# Radiant's User Model **URL:** \ **Category:** Radiant CMS\ **Created:** [March 13, 2008, 6:29am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/radiants-user-model/131782 "2008-03-13T06:29:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![imakethings](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/ce7236/32.png) [@imakethings](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/imakethings)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2008, 6:29am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/radiants-user-model/131782/1 "2008-03-13T06:29:58Z")
I’m going to be really honest here and say that the user model could use some serious love. Its great for what it is currently, but it needs to grow up. If Radiant is going to see wider use in production from more developers, the user model needs to be a little more than just developers and admins. What about content editors or people who just exclusive access to private parts of the public website? Eh, just something to think about. ---
**Author:** ![imakethings](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/ce7236/32.png) [@imakethings](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/imakethings)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2008, 10:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/radiants-user-model/131782/2 "2008-03-13T22:40:33Z")
Hi Arik, I think the current model is actually underutilized as it is, which signals that even in its rudimentary state it’s got too much going on. Maybe I haven’t looked through the source code enough, but I really haven’t found anything that a Developer can do that an Administrator can’t (and I’m unclear on whether an Admin can do more than a Dev – or why I would make someone one and not the other or both). I think the User model as it is is fine for authentication and simple authorization at most and that’s all it should do out of the box. I understand that some organizations may have hierarchies and stratifications of roles, but in the zone Radiant is aiming for I don’t think this fits the 80/20 rule. The fact that Radiant doesn’t force me to structure my organization around its idea of who should be allowed to do what is a major selling point for me (and not to speak for everyone else, but I think I’m not alone here). One side-effect to increasing the complexity of the authorization system would be that extensions would be harder to write. E.g. say you’re using page\_attachments: should anyone be allowed to attach a file to a page? Should there be a role (asset editor?) for that or does that fall under a content editor’s purview? I think having to take these things into account when writing attachments would seriously hinder sharing them with other users. IIRC a couple of days ago someone mentioned this extension: [http://saturnflyer.com/svn/radiantP/rbac\_base/trunk/](http://saturnflyer.com/svn/radiantP/rbac_base/trunk/) …which may more in line what you’re suggesting without adding the conceptual overhead to core. -Andrew ---
**Author:** ![imakethings](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/ce7236/32.png) [@imakethings](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/imakethings)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 6:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/radiants-user-model/131782/3 "2008-03-14T18:24:56Z")
What about publically-accessed user models in extensions? Do we have to set up a member model or a completely new user model altogether? ---
**Author:** ![imakethings](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/ce7236/32.png) [@imakethings](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/imakethings)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 7:31pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/radiants-user-model/131782/4 "2008-03-14T19:31:10Z")
Arik J. wrote: > What about publically-accessed user models in extensions? Do we have to > set up a member model or a completely new user model altogether? In the thread I provided, Casper makes some comments about your question. From a UI perspective, you probably don’t want to mix the two classes of users either. For instance, adding and removing users (those with access to editing your site’s content) requires an administrator. But creating members and granting them access to view certain pages might be a role that even your Basic-level user is given. Users and Members really, have different applications though their use cases look similar. -Chris ---
**Author:** ![imakethings](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/ce7236/32.png) [@imakethings](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/imakethings)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 6:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/radiants-user-model/131782/5 "2008-03-14T18:03:26Z")
@Arik There are actually three user-levels, not two – Administrator, Developer, and Basic/Writer. Personally, I’d like to see the Users page show all three with the Basic user checked and disabled (permanently checked) so that that option would be clearer. The extension Andrew mentioned can also be found in this thread: [http://www.nabble.com/Role-Based-Access-Control-extension-td15262048.html](http://www.nabble.com/Role-Based-Access-Control-extension-td15262048.html) @Andrew I think John’s breakdown is for the Basic and Developer users to offer two levels of content creation. This is why the Basic user doesn’t have access to Layouts. And with my soon-to-be-released CSS & JS extension, I only grant Developers access to these files as well. Now, I’d prefer the name “Designer” rather than “Developer” for this role – but that’s just getting picky. And, of course, Administrator allows tasks like creating users or selecting extensions which deal more with configuring the admin area and the site’s operation than with creating content. -Chris Parish