Solved Advice on how to set up Joomla User Groups for Kunena access

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I currently have the vanilla (i.e. standard) Joomla User Groups i.e.: Guest, Registered, Author, Editor, Publisher, Manager, Administrator, and Super-Administrator

I would like to create some new Joomla User Groups:
Moderator
Trader
Exhibitor
Organiser

I currently have 5 Sections:

Administrator Area
Staff/Team Area
Main Forum
Traders/Exhibitors Area
Organisers Area

I would like Guest (and search engines) to see all sections except Administrator Area
Staff/Team Area.

I would like Moderators to Moderate Staff/Team Area, Main Forum, Traders/Exhibitors Area, and Organisers Area but not even see Administrator Area

Everybody can see Main Forum, Traders/Exhibitors Area, and Organisers Area.



How do I set up User Groups for Moderator, Trader, Exhibitor, Organiser?

Should I have people all use the Registered User Group as their primary groups and then add additional groups (that have no other permission in Joomla) so that they can access other sections in Kunena?

If so, can you show me where to find out how to set up new Joomla Groups that quantify the standard Registered User Group?

Many thanks,

As an experiment I've created the following User Groups (all under Public):

Public
|--Exhibitor
|--Moderator
|--Organiser
|--Trader

When people sign up, they will automatically become part of the "Registered" User Group. I think that most users will remain as just Registered with no additional User Groups.

I will manually add the relevant Group(s) to individual users. Most of the users that have additions User Groups will just be Registered plus one additional User Group. However there is the possibility that a few users may need to have more or even all of the new User Groups.

Is this the right way to do this for permissions in Kunena?

The trouble is that by doing the above, I think that I have to use "User Group" Access control type in Category permissions. This only gives a Primary and Secondary User Group.

Additionally I tried to do this at Section Level - but it looks like I made need to do this for all Categories not just the parent Sections.

Privateer wrote: Is this the right way to do this for permissions in Kunena?

Your method may work but maybe it's not the best way to do it. I would place your custom ACL groups under Registered, not under Public.

Yes, you do have to select Category » Permissions » Access Control Type = User Group

Privateer wrote: Additionally I tried to do this at Section Level - but it looks like I made need to do this for all Categories not just the parent Sections.

Correct. Category permissions do not propagate down the line.

Hi sozzled,

Registered
|--Exhibitor
|--Moderator
|--Organiser
|--Trader

I've changed the parent of my custom User Groups from Public to Registered, so in effect I have moved all of my custom User Groups under the standard Registered User Group. I think that his means that those custom User Groups will inherit all access permissions from the parent Registered. Is this correct?

This is more of a Joomla question, when I add a user to the custom User Groups under the standard Registered User Group, should I leave them connected to Registered or disconnect them from Registered? Are there any benefits for either option?

I understand that category permissions do not propagate down the line, i.e. they do not inherit permissions from the Section. If I change all of the categories in one section not to be visible to Guest (i.e. only privileged user groups) do I have to do the same for the sections themselves so that they are not seen?

Can I set up as many User Groups permissions for each Category and/or Sections or is there a limit?

Is my idea of creating a User Group for Moderators the best way, so I give Moderatorship via Joomla ACL and not manually to each user via Kunena?

Many thanks for your help.

Kind Regards,

Wow! So many questions!

The general answer to all your questions is that you find an arrangement that works. I think that your proposed arrangement is a workable arrangement.

There is no limit to the number of Joomla groups you can create for your users or the number of Joomla groups you can assign to your Kunena categories - at least there is no limit that anyone I know has discovered.

You cannot use Joomla groups as an alternative method to assign forum moderators, sorry. You still have to assign moderators one by one which is no more difficult than it is assign users to ACL groups.

Hi sozzled,

sozzled wrote: Wow! So many questions!

Yes I know, I'm sorry about that but I have to ask to learn.

sozzled wrote: The general answer to all your questions is that you find an arrangement that works. I think that your proposed arrangement is a workable arrangement.

Great, I'll keep on investigating.

sozzled wrote: There is no limit to the number of Joomla groups you can create for your users or the number of Joomla groups you can assign to your Kunena categories - at least there is no limit that anyone I know has discovered.

That's good to know.

Looking at the Kunena documentation about advanced setup for special groups , there's mention of the Forum Advanced Configuration, but I can't see it in:

Components | Kunena Forum | Kunena Configuration | Forum Administration

Is the above for Kunena 2?

The nearest that I can find (on my installation of Kunena 3) is:

Components | Kunena Forum | Category Manager (select the category) | Category Permissions / Category Settings / Moderation Settings for this category

Should I use the above for Kunena 3?

sozzled wrote: You cannot use Joomla groups as an alternative method to assign forum moderators, sorry. You still have to assign moderators one by one which is no more difficult than it is assign users to ACL groups.

That's a shame, so for every new Moderator you have to add them individually to each category?

Many thanks

Privateer wrote: Looking at the Kunena documentation about advanced setup for special groups , there's mention of the Forum Advanced Configuration, but I can't see it in:

Components | Kunena Forum | Kunena Configuration | Forum Administration

Is the above for Kunena 2?

Good question! The article you refer to was written about 4 years ago (in the time of J! 1.5 when Joomla ACLs did not exist) and, we've "patched" the documentation as best as we have been able to in that time. The two articles,

• Sections, Categories, sub-Categories (Part 1) ; and
• Sections, Categories, sub-Categories (Part 2) - advanced setup for special groups

have been on my "to do" list for a long time. These two articles are pivotal to setting up Kunena sections, categories and sub-categories so that you can allow certain classes of uses to access your them in ways that prevent other accounts from accessing them. It's a huge subject in its own right. If anyone told me "those two articles are the most difficult things I've ever tried to understand" I would agree 100% with that comment! It's probably because there is an almost infinite variety of ways that people can set up Kunena - allow people access to certain parts of the forum but deny others access to other parts - that makes this documentation task so challenging.

From the moment I saw this topic I've been thinking "what a wonderful opportunity this is to make a series of training videos to cover a small selection of the infinite variety of ways that people can control access to Kunena forums." But, while it's a wonderful opportunity to spend several hours making a few 5-minute videos (and I can see the need to make several such videos) it's a tough juggling act to clear my daily schedule from the task of responding to questions asked on the forum. So it would be really nice if I could get some help from the community.

Yes, I know, we won't learn if we don't ask questions. I ask myself dozens of questions each day and I spend many hours of research to discover the answers to my questions instead of relying on someone else to provide me with the answers. There are many ways we learn. When people discover new-found knowledge, isn't it wonderful when they share their discoveries with the community?. That's something everyone can do if they are prepared to invest their time in these activities.

Privateer wrote: for every new Moderator you have to add them individually to each category?

Not necessarily. This question is off-topic to the subject here. Kunena moderators are not "assigned" by Joomla ACL groups and I've already dealt with that issue earlier in this topic. There are other subjects that deal exclusively with how to assign forum moderators. I suggest you learn how to assign Kunena moderators by reading my reply to another off-topic question posted elsewhere on the forum) posted as How to assign moderators in K 3.0 .

If you want to talk about how to assign forum moderators, please start a new topic and we will be happy to answer your questions there.

Can we please remain on-topic? Have you tested your solution (in cases that do not involve forum moderation) and does your approach work for you? :dry:

Hi Sozzled,

Many thanks for your help and advice. I am about to start testing the settings to get a feel of what will happen and what won't. I certainly agree with you about it not being easy to to do this but as with anything the more you do it the easy it (should) become.

Apologies about the Moderator bit :blush: , that was actually meant more of a rhetorical question and a note to myself, especially as I don't have any Moderators yet.

I agree with getting help from the community, if Joomla and Kunena are free to use then people should provide help back to the community in whatever way they can. Whilst I'm not good at videos I do try to report back to forums where I've asked questions with notes on what I've done and the results which others can read and hopefully find useful.

Right, I'm going to go start testing. When I have some results I'll post them back in this thread.

Kind Regards,

Has this issue been resolved to your satisfaction, Privateer, and can we now close this topic?

No, not yet. I'll hopefully have all the information that I need in a few days - then I'll write my findings here.

Thanks,