Understanding Roles and Categories

UnLogikal

Ok, so Vanilla really is a very interesting way to do discussion, and I plan to use it as the forum for my business once it hits 1.0. I have a few questions concerning how Categories and Roles work. If I set a category so that only Moderators, User Adminstrators and Master Administrator are checked, does that mean only they can post to that category? Does that mean others can view those threads, but not post to them? I'm just looking at it from the perspective of wanting to have an "Announcements" type category that only those who work for the company or are in some way affiliated with it can post an announcement. Normal users should only be able to see those threads. Ultimately I'd like to have more fine grained control. Like Certain users can create a thread, but others can't but can reply to them. Is this planned? Also categories that are seen only by moderators and above... sort of a "wasteland" where threads go to the boneyard if they get out of hand.

ithcy

If I set a category so that only Moderators, User Adminstrators and Master Administrator are checked, does that mean only they can post to that category?

only they can view it or post to it. it would be invisible to all other roles. (this also answers your very last question.)

if you want to make threads that are viewable by all but "postable" only by some, you can make a thread and close it immediately. (you can also allow certain roles to post in closed threads.) there is currently no way to do this automatically by category. i don't know if it's planned.

vanilla is very role-based. there is no finer-grained control and again, i don't know if it's planned.

//edit: there's also a "sink" option in 1.0 that keeps threads open but prevents them from rising to the top when new replies are added. this is a boneyard-sort of thing.

Bergamot

There *is* fine-grained control, but it involves making a role for an individual user.

And I do think it would be cool to be able to set a category to be closed-thread-only or sink-only. I think that would be a pretty easy extension.

lech

The granular role feature was discussed a while ago, although as good as of an idea as it was, it was somewhat difficult to pull off, so at the moment it's on the shelf unless someone pulls it down and turns it into an extension.

Minisweeper

I was actually thinking about a sink category yesterday, but then i realised probably noone would post to it cause they'd know their thread would immediately sink and it'd be pretty pointless. *shrug.

UnLogikal

I'd say just expand the existing setup. For each category, add "View," "Post," "Reply" controls for each "role" listed. This would at least provide some more fine grained control. You could then alter the "Categories" for posting SQL statement to just display those upon which that user's role is able to Post to. I'm not familiar enough with PHP to write my own extension.. but is this really possible as an extension?

bikuta

Does the ordering of roles do anything? Or is it just a nice way of displaying the list on the screen?

Max_B

This thread turns out to be old, anyway:
My extension Category Roles does exactly what the original poster asked for and, when using it, the order of the roles list matters.