Steven Heynderickx wrote on 10 Nov 2009 15:52
Originally suggested by pieterh on 13 October 2009.
This is a design sketch for private categories on public wikis.
The goal of this design is to make the simplest possible working solution: we can improve and extend that over time.
Goals and use-cases
The reason for making this feature is to allow a single group of users (members of a site) to work privately and publicly without needing two structures. Today we typically create a private wiki to act as the work area for the public one. This causes extra work, and extra complexity for users. In many cases it causes the private wiki to become abandoned.
Configuration
Private categories are configured in the site manager as an extra row in the Permissions table:
Pages are visible to: [_] Anonymous [_] Registered users [_] Site members
Note: Private categories are not available for the _default category.
If none are checked, then only mods and admins can see pages in the category. It is valid to give users the right to create pages in a category but not view the results.
By convention in the Iron Giant templates we would create a category 'private:' with this option.
How it works
- When a non-member tries to see any page (existing or not) in this category, they are shown a pop-up error ("Login and/or join this site to access this category"), and redirected to the site's start page.
- Files attached to pages in private categories cannot be accessed by non-members.
- Notifications on pages in private categories go to site members only.
- The Search module will not show private pages to non-members.
- The Clone module would not copy private categories but the Site Manager clone function would.
- In the initial version, there is no further security.
- In a further version, modules that show or link to pages create a boundary between public and private categories as follows: if they are used on a public page, they never show private pages. If they are used on a private page, they can show all pages. This affects these modules:
ListPages
CountPages
TagCloud
PageCalendar
PageTree
Backlinks
WantedPages
OrphanedPages
Categories
RecentPosts
MiniRecentPosts
RatedPages
Pages
ChildPages
PagesByTag
Other use cases
Data forms can be used instead of the MailForm module, and submissions can be commented on by those with access to the private category, as well as using the existing 'watch this category' notifications structure to let people know about a new page creation.
| Per-user private pages | By pieterh | 3 Comments | 03 Feb 2010 11:43 |
| Proposal for better private category UI | By Steven Heynderickx | 5 Comments | 03 Feb 2010 08:22 |
| Very useable use case! | By Steven Heynderickx | 2 Comments | 31 Jan 2010 09:56 |
| Pages are visible to: page creator/owner | By leiger | 0 Comments | 13 Jan 2010 23:59 |
| Assign users to private categories | By Gustavo Olivares | 1 Comments | 30 Nov 2009 23:11 |
| Private categories ready to test (closed) | By pieterh | 15 Comments | 12 Jan 2010 13:03 |
We discourage direct comments on this thread: to discuss it, please start a sub-thread.
I've mentioned this before on the blog site but as this shiny new area is now here I will repeat a wish that I have for a Phase 2 development of this design to be looked at in the future at some point after the current design proposal is implemented. And that is that a private category can have specific members assigned to it by username as a further sub-division from the current design proposal where all members of a site can view a private category. I admit it will add to the complexity but will increase the flexibility and reduce the need to create additional private sites for just those members (albeit that with cloning and CSIs that is now very easy).
Rob Elliott - Strathpeffer, Scotland - Wikidot first line support & community admin team.
If you create a sub-thread instead of posting here, we can discuss this further there ;-)
~ Leiger - Wikidot Community Admin - Volunteer
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