Answered MODX Permissions and Extras

Hi

I'm using MODX 2.3.1 hosted on MODX Cloud.

I've created a set of permissions to restrict access for Manager users, but this has hidden the 'extras' menu from the Manager. There are a number of extras that are installed (EventsX, FAQ Manager, Quip and Gallery) that I'd like available for my users via the extras menu, but without them having access to the installer and other extras within the list. How would I go about configuring the ACLs to allow this?

Regards

Phillip

This is tricky, but it I think it can be done.

If you just want to hide the installer, take away the 'packages' permission but give them the 'components' permission.

If you want to hide selected Extras, it's more complicated:

First, give the users the existing permission to see the extras menu items ('components'). They should not be members of the Administrator group.

Next, you need to add a custom permission (let's call it admin_extras) to a copy of the Administrator Policy Template and make sure it's checked on that Policy -- *and* assign that policy to the Administrator group in a Context Access ACL entry with a context of 'mgr' *before* you do anything else. Otherwise, you'll paint yourself into a corner.

At this point, you'll have the 'admin_extras' permission and the users in question won't.

Then in Gear Icon -> Menus, add the 'admin_extras' custom permission to the menu items you don't want them to see (but not to the 'Extras' item). If any menu item already has a permission, add the new one after a comma (no spaces).

That should hide those menu items from the users.

Be aware that upgrading the extras might (or might not) revert their permissions.

Doing it this way may slow down the Manager slightly for every Administrator. A better way would be to create a new Policy Template with only that custom permission (admin_extras), and create a Policy based on it, with the permission checked. Then assign that policy in a new Context Access ACL policy for the 'mgr' context to the Administrator group rather than using the copy of the Administrator template. [ed. note: BobRay last edited this post 9 years, 6 months ago.]

Great idea. Wish I'd thought of it.

You'd want to take away the 'components' permission for those users to hide the regular menu.

Quote from: absent42 at Oct 04, 2014, 10:32 PM

Could you not create a new dropdown menu called 'Apps' or something and move those extras to that? I've done that on a site and it seems to work fine.

Blinding flash of light! Indeed, that is one of those "why didn't I think of that!" ideas that the MDOX community seems to generate on a regular basis. Thank you for sharing it! May I please add your post to the list of solutions for the MODX Cookbook?

Hi all

Thanks for all of your responses, I'll give the new menu a go tomorrow when I'm back in the office.

By all means add the question to the MODX Cookbook. [ed. note: phillipd last edited this post 9 years, 6 months ago.]

It's still in the embryonic stage, not much in it yet. Eventually there will be various e-book versions available; whether those will be free or not I don't know at this point. I don't really envision a print version, as it's easy enough to keep an electronic version updated if I use something like calibre to compile the e-book versions.
http://cookbook.sottwell.modxcloud.com/

Having been down that road, I *strongly* advise you to start playing with Calibre now and look at the results in various platforms (and don't trust Calibre's emulation of them).

I could have saved myself a ton of work if I had done that. There are some things that just don't work that well in some e-book platforms (e.g., tables) and you can easily avoid using them once you know what they are. Rewriting the while thing to correct them is beyond unpleasant.

It will be easier for you since you're not trying to convert a Word doc. I ended up writing about a thousand lines of PHP code to massage Word's HTML output.

This goes double if you might ever use Amazon's e-book engine or Smashwords' Meatgrinder.

Quote from: sottwell at Oct 05, 2014, 06:26 AM

Blinding flash of light! Indeed, that is one of those "why didn't I think of that!" ideas that the MDOX community seems to generate on a regular basis. Thank you for sharing it! May I please add your post to the list of solutions for the MODX Cookbook?

Sure Susan. Sometimes the simplest solutions are just too simple to see.

In reference for OP, go the the gear icon on top right, select menus to edit the menu bar. The site I did this on looks like this:

[ed. note: absent42 last edited this post 9 years, 6 months ago.]

Hi,
I used the menu solution above to give access to a MODX gallery, this is working fine. I'm now trying to apply permissions to the actually Gallery extra eg. prevent creating or deleting a new album etc. I thought this was possible but I can't get it to work.

I've setup Element Category Access as follows:
gallery -> Editor - 10 -> Element custom -> mgr

Changing the permissions in the Element custom policy doesn't have any effect.

Any ideas?
Thanks