I couldn't find anything on this topic, but please refer me to it if this is covered elsewhere.

I want to ask a question about the best way to use Groups, if, like me, you need to implement a fairly complex group structure.

An example.

Suppose I wanted 5 levels of access:

(A) Guest
(B) Registered User
(C) User-Plus
(D) Moderator
(E) Admin

B would have access to more modules and capabilities than A. C would have all of B's access plus more. D would have all of C's access, plus specified moderating rights - but does NOT need to see several blocks visible to A, B and C. E has admin rights to everything (but also doesnt need to see certain blocks visible to A, B & C).

How's it best to set that up?

It occurs to me that Groups can be used like building blocks - or one can take a different approach and specify everything for a given group.

This is because one can either take the approach that a given user is potentially a member of several groups - or decide that users are members of a single group only.

Which approach do other XOOPS Webmasters/Webmistresses generally take?

To clarify this by reference to the example above, under the first approach members of C would need to be members of two groups. Under the second one, they'd only be members of C.

The only need for having extra groups is if you want to give access to regular registered users for certain modules or even module admin access.

Say you want only certain people to be able to post news on your site and you don't want those people to be admins or moderators, then you could create a new group that has module access rights to news. You could put whoever you want in that group.

I personally created a moderators group so that I could assign people to moderate my forums but they aren't allowed to have module admin rights to anything else.

Quote:

OK.

So, when you created that Moderators group, did you create a group with just those extra moderating rights and no others - then add moderators to that group?

Or - did you create the Moderators group with ALL the privileges you want for them (including the basic registered users' privileges) - then remove those individuals from the group Registered Users and add them tio the new group Moderators?

That's the difference I'm trying to get at.

It's possible that both strategies work OK.

But I wanted to find out if there's a recommended choice of solutions, and why.

I have
Webmasters - ALL privileges
Registered - Access rights to most if not all modules
Anonymous - read access mainly

Other groups:
Based on Registered and only adding, what is special for this group - there might be overlaps between these groups, but ALL my members are in the Registered group

I did not take my moderators or any special groups members out of my registered users group. The registered users only have access to all the modules I want them to be able to access but the moderators group is assigned the additional forums admin access so that they can delete posts, move topics, create forums, etc. I allow my mods to do all that for me because they are trusted members and it helps me out so that I don't have to keep my eye on the forums all the time.

But I did create another group that is just for publishing news and other articles and the members of this group have some members of the moderators group and regular members in it. I created the group to have help in posting news and editing news.

The thing is, you can create as many groups that you want to help out with administering certain portions of your site so that you have help. You can assign any group whatever privileges you want to and trust them to have.

Thanks to you both for your answers.

It's helped clarify things for me.

You're welcome, feral1! Glad I was able to be of some help to you.