This may be a topic for the Roadmap folks, but I have just upgraded my test site to 2.2.4 and it neatly solves most of the issues for which I needed system hacks.
Thanks guys this is very nice work!

The primary remaining item is - I need the ability to allow my "Content Editor" users access to a subset of the Webmaster's admin menu items. I would like to do this in a data driven way, much like the config items in xoops_version.php for my modules. The new profile manager stuff is close, but not quite the thing I need.

So, my question is, has anyone looked into permission-based config items -- or is this a feature that is being worked on for a coming release? I'm going to build this one way or another, but I would prefer it to be in the least "hacky" way possible and in line with whatever objectives the devs are working towards.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks.

I thinking from your post that you know what code needs to be changed. If thats the case you should submit it to the feature tracker and the core devs will look over the code and add it accordingly.

Well, I have some ideas, but it's not just a matter of some code changes. It's a fairly deep intrusion into the core (at minimum a new system table, or possibly a shape change to the existing config table), and I don't want to implement something that does not fit with whatever might already be in the works. I'd like to hear
1) if anyone is already working on this, as I know others have mentioned a need for it before, or
2) if anyone has given the potential architecture any serious thought and can share their ideas

I'm an experienced Smalltalk software engineer, but the architecture of the XOOPS core is still not very clear to me. I don't want to implement something strange.

So please share your ideas.

Thanks.

Ah, the profile manager stuff does point the way ...

It seems the permissions are completely open-ended, so I can hook in there as well. Now I just need to find a way to gracefully insert my new behavior into the menu generation as well as config categories and config item collection processing.

Still open to anyone else's thoughts/experience on this topic.