User Access problems

[Googol]

Hi.

I have been struggling with this issue for 2 days now so I'm looking for some help. First some background:

Joomla : 1.7.3
Phoca Download: 2.1.4

The site is for a local primary school and I am creating for free in my own time, so not commercial.

My site has 3 main folders each with several sub folders.

General
Classes
Groups

There are 13 users:

Superadmin (Me)
Head (The head teacher who has access to all articles. menus etc but is not a Superuser)
Admin (The admin office staff who have access to a subset of the Head's articles)
Staff (Who have access only to their own articles)

The scenario is as follows:
Public - Must be able to see and download all documents.
Staff - Can upload, edit, delete documents but only in their own 'Classes' or 'Groups' folders.
Admin- Can upload, edit, delete documents but only in 'General' folders.
Head - Can upload, edit, delete documents in all folders.
Superadmin - Same as Head.

For the sake of this post I will use the following usernames: staffuser, headuser, adminuser, superuser.

Problem 1

From the backend I set the category 'General' as follows:
Access: Public
Access Rights: Headuser, Adminuser, Superuser
Upload Rights: Headuser, Adminuser, Superuser
Delete Rights: Headuser, Adminuser, Superuser

Now to my mind this should let the public see and download any file whilst allowing the 3 named users frontend access to the same files. What actually happens is that the Public see the error "You have no rights to access this category".

If I change 'Access Rights' to 'All registered users' then the Public do not get the error. It seems to me that there is a conflict between the settings 'Access' and 'Access Rights'. If I understand correctly 'Access' should only affect who is allowed to view/download the files in the frontend, i.e. Public or Registered Users. 'Access Rights' controls who can view/edit files from the registered users as set in 'Options>>General>>Access Level - Registered Users'.

A workaround is to change 'Access Rights' to 'All registered users', but of course Public users are not registered so why does that work?

Problem 2

From the backend I set the category 'Classes:Class 1' as follows:
Access: Public
Access Rights: Headuser, Adminuser, Superuser, Staffuser1, Staffuser2
Upload Rights: Headuser, Adminuser, Superuser, Staffuser1, Staffuser2
Delete Rights: Headuser, Adminuser, Superuser, Staffuser1, Staffuser2

You will see that 2 teachers have access to the same folder. This is because some class teachers 'job share' so both need to access the same folder. The problem is that if Staffuser1 uploads a file, when Staffuser2 logs in the file is not shown to them and vice versa. I need both Staffuser1 and Staffuser2 to be able to see all files in the Class 1 folder.

Really sorry for the large amount of details but I hope it will help with finding a fix.

Thanks for any help you offer.

[Jan]

Hi,

1) access means - you can select group which can access the files.

Access rights - if you will select registered - you can specify users - only selected users will be able to access files.

2) this is more common problem - how to identifcate users with different accounts but not different tasks - for this you need to set e.g. that both have the same login

Jan

[SonRiab]

To the second point: I think also that the easiest way is to have a special stuff upload user for all stuff member.

And about the first point: Don't mind about it. Leave the access to public and the access right to registered. Setting the access rights to users will result in inaccessibility for all other. The only thing you have adjust are the upload and delete rights.

[Googol]

Hi Guys and thanks for the reply.

On point 1 I still think that 'Access' and 'Access Rights' should not affect each other like they appear to. The 'Access' to the files to download from the fronted should be set by the 'Access' setting only. Whereas the ability to upload/edit/delete files from the backend or frontend user panel should be controlled by the 'Access' Rights' setting and apply only to the group as specified in 'Options>>General>>Access Level - Registered Users'. Perhaps the 'Access' setting should be renamed 'View & Download Rights'. However this does not solve the problem because if 'Access Rights' is not set to ''All Registered Users' then even public users cannot download any files.

On point 2, if I have a 'stuff uploader' account for all the teachers, they will all get access to all categories. This allows for error as I really only want each teacher to have access to one category i.e. Staffuser1 can only upload to Class1 category. With one upload account documents might be uploaded to the wrong categories. I need to make it as 'bullet proof' as possible and eradicate any points where errors might occur.

Thanks again for the comments and keep up the good work.

[SonRiab]

Point 2: Then you could maybe use an upload account per class. And keep in mind that you can not edit the file details in frontend. This is only possible for backend users who as the rights for.

Point 1: As I wrote, leave the access rights to registered users and all work as expected. Why do you mind about it? If you want some categories only be accessible for some specified users, then use the access rights.