Hello,

Thanks for the heads up on this. This is a little tricky because right now group's privacy are determined by the following settings:

1. Public group
2. Closed group
3. Invite only group

Not too sure how would that particular ACL come into effect though.

Hi Mark,

Hmmm... I got what you meant, I can imagine how tricky it is to apply Privacy because of the 3 variables you mentioned. I know it will be tedious for you but what about a separate privacy/ACL for Groups Category? Like if the Category was set to only show to a Particular Profile/s then that Category will never show up for everybody but only to users who belongs to the selected Profile/s. Just like what is currently in place right now, if I select Staff Profile in the list of Profiles it means only users in Staff Profile can create Groups in the Administration Category.

I guess the tricky part is how to handle the Public Group, if any of the users in the Staff Profile will set the Group they created to Public then how does it going to work? LOL! Redefine Public to Category level or Public as Everyone? I guess nah! I'm just throwing out ideas, maybe Randall and others have more ideas. I guess a Public and Private Privacy for category, by default when Site Admin create a category it is set as Public unless Private is selected and the Public Group type will be disabled when a Category is set to Private. Since Closed Group and Invite Only Group types are applicable to Private Category.

What do you think?

Jackson

Hi AppWeb

What would be more feasible is to set it up where the admin could determine exactly where groups would be allowed to be created!!! For example on my site I have a NFL category with
the 32 teams. Now i wouldn't let anybody create groups under that specific category but I might let them create a group under their favorite team. It could be a private group for their family and
friends that like that same team. I also have a Football category with Youth, Flag, and Collegiate Football as a groups, I'd love to be able to let Youth football leagues create groups under Youth football group but It doesn't function that way. A person can only create a group under a category not under another group. Currently I can't let anybody create any groups because if I do they'll be able to create them wherever they want and it'll mess up some of my Categories. If I was able to control the actual place where they could create a group i'd be able to let them create groups within other groups and not the actual category. Hope u understood what i meant. This is how it worked on wordpress/buddypress, it was the only thing i liked about that software. It gave me as the admin total control over where I wanted people to create groups. Other than that it pretty much sucked it even hold a candle to ES;)

Hm, this is going to be really tricky but we'll see what we can do in the future As of now, our priorities are on fixing different environment issues especially with stubborn web hosts. And of course our SQL optimizations too

A simple (hopefully coding not too complex) approach to solve the problems outlined in the above discussion, bringing ideas they suggested together (with a bit of variation) in order to keep everything within the existing Joomla ACL parameters used by the EasySocial Profiles but allow the functions requested to be achieved in a controlled environment.

1. Allow sub categories
2. Add a Restricted Yes/No option within the Category and Sub Category administration set up in the existing Access tab, adding a text box below it.

How does it work?

Option 1 - If you allow sub categories it gives the flexibility required by Antonio and AppWeb but also allows more freedom for viewing access if option 2 is also added.

Option 2 - The Restricted Yes/No option only allows (if yes is selected) viewing access for the category or sub category to be restricted to the profiles allowed to create them, no other choice is available as there is enough flexibility within the existing parameters for Joomla User Groups, Viewing Access Levels and EasySocial Profiles to cover all combinations of ES Category access.

The default for the Restricted option is NO, leaving everything as it is now. If you want viewing access matching the profiles allowed to create, change the option to YES.

Groups - The only change in the Groups is the Group Type description for (Public) 'Open Group'. if YES is selected in the Restricted option, the (public) 'Open Group' description changes to "Anyone in this sector can join the group and it does not require approval. These groups will appear in search results for this sector only.

Note - The words 'this sector' are made variable by adding a text box below the Registered Yes/No option and whatever text is entered there would replace 'this sector' in the Group Type description.

Note 2 - The content of sub categories do not inherit anything from the main category, they are independent and only controlling where groups will be located within the overall structure, giving control to the site owner/manager(s).

We can look at how it would affect the 3 examples mentioned in the above posts:

Example 1

Category = Administration with Staff Profile type for Creation and Viewing Access and Restricted set to YES, so staff members can have complete freedom setting up Groups. If you wanted to have (say) an area for Senior Staff, or Form Teachers, or Heads of Department, create sub categories with a narrower profile access, keeping the main administration category open to all Staff.

Everything is contained but flexible and any number of groups can be created within sub categories and/or the main administration category with the desired access.

Example 2

Category = NFL and sub categories = 32 teams, with the required EasySocial profiles added to all 33 cat/sub cat for creation and viewing access.

The Restricted Yes/No option can be set to YES for all sub categories, (for example) allowing groups set up for each team only to have Public/Open Group access to people allowed to see the team or perhaps set create/view access for each team for anyone who has viewing access for the NFL sector and set the main NFL category to Restricted Access NO allowing any groups created in the main NFL category to be viewed by anyone in their Public/Open Group if it is selected.

Example 3

Category = Football and sub categories = Youth, Flag and Collegiate with a similar create/viewing access set up as example 2.

The above 3 examples are only that, examples, you can create any combination you want in a controlled environment with the 2 administration changes suggested at the start of the post. It also has the benefit of not creating a new viewing/ACL structure but relying on the existing set up and keeping (I believe) adjustments to existing code to a minimum by making a few changes to category set up compared to making major changes to the Groups themselves.

Anyway, food for thought to solve the problem, hopefully it helps.

Small bump.

1. Allow sub categories
2. Add a Restricted Yes/No option within the Category and Sub Category administration set up in the existing Access tab, adding a text box below it.

@Antonio and AppWeb, does it solve your problem?

@Mark, If so, is it (detail in post above) possible to add the 2 items into the next update of EasySocial? It avoids any complicated messing around with a new ACL structure for EasySocial etc.

Sorry but we will not be adding anymore features on 1.2.x. Any new feature will be added on 1.3.x instead.

That is fine Mark, I left out the word 'major' in 'next update', basically if you think it is a good idea add it anytime from v 1.3 onwards, if not a good idea ignore it.

Hi Richard,

Thanks for your understanding
Have a nice day

Yes Richard that would definitely help, It would be excellent to have more control over where users could create groups. Example - I would love to have my NFL category as a container for the 32 NFL teams (sub-categories/groups) and not allow anyone to create any groups under that category but let users create their own groups under any of the 32 NFL teams (sub-categories/groups). Hopefully this functionality can be add in 1.3;) . I'm very excited about the future especially the upcoming mobile app, I feel for myself and many other peoples site that will be play a key role to our success being that so many people actually use their phone to go online. I'm an example, I cant tell you how many times I pick up my phone to go online and my laptop my be sitting right next to me. Some people don't even have laptops or CPU's because they just use their phone.

Agreed, the mobile app is going to be a great addition and open so many doors for potential membership from the rapidly expanding mobile user community.

The Stackideas products and categories also work so well with the Joomla ACL that it is very easy to make any Groups you wish only visible on the site to certain users or profile types (one of the main reasons I suggest in my post above to run with the existing ACL set up).

The options are endless, looking forward to v1.3 and beyond (on mobile of course)!

Thanks for sharing Richard