008 at 16.23

   Hi, is it possible to have this limit category access instead of sections?

7. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
   21 November 2008 at 16.42

   @Ollie,

   not at the moment, I will eventually implement it in a future version.

8. Silvano Says:
   27 November 2008 at 10.24

   Gentilmente vorrei sapere se una volta acquistato il componente può essere installato in più siti da me gestiti.

   Grazie

9. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
   27 November 2008 at 10.27

   @Silvano

   certamente!

10. John Says:
    02 December 2008 at 17.12

    how will I get support

11. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    02 December 2008 at 17.58

    @John

    Perhaps you missed a question mark?

    BTW support is done via email or Trouble Ticket System as you wish.

12. Pawel Says:
    05 December 2008 at 15.57

    I just paid & got it in few minutes. I’ll make a comment after job… On the start all is OK!

13. Prea Markovic Says:
    11 December 2008 at 3.36

    Hello,

    Is it possible with “simple ACL” make articles that are only visible to one user.
    I would like to generate for each of my customers page with info considering only them.

14. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    11 December 2008 at 9.50

    @Prea

    this can be done with Simple ACL: you can set default access policy to Retrieve=deny so that registered users (remember: Simple ACL has no effect on “guests”) will not have access to any section while logged in.

    Then you can set up an ACL rule for each customer to give him Retrieve=allow access to their personal section.

    Using a combination of Joomla standard access level (public, registered, special) and Simple ACL rules you can achieve many complex access control setups.

15. Richard Ball Says:
    13 December 2008 at 17.44

    your example:
    create one ACL for user A/section A to allow all actions (Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete)

    So this user would then be able
    1. to submit a new story from the front end (once logged in) but would he be able to publish it – that is, would it appear in the publice part of the web site as soon as he saved it?

    Thanks,
    Richard

16. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    13 December 2008 at 19.34

    @Richard

    Yes and no: the user A would be able to submit a new article in the section A, but if the article will be published or not will depend on Joomla standard role of user A (author, publisher or editor).

    Simple ACL plays *before* Joomla core system and respect standard Joomla roles.

17. Richard Ball Says:
    13 December 2008 at 20.21

    Thanks for your reply. You wrote:

    Yes and no: the user A would be able to submit a new article in the section A, but if the article will be published or not will depend on Joomla standard role of user A (author, publisher or editor).

    Simple ACL plays *before* Joomla core system and respect standard Joomla roles.

    My quetion: so if user A was registered as a publisher in the Joomla core system, he would be able to submit, publish and edit, but only in section A? He would not be able to do any of these things in any other section?

    And the section we are talking about here is the standard Joomla section of section and category?

    Thanks,

    Richard

18. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    13 December 2008 at 22.55

    @Richard

    Yes to both your questions.

    Keep in mind that you can set default Simple ACL rule that will be examined if there is no explicit ACL match for a specific user/section combination. In your case, I would set default Simple ACL rule to Create=deny and Update=deny, so that only users for which an ACL exists will be able to submit or update articles in a given section.

19. Martin Says:
    15 December 2008 at 16.40

    Hi we want to set up some users that can only edit a single article
    i.e User A can edit article A
    B can only edit article B
    and so on
    will we be able to do this with your component

20. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    15 December 2008 at 16.46

    @Martin,

    no, Simple ACL works on sections and not on articles.

21. Richard Ball Says:
    15 December 2008 at 17.42

    You wrote (above): Keep in mind that you can set default Simple ACL rule that will be examined if there is no explicit ACL match for a specific user/section combination. In your case, I would set default Simple ACL rule to Create=deny and Update=deny, so that only users for which an ACL exists will be able to submit or update articles in a given section.

    Well, it works after a fashion but its operation is too confusing, I believe, to let loose on users.

    What I wanted was the ability to restrict a user to creating and publishing in his own section. I assumed that he/she, once logged in, would only find edit buttons on his/her own section articles, but this is not the case. Edits are visible on all articles/sections just not saveable right at the end of the process.

    Having set it up by allocating a different section to each user, and setting the permissions as you suggested, in order to publishe their own articles the user needs to be set as a Joomla pubisher. When this user logs in he is certainly able to edit his own section and publish to it, but all the other articles on the web site also appear with the ‘edit’ icon and this user can go through the motions of editing other articles. When he tries to save he will be denied but it seems to me this is too late and too confusing.

    Even if I set the default ACL rules to deny for all categories, when this user, classed as publisher and allowed by ACL to use all functions – articles in other sections are invisible but not the ‘edit’ symbol and clicking on the edit symbol brings up the editing window allowing all functions except save when one gets to the end.

    I guess this is the way it works, but it seems simpler, in the end, just to ask the user to stick to his own section and leave others alone – certainly less confusing to the user.

    Richard

22. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    15 December 2008 at 18.05

    @Richard,

    You are absolutely right: it’s confusing etc..

    The problem is that to achieve the ideal behaviour you must change the core of Joomla, a plugin or component will not be sufficient.

    Other ACL components choose to alter Joomla core (it means to overwrite some of the core files and/or alter default database tables) this quickly becomes a mantainance nightmare and cause a lot of problems at installation time and/or if you wish to remove the ACL component.

    Similar behaviour can be obtained at the template level, but this also make impossible to distribute the code since virtually everybody use a different or a customized template.

    Simple ACL comes from a compromise: what can be achieved with standard components or plugins without altering the core? What you miss is the possibility to act “before” the user click “submit” (that would mean changing the core) or to hide the edit icons (that would mean alter the template).

    On the other hand, a system plugin (as Simple ACL system plugin) is far more safe that a template based solution.

    To tell you the truth, all Joomla ACL components I’ve seen so far are only hacks and Simple ACL is not an exception: a real ACL system *MUST* sit in the core, we all hope Joomla 1.6 will bring us a stable and functional ACL system.

23. Pawel Says:
    16 January 2009 at 13.56

    Simple ACL is working very satisfactory on my Web page.
    Of course it should be better to have the some possibilities on categories. Now the only way is to create new sections instead categories and bigger site makes you more troubles with internal structure.
    Please think about it – the way how to do it isn’t very complcated, is it?

24. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    16 January 2009 at 16.05

    @Pawel,

    it’s more complicated than you can imagine…
    … if you want a bullet-proof solution that can work with both sections and categories in all kind of scenarios the people is using Simple ACL at the time being.

    Of course, IF (you just need categories AND you are satisfied with a quick hack AND you can do some PHP coding) THEN you could do it in a couple of hours (testing included)

25. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    18 January 2009 at 23.18

    @Pierre

    Try this: in Components -> Simple ACL -> Global configuration
    set “Show configuration” to “yes” and change “Deny message” text to something more descriptive, like “Sorry, you are not able to submit articles in this setcion, please see below the default settings and the ACLs set up for your account”

    For your second question, you could set Global configuration “Retrieve” to “yes”, this way all users will be able to read all sections (if there is not an ACL that explicitely blocks access for a given user/section combination).

26. Paul Says:
    06 March 2009 at 12.59

    Thanks for the reply Alessandro, but it is feasible that there will many thousands of users/editors, manual intervention for each one is something that i would like to avoid.

    Thanks anyway.

27. Paul Says:
    08 March 2009 at 0.51

    That would be a better solution for what i am looking for, if i could just set a permission for everyone who registers, they are automaticly set as “editors”, i only want to stop them editing certain pages, ie the home page and one or two others.

    Can this be done?

28. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    08 March 2009 at 17.43

    @Paul,

    not with the current version, but I’ve developed a beta version that supports ACLs for Joomla standard group:

    * registered
    * author
    * editor
    * publisher
    * manager

    administrators will always have full access granted.

    In case of conflicts, ACL for users will always prevail over group ACLs.

    I think I will release this new beta for testing in a few days.

    I will send the beta to all the people who have donated in the past and to all new donors.

29. Paul Says:
    08 March 2009 at 20.03

    Ok Alessandro, can you email when you have released this and i will make a donation!

    Many thanks
    Paul.

30. Lee Meadows Says:
    19 March 2009 at 14.12

    Hi Alessandro,

    I have received the files this morning – thanks you!

    Lee.

31. Vittorio Says:
    26 March 2009 at 22.07

    Ciao Alessandro,

    sono interessato a usare il tuo plug-in. Il sito che sto per publicare usa il plug-in joomfish.

    Credi che il tuo plug-in sarebbe ancora valido?

    Grazie.

32. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    26 March 2009 at 22.28

    @Vittorio,

    si, non dovrebbero esserci interferenze con Joomfish.

33. Davis Says:
    26 March 2009 at 22.38

    Ciao Alessandro, capisco e approvo la tua scelta di esigere un contributo per tuo lavoro (non tutti hanno le idee chiare sulla differenza tra “gratis” e open source). Però solitamente prima di spendere soldi cerco di verificare se il software fà al caso mio..
    Il pratica io devo poter mostrare ad utenti che si loggano in un sito in joomla una pagina personale (che deve essere diversa per ognuno) e nello stesso tempo impedire agli altri di poter accedere alla stessa..
    Si può fare?
    Grazie

34. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    26 March 2009 at 23.13

    @Davis

    Non sono sicuro che faccia esattamente al caso tuo: con simple ACL puoi decidere quali singoli utenti oppure interi gruppi di utenti Joomla (registered, author, publisher, manager) possono (o non possono) leggere, modificare o inserire articoli in una data sezione.

    Nella versione beta c’è una integrazione sperimentale con i menu, quindi un utente vedrà solo le voci di menu che puntano a sezioni (o categorie appartenenti a sezioni oppuere singoli articoli appartenenti a sezioni) alle quali può accedere in lettura.

    Quindi potresti fare così: mettere il default a read=deny, in questo modo chiudi tutte le sezioni a tutti gli utenti, poi crei una acl per ciascun utente facendola puntare alla propria sezione e concedendo i permessi del caso.

35. Elise Says:
    07 April 2009 at 22.14

    I’d like to allow access to the following on my website (hpronline.org):
    – Blog section to a new user type categorized “Blogger”, to draft, save, publish, and edit *their own work*…
    – Allow that user to add to, but not delete from, pages they created another section.
    – Allow that user to add metadata (tags) to, but otherwise not change, pages in a third section.

    Are these possible?

36. Elise Says:
    07 April 2009 at 22.21

    I’d like to allow access to the following on my website (hpronline.org):
    – Blog section to a new user type categorized “Blogger”, to draft, save, publish, and edit *their own work*…
    – Allow that user to add to, but not delete from, pages they created another section.
    – Allow that user to add metadata (tags) to, but otherwise not change, pages in a third section.

    Are these possible? Please let me know ASAP.

37. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    08 April 2009 at 8.09

    @Elise,

    sorry that I see this comment only now: I don’t think you can do all what you ask with Simple ACL.

    You cannot create custom groups, only standard Joomla groups (registered, author, editor, publisher) and single users are supported at the moment.

    Anyway, you could set all you users to “author” (or “publisher”, depending if you want them to be able to publish or not: remember that Simple ACL will always honor Joomla! standard roles first!) , then create a section for each user, where they can publish their own articles (you must create a single ACL for each user/section combination here).

    Then you create another section and an ACL to allow the users in group “author” (or “user”, depending what you choose before) to post in that section.

    I have no clue about metadata, Simple ACL knows nothing about them.

38. wanted Says:
    17 April 2009 at 4.08

    Have a trial version for Joomla 1.5.10 and working over the PHP4?
    I’ve try many kinds of CAL but seems not working well.

39. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    20 April 2009 at 11.32

    @wanted

    no, sorry there is not a trial version.

    PHP4 is supported (but not recommended!) in the stable version only.

    New beta version was not (yet) tested on PHP4 but I would expect it will work without problems.

40. hannibal Says:
    20 April 2009 at 20.43

    I only need for some admins to have an access to a couple components and nothing more (back-end). Can this extension customize that?

41. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    20 April 2009 at 21.45

    @hannibal,

    no, sorry. Simple ACL has only effect on front-end sections.

42. Giorgio Says:
    15 May 2009 at 15.46

    Salve,

    sono un newbie assoluto e ho l’ingrato compito di dover fare il sito web per il mio dipartimento universitario, dove sono tutti anche peggio di me e quindi…

    ho bisogno di una soluzione – la piu’ semplice possibile – per:

    - permettere a ognuno dei 20-30 membri dello staff di modificare la propria pagina / sezione, e solo quella!

    - permettere ad alcuni (5-6), di postare anche sulla front-page e in altre pagine “comuni”.

    - tutto possibilmente da fare tramite il front-office.

    si puo’ fare? senza grossi problemi posso far coincidere sectios and categories

    grazie!

43. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    15 May 2009 at 15.59

    @Giorgio,

    con Joomla + Simple ACL faresti tutto quello che chiedi, solo per la home dovrai usare al posto del componente frontpage il componente content con la vista blog/sezioni scegliendo una sezione che sarà quella da mostrare in home page.

    La configurazione di Simple ACL avviene dal back-end, tutto il resto lo puoi fare da front-end.

44. Giorgio Says:
    25 May 2009 at 22.35

    Alessandro, thanks a lot, simple ACL works well and it is super-simple to implement!

45. Robert Götz Says:
    12 June 2009 at 18.29

    Hello,

    I’m responsible for the Website of our public school “Technische Schule Aalen” (www.tsaalen.de).
    I’m interested in your SimpleACL extension, but in our adminstration there is no official way do donate via PayPal.
    Can you provide any other way to send you the money?

    Thanks

    Robert

46. Kathy Says:
    13 June 2009 at 4.00

    I am working on a medical tourism website where I will have public access to view some basic pages/articles and registered users who will be able to view only more detailed pages/articles. Then I need a third level of users who can access and modify perhaps only information regarding their trip. No one else can view their information unless authorized by the client–say a relative or friend they want to be aware of their trip information. This means the search function must not bring up their profiles and pages/articles.

    It looks like I can set up a section for each user and restrict access to just that user, much like access to bank account information. Right?

    Can Simple ACL work to provide this? I am not a programer so I need a plugin that is easily modified and set up.

    Thanks.

    Kathy

47. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    13 June 2009 at 11.18

    @Kathy,

    Yes, Simple ACL will do what you want: you will deny access to all as default ACL policy, create one section for each user, set up an ACL to grant access to that user, and only that user will be able to read/search and optionally edit or create content in that section.

    And yes, Simple ACL is really “simple” to install and configure, this is its unique selling point, after all: do one thing and do it well and easily.

    That said, be warned that Simple ACL was not built with military grade security in mind, this means that if you put a reserved document (say a PDF) in one of the reserved pages, if an unauthorized user knows the exact document URL, nothing will prevent her/him to download the document if she/he enters the URL directly in the browser address bar.

48. nelu Says:
    22 June 2009 at 23.24

    hi,
    I want to have several pages within my joomla-website (1.5.11) which are available only for special users.
    what means, I have about 100 people, who should get an individual account. there will be a blog-category for each user with several pages which should be available for all visitors, but 1 page of this blog should have restricted access and should be available only for this one special user.
    is this possible with simple acl???
    thanks,
    nelu

49. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    28 June 2009 at 8.57

    @nelu,

    Simple ACL works with whole sections only, so the answer is no (for your second requirement).

50. Chuks Igboegwu Says:
    28 June 2009 at 18.03

    Hello, I believe your product is what I need for my site. But I do have a problem. Your payment option is only paypal.com And paypal does not have my country in their country list. Is there another way I can pay for this product? because I do have a master card.

    Reply Asap.

51. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    28 June 2009 at 18.17

    @Chucks,

    I believe that paypal also accept mastercard.

    The only other option is wire tranfer (bank to bank) but you would pay the transfer costs and they could be quite high (it is also very slow).

    In case you choose the wire, write me an email (the address is in Contacts page).

52. Frank Jacobs Says:
    04 July 2009 at 11.50

    hi,

    just received and installed Simple Acl. Installation and setup went well, but I am unable to create any acl. Can this be due to my site running under php 4.4.2 and/or Mysql 3.23 ?
    I always get a message : Error creating item. If this is the problem, is there any workaround ?
    Thanks for a quick reply.

53. wayneb Says:
    15 July 2009 at 6.39

    Hi–

    I’ve read through the comments thread here on what Simple ACL can and cannot do, but I’d like to ask about my specific scenarios before purchase/donation. I’ve now tried six other ACL systems and none would do everything I need in any reasonable way, so I’m hoping yours is the component I’ve been looking for!

    Here’s my needs list:
    1. control access by Joomla default groups (Guest, Registered, Author, Editor, etc…), but

    2. control what menu items a user can see based on Joomla default groups.

    3. control what content sections a user interact with based on Joomla default groups.

    4. only need to have ACL rules based on Joomla default groups; do not need to add an ACL per user.

    Will SimpleACL do this for me?

    Thanks!

    -wb

54. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    15 July 2009 at 14.14

    @wayneb,

    Yes and no: Simple ACL will hide menu items only when they link to “denied” sections, or categories (categories belonging to denied sections) or articles (articles belonging to denied sections). Simple ACL will not interfere with any other menu types.

    So, if your menu items will only point to content items (sections, categories or articles), Simple ACL will work for you just fine.

    Of course if you’re fine with standard Joomla “hyerarchical” access control (publisher > editor > author) you will not need Simple ACL nor any other additional component.

55. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    15 July 2009 at 16.09

    @Frank

    I’m sorry I didn’t see your comment… the next time please file your requests in http://busg.itopen.it under “Simple ACL”.

    Coming to your problem, there is an issue with very old versions of MySQL, the only way to install is to run a SQL query by hand to create the necessary table:

    ————-

    CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `jos_simpleacl` (
    `id` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
    `userid` int(11) NOT NULL,
    `action` set(‘c’,'r’,'u’,'d’) NOT NULL,
    `sectionid` int(11) NOT NULL,
    PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
    UNIQUE KEY `sacl_unique` (`userid`,`sectionid`)
    ) TYPE=MyISAM ;

    ———————-

    To run the query you should have access to a shell or you can use phpmyadmin which is available from most ISP control panels.

    Let me know if this solves your problem.

    Best regards.

56. wayneb Says:
    16 July 2009 at 1.08

    Alessandro–

    Thanks for the fast reply!

    I still believe I need Simple ACL or the like, as, unless I’m missing something, the standard Joomla 1.5x restrictions are Public, Registered and Special, lumping everyone above Registered into Special, which is my problem. I need to be able to differentiate access to all the standard access groups. Or, am I missing something in Joomla core? Everything I’ve tried is Public, Registered and Special; no way to tie a restriction to Editor specifically, for example….

    Again, thanks for the info and, unless you have a solution without Simple ACL, I’ll most likely be purchasing it shortly.

    Thanks!

    -wb

57. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    16 July 2009 at 9.11

    @wayneb

    Yes, you’re right, I forgot that Joomla core squash all above registered into special…

    Simple ACL will work for you, but remember: it works in the front-end only and for sections only.

58. Lawrence Says:
    16 July 2009 at 18.12

    Can this be installed with Joomla 1.0?

59. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    16 July 2009 at 18.29

    @Lawrence:

    no.

60. wayneb Says:
    17 July 2009 at 21.58

    Alessandro–

    Understood. Just one last question. Regarding the ‘experimental’ menu suppression/control, will it work on top-level menu ’seperator’ items (those who have Main Menu as their direct parent but have child menu items)? If so, then this is exactly what I need, as controlling front-end access to allow some Main Menu items to only be visible to Editors or Publishers, as opposed to Authors and Registered.

    Thanks!

    -wb

    P.S. in case it matters, I’m using J1.5.x and a RocketTheme template that uses MooMenu.

61. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    17 July 2009 at 22.43

    @wayneb,

    frankly speaking, your mileage may vary… Menu integration was not tested much, the logic behind it checks if the menu item is pointing to a com_content item (section, category or an article), if yes, it checks ACLs for the section and hide it accordingly.

62. Jen Says:
    23 July 2009 at 3.35

    It is either not working right or I’m doing something wrong. Majority of my website is public. Therefore, my ACL’s global configuration has to have: Retrieve: ‘Allow’ because if it is selected as ‘Deny’, the public can’t read the public pages. And I have three groups of users (A,B&C), where each group user can see a specific section (for example user A can see section A and user B can see section B). Therefore, each of these group user is destinated as ‘registered’ within user manager and within Simple ACL, the user is destinated to the specific section. And I destinated the section’s article and menu to be ‘registered’. But the problem is that when user A signs in, user A can see all articles within A, B & C, therefore seeing articles not within their section. Why is that? Thanks for your help!

63. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    27 July 2009 at 14.40

    @Jen,

    Hi,

    your first assumption is not correct: SimpleACL works only with authenticated users (registered and logged in) so you don’t need to set default Retrieve=Allow to allow unautenthicated users to browse public sections.

    In your case, change default access to Retrieve=Deny and (if needed) create an ACL to grant access to Registered group to the public sections.

64. David Says:
    01 August 2009 at 1.24

    I surely know this question has been asked and answered but not in the way my brain is working, so…

    Can I set/restrict my Authors to only be able to ’see’ certain sections/categories and thus be only able to write to those restricted sections/categories.

    eg – on my Site I have

    Sections: A, B, C, D, E, F, G

    I want to allow Authors the ability to ONLY write for Sections: A, B, G

    (I still wish to retain Admin control over final publishing for public viewing)

    Thanks

    David

65. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    01 August 2009 at 8.55

    @David,

    yes, of course it’s possible. It’s just a matter of setting the right ACLs.

    Set default configuration to Create=Deny, Retrieve=Allow, Update=Deny
    Create 3 ACLs to Create=Allow and Update=Allow for group Author and sections A,B,G

66. Miao Says:
    11 August 2009 at 9.13

    Does the plugin support Chinese Character encoding? I mean, if some of the articles, sections or categories are posted or named in Chinese, will the display and access work properly? will garbled code appear?

    Thank you very much

67. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    11 August 2009 at 9.23

    @Miao,

    I don’t know, but I don’t see any reason why the encoding should influence Simple ACL checks in any way.

68. J.J. Says:
    06 October 2009 at 23.01

    Hello, What we are looking for is a way to redirect each user that logs in to a custom page just for them with information that applies only to that user. We might also want to just show a different module to each user when they log in. Can this be done with Simple ACL?

69. Scott See Says:
    07 October 2009 at 8.06

    I need to restrict access to a section. But I also need to be able to change the password for the group that has access to this section. So, for example, perhaps the password for a section is asdf. I would then change the password for this section to hjkl. Then I would notify the entire group about the new password. Will ACL do this for me?

    Thanks,

    Scott

70. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    07 October 2009 at 8.46

    @JJ:

    No, the only thing Simple ACL does is manage access to sections for users or standard joomla user groups (author, editor etc.).

    @Scott:

    No, neither Joomla nor Simple ACL implement user-defined groups or section passwords.

71. Alexis Says:
    19 October 2009 at 21.56

    Hello! I just saw this “The latest version has limited group support. You can now add ACLs to the following standard Joomla user groups:
    registered
    author
    editor
    publisher
    manager”.

    it might be silly of me to ask, but just to be sure… Does that mean that Simple ACL doesn’t support the creation of other user groups??

    Thanks,

    Alexis

72. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    20 October 2009 at 8.44

    @Alexis

    Simple ACL does not support custom user-defined groups.

    You can create ACLs for

    * single user / single section
    * standard Joomla groups (author, editor etc.) / single section
    * default

    This ACLs offers a broad range of use cases but Simple ACL is not the solution for *all* ACL problems, is’t “Simple” after all.

73. Alexis Says:
    20 October 2009 at 15.56

    Got it! Thank you very much for your reply, as i was saying it was just to be sure. Good luck!

74. Christian Says:
    23 October 2009 at 14.29

    Hello,

    Is your tool useful for my site?

    The situation is:

    About 10 people (group registered, status publisher) should be allowed to edit and insert news only in one defined category with the frontend editor. The articles in this news category are viewable by public and the first five articles are shown also on the frontpage.

    They should not to be allowed to change (edit,delete) public articles in other categories (rest of the site) when they logged in the frontend.

75. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    23 October 2009 at 15.04

    Yes, Simple ACL will do it but only if you change category into a section: Simple ACL works with sections, not with categories (of course you can create a section with a single category for this purpose).

    You will
    * set default Simple ACL parameters to allow retrieve and deny all other actions
    * create an ACL for standard group “publishers” to grant edit and insert for your defined section

76. Henry Lach Says:
    02 November 2009 at 21.28

    I would like to allow people to self-register on my site, but not automatically give them access to restricted sections. I want to manually validate each new login (to make sure they’re a customer) and then grant them access to the restricted section of the site.

    From what I can tell, self registration automatically puts users into the Registered group.

    Is this something that Simple ACL can help with?

    Tx,
    Henry

77. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    02 November 2009 at 21.52

    @Henry,

    You don’t need Simple ACL: Joomla standard workflow will do it just fine.

78. Scott Says:
    05 November 2009 at 11.48

    I want a user to decide to register for my site from our home page… Go to paypal… become registered… then once paid and registered have access to members only menus items AND most important have their own unique portal page or section. Is this possible?

    Thank You

79. Sarah Eagle Says:
    10 November 2009 at 17.25

    Your flowchart is excellent. Does a K2 (http://k2.joomlaworks.gr/) piece of content get treated the same way as a standard Joomla section/category/article?

    So if I have all content in K2 instead, will Simple ACL still work?

    Thanks

80. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    10 November 2009 at 17.36

    @Sarah,

    Sorry I really have no idea, we have never worked with K2.

81. Anders Says:
    23 November 2009 at 21.21

    Im using Simple ACL, and it works great. But I have given som editors the right to publish to one section and category on the page, but I have to approve the articles before they are published.

    How do I make them published automaticly?

    Thanks.

82. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    23 November 2009 at 21.38

    @Anders,

    Your question has not much to do with Simple ACL (which does not override standard Joomla permissions): in the Joomla CMS only “publishers” can publish.

83. Blain Ingram Says:
    24 November 2009 at 0.42

    1. Does Simple ACL work with CB registration?
    2. Is there a way to test this with a short trial period and then registration key. I am tired of getting burned by the paid stuff. Oddly enough the free stuff ends up being more stable? Just paid for Juga…a waste of time and money.

84. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    24 November 2009 at 9.51

    @Blain:

    1 – I haven’t tested, so I assume No.
    2 – No sorry, I guarantee Simple ACL works as advertised, but feel free to ask more informations about Simple ACL, describe your use case and I honestly will tell you if Simple ACL will do the job.

    Simple ACL is fine for a broad range of use cases, but of course it’s not a solution for *all* ACL problems.

85. WhyWaitWeb Says:
    17 December 2009 at 18.08

    Hi Alessandro,

    Can you install other extensions alongside SimpleACL to allow front end deletion,

    Thanks..

86. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    17 December 2009 at 18.17

    @WWW

    In theory, yes: the “delete” action is checked by Simple ACL (post-mortem as all other actions).

    Since the “delete” function is not available in front-end this feature is untested.

    What extension are you thinking to install?

87. Antonio Says:
    06 January 2010 at 14.31

    Dear Alessandro,
    I am about to buy the extension but as I new to webhosting service and to Joomla, I have realized that some extensions need Apache installed and running in the server in order to work, is this the case of Simple ACL???

    Antonio

88. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    06 January 2010 at 19.13

    #Antonio

    All you need is a working installation of Joomla 1.5.

89. Mickey Freeman Says:
    08 January 2010 at 22.19

    Forgive me if this question has been asked already but I didn’t have time to look through all of the comments for this extension.

    Our clients are a professional association, and we need to setup a front end access control system specifically just for viewing certain sections.

    The idea behind this is that they have certain sections that they only want members to see. In addition to this members can also be part of smaller committees like board members or young professionals, these groups would have their own sections as well which should only be viewable by members who are part of these groups.

    The final piece to this puzzle, and don’t ask because i don’t get it either, is that not everyone has to be a member. They actually have board members who aren’t members of the association. So these people would need access only to their special committee section.

    Is something like this capable with Simple ACL?

90. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    08 January 2010 at 22.43

    @Mickey:

    in theory: yes.

    Given a proper amount of ACL rules you can achieve virtually any configuration.

    The question is: is this practical?

    It depends on how many groups (comitees) and members you have and, last but not least, on how frequently they change.

    I suspect that without custom defined groups (which Simple ACL doesn’t have) you will need to create a lot of ACL rules in order to get what you want.

91. Mickey Freeman Says:
    08 January 2010 at 23.13

    Yeah I would prefer the ability to create user groups, are there any ACL solutions you can recommend? We looked into the Opensource Excellence ones but they seem to only support a one to one relationship for the groups.

    Thanks for your response

92. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    08 January 2010 at 23.16

    @Mickey,

    no, sorry. I decided to write my own solution because there were no other simple and unobstrusive components.

    You’ll have to wait for Joomla 1.6.

93. Beck Says:
    09 January 2010 at 0.59

    I’ve just used SimpleACL on a site with approx 30 registered users. The users require read access only to different sections, on account of the fact that they are members of different committees, sub committees. I had about 8 sections in total.

    I had to create approx 100 ACL but given that each one took seconds to create, it really wasn’t too onerous a task. It took me about 45 minutes to create the ACL’s from the first to the last.

    Thanks for this extension, I’m really pleased with how it does exactly what I want.

94. Paul Says:
    15 January 2010 at 13.12

    Hi Alessandro

    I need guest and registered levels of access for my site but need a third for “special members” to access the forum.

    Looking at a tip on a board, I thought about using Editor (ie Special level)and then restricting their ability to edit. I only want the admins to edit.

    Will your software allow me to restrict editing on all pages by editors (and remove the edit icon from the page).

    My thanks

95. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    15 January 2010 at 13.25

    @Paul

    You’d better use “Author” instead of “Editor” and yes, Simple ACL will do fine in preventing authors to create new contents (or editing existing one) but Simple ACL will not be able to remove the edit icon because this icon is generated in the template (it’s something you can fix easily editing the template code or with a template override).

    When an unauthorized user clicks on the edit icon he will be redirected to the “deny” page (where you can put your own text).

96. Paul Says:
    15 January 2010 at 13.48

    Wow – incredible response. My thanks for your assistance. Will go looking at the template :- )

97. Renato Says:
    22 January 2010 at 7.41

    Ciao, volevo sapere se SimpleACL permette questo: Rossi si iscrive come Author, inserisce un suo nuovo articolo (in una qualunque delle sezioni del sito). Io come Superadmin controllo l’articolo e lo pubblico. Attualmente Rossi può modificare il suo articolo. Io vorrei sapere se posso con SimpleACL “bloccare” le variazioni dell’Autore sui suoi articoli.
    Il livello Autore permette di scrivere nuovi articoli e dopo la pubblicazione modificarli. Vorrei eliminare questa possibilità. Ciao

98. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
    22 January 2010 at 11.35

    @Renato:

    Si, funziona impostando l’ACL di default per permettere l’inserimento ma non la modifica di un articolo inserito (questo indipendentemente dal fatto che sia stato o pubblicato oppure no).

99. howard Says:
    02 February 2010 at 8.42

    Hi Allessandro

    We have SimpleACL up and working fine. Great job.

    Is it possible to use a redirect instead of the SimpleACL error page ? We would like to send the user back to the home page.

100. Anonimo Says:
     02 February 2010 at 9.50

     @Howard

     I’m sorry, this is not possible at the moment, but you can change the default behavior with some small modifications in the code:

     in /plugins/system/simpleacl.php line 127:

     $app->redirect(‘index.php?option=com_simpleacl&task=deny’);

     you can change the redirect as you wish.

     For the homepage, just leave “index.php”.

101. BTS Says:
     11 February 2010 at 1.48

     Hi I am wondering how you integrate this with DOCMan? Any guidance would be appreciate. Thanks!

102. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
     12 February 2010 at 0.32

     @BTS

     There is no interaction with DocMan, or with any other component.

     DocMan has its own permission system.

103. Noster Says:
     25 February 2010 at 20.19

     Before I adquire Simple ACL, I need to know if I can do the following:

     -I want to have an area in my site where clients can see information related to them. For example, I want to have a common tab “client access”. If client “A” clicks that tab, he will see his information, with other tabs related to his account. If client “B” clicks the tab, he will see only his information. Information of Client A will be very different to the information of client B.

     I understand that I would have to register and give access to every client manually, it’s not a problem.

     is this possible?

104. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
     25 February 2010 at 20.34

     @Noster:

     Simple ACL does one simple thing (and does it well): control user access to sections (and categories or articles below the section), what you put in your sections or categories articles it doesn’t matter.

     There is limited menu item support: if you create a menu item that points to an article, a section or a category which is denied by an ACL, then Simple ACL will try to hide the menu (some templates might override this behaviour so it’s only 99% safe) .

     I hope I answered your question.

105. Jamz Says:
     25 February 2010 at 22.07

     Hi There,

     I have a quick question about this… Does this addon allow custom user groups to be created? Then access given to the pages for the different user groups.

     We are creating a website that has 3 different age groups, and would like only age group 1 to see some pages, age group 2 to see some more and age group 3 to see them all.

     Is this possible with this?

106. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
     26 February 2010 at 9.49

     @Jamz:

     It’s in the FAQ: Simple ACL does not support user defined (custom) groups.

     But keep in mind that you need to do one operation to put a user in a group and you need to do one operation to create a user ACL, so if the relationship is such as each user belongs to exactly one group then Simple ACL is the perfect tool.

107. stuart barnes Says:
     01 March 2010 at 11.43

     Hi, could you tell me if this is possible please before i purchase.. basically i want to add an item on the user menu that only a few say 3 registerd users can see ie 3 employees of a company

     thank you

108. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
     01 March 2010 at 12.04

     @stuart

     I would say yes, but it depends on several conditions:

     * the menu item must point to a section (or a category or an article belonging to a section) which is not public
     * your template does not override menu component/module in strange ways (very unlikely, but must be remarked)
     * the user has ACL “access read” granted for that section
     * there is an ACL rule that denies access to that section for other users (otherwise everybody will see the menu)

     The last is the tricky point: you can choose to deny access to all sections by default and grant individual access rights or you can play with joomla roles (i.e. create and ACL for “Authors” or for “Editors”). Or you can do the other way round: grant all to everybody and deny to selected users/sections.

     Simple ACL is simple to use and very flexyble, but ACLs configurations are often a very complicated beast, virtually everybody needs a different configuration.

     Also keep in mind that Simple ACL will not be able to hide the menu module (the menu item container) but it will only hide the individual menu items (this is seldom a problem, just use a module with hidden title).

109. John Harper Says:
     03 March 2010 at 3.29

     Are search engines able to “see” what is in ACL restricted sections?

     What about users know the exact URL of the restricted Section? For example, someone who was once allowed but is now unwelcome.

     My more general question is how secure is ACL? Can I feel confident putting sensitive material behind it or should I always assume everything on the internet is really public?

     Cordially,
     John Harper

110. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
     03 March 2010 at 9.52

     @John,

     good questions!

     First, I would say that Simple ACL was not buld with military grade security in mind, nor was Joomla itself.

     Restricted sections cannot be “public” (in Joomla level sense), so search engines will not see them.

     Knowing the URL will not be sufficient to access a denied sections but knowing the URL of an image or a file attachment will permit access to that image or attachment (this is obvious, since an image or attachment can be attached to many articles or sections or categories).

111. John Harper Says:
     03 March 2010 at 23.58

     Thank you for your work, knowledge and willingness to share. I am just gathering information right now and am not ready to buy Simple ACL.

     However, I do want to make a small donation just because I don’t believe in something for nothing – it always turns into nothing for something right there at the end. You guys have a cold beer on me!

     Cordially,
     John Harper

112. John Harper Says:
     04 March 2010 at 0.15

     I can’t seem to find a link for donations. ???

     Cordially,
     John Harper

113. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
     04 March 2010 at 10.15

     @John

     thank you for your wise words.

     I’m surprised: I’m working with and on open source project since 10 years now, and you are the first willing to donate something. But I fully agree with you and I myself make yearly donations of part of my money to other open source projects I use (QGSIs, Docman, JCE… to cite a few).

     If you are really willing to offer me a beer you can click on the [Buy now] button at the top of this page, copy the email address of my paypal account and just make a new paypal donation to that address, you choose the amount.

     Thanks.

114. John Harper Says:
     06 March 2010 at 18.31

     It isn’t easy to buy you a beer. First of all, I don’t have a PayPal account. I would have to use a credit card. Then the form is in Italian and I don’t even see the USA listed as a country. I thought it might be like Spanish but apparently not. Spanish is commonly spoken here in Texas but Italian isn’t.

     At any rate, I am lost when it comes to making a donation. I’ll just buy one for a stranger and give a hearty “Cheers” to Alessandro Pasotti. Thank you for your work.

     Cordially,
     John Harper

115. Anders Says:
     07 March 2010 at 9.03

     Hi

     I bought Simple ALC some years ago, and im very pleased with the product and your support level.

     Now im going to build a website in Wordpress, and need the same features as Simple ALC provides for Joomla.

     Do you know of such a plugin, or can Simple ALC manage the task?

     I know its a bit offtopic, but googling it didn’t help me.

     Thanks.

116. Claudio Says:
     10 March 2010 at 22.26

     Vorrei sapere se esiste un sito DEMO dove testare il componente. (vorrie evitare di pagare 45 Euro per un componente che non fa poi quello di cui necessitiamo)?

     Vorrei sapere anche se è possibile limitare l’accesso ad alcune pagine in base alla tipologia utente?

     Grazie

117. Alessandro Pasotti Says:
     10 March 2010 at 22.44

     @Claudio:

     No: non esiste una demo, ma se mi spiegate quello che volete fare vi dico se Simple ACL vi può essere utile o meno.

     No: la limitazione è su intere sezioni e non su singoli articoli (ammesso che con “pagine” intendeste dire articoli)

     @Anders:

     No sorry, I’m not aware of any WP plugin for ACLs.

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