Hack: ReadOnly Categories

DShafik

I have a need for readonly categories, that is, a category where only those with the "PERMISSION_CHANGE_APPLICATION_SETTINGS" permission can post, but everybody can read. I have managed to hack this in, with a checkbox on the category create/edit form between the "Description" and the "Roles" stuff, and essentially, the Category is hidden from the "Select the category for this discussion" drop-down for unpriveledges users. Its a very minor code-change, but I added a new ReadOnly column to the DB. I still need to localize the strings and use the GetDynamicCheckbox() function (IIRC) to output the checkbox instead of it being hardcoded. I want to know how I should proceed from here to either get it included with the core vanilla distribution (as it seems to be an oft-requested and minor change) or how I can go about best extracting it into an addon with some customization to it (i.e. choosing which Roles can post in readonly categories). Your input is appreciated :) - Davey

DShafik

Please don't use this in production or anything, but here is a diff of my changes:

Patch

~30 lines added is all it took, but like I say, it still needs to be localized.

- Davey

garymardell

can you make it an extension?

DShafik

I... don't know

Was hoping someone could point me in the right direction

- Davey

giginger

Edit: I did misunderstand. Ignore me.

timberford

would love this as an extension. ideal for posting up news/notices/rules etc.

Burke Prefect

Be nice to just add a [LOCKED] mode to conversations & Cats

a_magical_me

I would be interested in taking the challenge of turning this into an extension.

a_magical_me

I guess I should ask whether you'd rather make the extension yourself, or let someone else do it.

iambigred

Please someone make this into an extension! :-)

DShafik

I just want to see this done right, I am quite competent in PHP, I needed this quickly, and so I hacked it in, I just wanted to contribute it back to the community :) If you want to take a stab at it "a_magical_me", have at, I'm busy writing and such, but if you would be good enough to comment it well so I can at least see what I should have done and then I can contribute more stuff in the future - the correct way :) - Davey

lowbenzo

I'd like to see this as an extension please!

lukeb

/signed for extension :)

mary

Purty please. :)

dkodr

Exactly what I would need for my forum!

a_magical_me

Yikes! You people know I don't work well under pressure, right? ^_^;;

CLRAdmin

Would love to see an extension like this. It's been requested by quite a few people now.

Mark

For the record: as an admin you can create a discussion and close it. Then no-one else can post in it besides administrators. It's not exactly what you are looking for, but it works until an extension is written.

CLRAdmin

Ok, I took a look at the patch posted above and it works beautifully. There is one bug though. The database.php file should read as: New: $DatabaseColumns['Category']['ReadOnly'] = 'ReadOnly'; Patch: $DatabaseColumns['Category']['ReadOnly'] = 'Description'; You'll need to add a new integer ReadOnly column to your database. I also noticed a few parts were different than shown in the diff patch file, probably because new versions have come out since then.

CLRAdmin

My main issue is I want to use one category for open public discussion and four separate categories for updates by our staff. We didn't want user posts getting mixed up in them so that legitimate staff posts were hard to find. Thanks for some great software, Mark! Quite a unique forum concept in an age where everyone is trying to copy phpBB or vBulletin.

dkodr

So is anyone going to make an extension out of it? I'd be extremely grateful! ^-^