What should I do to make visible an article to just one specified user group

Thanks for help.

You cant.

Have a look at this post:
http://xoops.sourceforge.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=285&forum=10&5

Maybe you could hack it in a similar manner, as to restrict a certain topic to a certain group of ppl.

But one should be able to do this ...

More and more interested parties are asking about this general issue - across many modules now. If memory serves, expressions of interest cover the forums, downloads, gallery, (the promised) sections, and now the news modules.

It has been demonstrated that hacks can be made to accomplish such access control, but I think it is an important enough issue for the developers to address. Whilst I would not want something like this to significantly delay the release of RC2, it would be nice to see some indication of where this sort of capability fits within their general plans.

As XOOPS matures, capacity for a finer level of access control should be integrated in the very same thoughtful way that the rest of the system has been conceived and developed to date. The product developed to date is very promising for the general portal class site, but integrated, strong, but still easily usable access control will give tremendous power to those interested in providing a multi-tiered or group-specific type service - for which XOOPS already provides a strong foundation.

P.S. - additions below

A corollary of this capability would be that only those topics/modules/forums/whatever a user had appropriate access to would appear to that user - no more 'you don't have permission' messages (sometimes after considerable work)! Users should not even know the stuff they don't have access to actually exists.

Cleverly constructed this would not necessarily impose any extra overhead (site slowdown) because checks for permission are already made - smart db design and querying should not make a sophisticated access checking system onerous on site performance.

Also forgot that jerryj (I think) wanted the capability to restrict certain blocks to certain pages - and potentially to certain users - so this too could be a consideration for an 'access control module'.

It would be nice also to see the capacity for multiple levels of access to be possible, e.g.,:
read < write/add/post/upload < edit < delete
where each level includes the permissions below it.

I know this starts to get quite complicated - and don't just say go use PN - but the XOOPS devs have already demonstrated their prowess in making quite complicated tasks relatively easy for admins to use.

My general proposal - hinted at above - would be that this is some sort of module that those who wanted access control over and above the current default model (which suits many - most?) could activate and configure to suit particular site requirements. Only those who really wanted/needed it would ever have to bother with it.

It would be nice to get some indication of interest in this sort of 'feature set'.

[ Edited by Amgine on 2002/1/16 22:37:11 ]

Actually its quite easy to add.

Ok a per user restriction...is pretty much outta the question, but thats where groups come into action, and since we can add users to groups, all is fine :o)

To implement this system, the only thing that needs to be added is a table field that holds the groupid. So now when you create a new download category, topics category, or weblinks category... you can select a group that has access to this (of course there should be a default value to make things easier)

Now if you said the anonymous/registered group (should prolly be the default) can access it, then you have nothing to edit. However if you'd like to make it acessible only to friends, then you would create a friend group, and add all those individuals who you want to grant access to your newly created friends group.

Now since each category branch has an associated groupid, we just need to check if the user calling a file, document or whatever from this branch has the necessary group permissions.

Ok this does mean editing multiple files, but the principle is rather easy to achieve.... just dont count on me making any hack like this before the final version comes out (and even so id only do it for the downloads section)

I disagree with Amgine on one point.

Quote:

From a marketing standpoint, if I'm running a commercial site, I may want to let users see what kinds of stuff the website has that they don't have access too--to try and persuade them to register for an account. Perhaps I would hack the "you don't have permission" messages to say "look what you could be seeing if you registered for an account with us!".

Quote:

This wasn't me...I think it was webangel.

[QUOTE]
From a marketing standpoint, if I'm running a commercial site, I may want to let users see what kinds of stuff the website has that they don't have access too--to try and persuade them to register for an account. Perhaps I would hack the "you don't have permission" messages to say "look what you could be seeing if you registered for an account with us!".
[/QUOTE]
Yup, thats exactly what i use it for. I have a shareware product thats freely downloadable, and bugfixes, hacks, addons, upgrades, etc are restricted to registered users(groups).

I wanted non regged users to be able to see what they would be able to get if they bought the product. So now, everyone can access my downloads area, but not everyone can download. It all depends on the category you are trying to dl from, wether the dl passes or fails...but you can still see the name/description/etc

[ Edited by Half-Dead on 2002/1/20 10:41:01 ]

I am trying to do exactly this and I see that this thread is pretty old. So I am wondering if this is now possible.

My situation:
Most all news categories are viewable by all including anonymous. But I would like a category in News with minutes from the core group's meeting that is not public.

Thanks.