How to work groups

Involved Joined: Jul 12, 2005 Posts: 283

Ok, i dont knwo what im doing wrong.
I made a new forum called "my team place" and i only want certain people who have registered my site, be allowed to view that forum.

how do i do that?

registered · Site Admin Joined: Jun 04, 2004 Posts: 6437

Look at the Groups functions (in this case, either NSN Groups or Forums Groups). Make sure to set the permissions correctly on the group.

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 8:20 am

i did look at that, i cant figure it out

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 8:35 am

Unfortunately, to say that the process of creating a group and giving it permissions to a forum is arcane would be a compliment. I'd leave nsngroups out of this as it just creates additional complexity in terms of managing forums. You need to go to usergroups in the normal (not admin) forums screen and create the group that you want to have access to your forum say forumX. You also need to have created the forum in forums admin. Then you need to forums permissions control in the forum admin screen and make the forum private. THEN you need to go to groups permission in the forums admin screen and give the group access to the forum. As clear and intuitive as mud and no wonder it creates so much confusion.

registered · Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 10:02 am

fkelly,
I am sorry, but I respectfully disagree! The reason is that if you set up groups in forums only, then what happens later if you want to use those groups for blocks, modules, messages, NSN GR Downloads, etc.... You have just doubled your issues. Why not just create the group using Edit Groups, which will also make that group available for forums configuration....

My preference is always to create the group using Edit Groups in the ACP. THEN, go to forums admin and do the attachment of that group to your forum and assign permissions.

Sorry, but just trying to head off potential issues later and it is only a slight "tweak" on your original steps.

jjmusicpro, you get to decide which approach you wish to take. BTW, as you can see, we are a diverse group here and so there are bound to be differences, this is why you get to choose which one you wish to take.

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 10:22 am

i did look at that, i cant figure it out

registered · Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 12:15 pm

It's really a phpBB issue, did you try searching their site for help? In a nutshell, you make the forum private or private [hidden], your preference, in the forum admin section, and then you go into the group admin section and pick permissions. Select your group and then give it "allowed access" to your new private forum.

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 12:48 pm

M. your approach is more "comprehensive" of course. However, if the administrator is already confused by the process, it does add another "layer". So, let's just say there are two ways to create a group: either thru nsngroups administration or thru usergroups administration which is found on the main forums screen. If you create the group thru nsngroups then it's available to the rest of Nuke. If you create it thru Forums then it is only available in Forums. Neither method of creating groups has a particularly "friendly" approach to adding users to groups, especially if you have a decent sized list that you want to add. You get to pick your poison there.

Once you have your group you then have to do what Gremmie said, make the forum hidden or private and then give the group permissions to it. It's too bad that you have to go spelunking thru three different screens that are in different parts of the system but that's the way it is.

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 10:03 pm

Anyone up for developing an AJAX drag and drop group maintenance function? The NSN groups approach (clicking a check box next to the user on a paged list of all users to add users to a selected group) isn't THAT bad.

I think the most challenging part of this specific request is setting the permissions on the forums. As Gremmie pointed out, that's defined by phpBB - maybe there is a tutorial on how to do that at phpBB.com or on another site?

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 8:56 am

Quote:

The NSN groups approach (clicking a check box next to the user on a paged list of all users to add users to a selected group) isn't THAT bad.

The idea of having a paged list is okay, the implementation in NSNgroups leaves a lot to be desired. It doesn't remember your selections from page to page so you have to hit update on each page and remember who you've put in the group and who you haven't (although the ones already in the group are grayed out). Want to put someone whose name starts with "S" in a group. Well it says you have 20 pages of names so let's see, "S" might be down around page 18. Go there and start paging around till you find it. Have 20 users to add? That's fun.

I don't know that we need AJAX but Javascript is probably the way to go. I've spent some time looking at Javascript implementations of "pick lists" and the like. It would probably pay to find some good code to start with and then customize it. I'd like to see a list of users that's searchable, a list of groups and some kind of connectors back and forth. Have the Javascript remember the selections you've made storing them in arrays and let you "review and amend" them before you do the update. Hover over a group and see its users, hover over a user and see his/her groups.
Things like that to be specified.

Getting back to this original post, setting the permissions on the groups is a pain compared to what it should be, but it's not that hard. Just step thru the screens systematically as has been posted here and it will work.