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05.25.10
Controlling Access Gives Joomla! A Boost
 By Michael Marr
Joomla!'s next, and very anticipated, version 1.6 of their popular CMS recently went beta. In case you're one of the many who left Joomla! for Drupal or even compared the two before settling on Drupal and/or another CMS , perhaps it's time to take another look back and see what Joomla! is doing to bridge the gap.
The flagship of the new features in Joomla! 1.6 is access control. If you're familiar with Joomla!, then you know the pain of the limited permission control it offers. The problem boils down to the inflexible user groups and inflexible permission assignment. A simple example of user control:
User
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Write Articles
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See HR Manual
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See Top Secret Technical Data
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See Ingredients List for Lunch
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See Budget
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Susie @ HR
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Yes
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Yes
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No
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No
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No
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John @ R&D
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No
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Yes
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Yes
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No
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No
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Bill @ Accounting
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No
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Yes
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No
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No
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Yes
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Jane @ Cafeteria
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No
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Yes
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No
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Yes
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No
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This access control can not be accomplished in Joomla! v1.5. There is no flatness to the access control; the tree just goes up, but not out. You could assign Susie to be an "Author" so that she could write articles; the HR Manual would be visible by all "Registered" users, and then, you'd make John, Bill, and Jane all "Special" level users so that they could restrict their information to this access level and keep Susie from seeing it. However, then Jane could see the budget and top secret technical data. You're unable to flatten out and separate these three distinct access levels. Also, these three users would also be able to write articles to any other section of the site. This is a key setback to Joomla!, and what often steers businesses to choose other content management systems.
The access level ideology remains in tact in 1.6, but now, along with user groups, are fully customizable. In the example above, we can now create user groups for R&D, Accounting, and Cafeteria. Then, we could create access levels to match and restrict their sensitive data viewable only to these specific access levels. Furthermore, we could then restrict these user groups to only have access to manipulate data in these sections, and at the same time keep them out of writing articles on other areas of the site. In short, the access control issues in Joomla! are resolved.
Although this is not the only major update with Joomla! 1.6, it is the most anticipated and key update. The core code is also receiving some overhaul intended to increase maintenance and extensibility of Joomla! to provide more frequent key updates such as this access control system. Although Joomla! is still lacking key functionality of other systems, this is the first step to closing that gap and attempting to regain the large market share it once enjoyed.
About the Author:
Michael Marr is a IT staff Writer for WebProNews.
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