# User Roles **URL:** \ **Category:** Radiant CMS\ **Created:** [December 29, 2006, 5:26am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/user-roles/80607 "2006-12-29T05:26:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Joannou\_Ng](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9f8e36/32.png) [@Joannou\_Ng](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Joannou_Ng)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2006, 5:26am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/user-roles/80607/1 "2006-12-29T05:26:55Z")
Hi folks, Can someone explain to me the differences between the user roles? Cheers, Joannou. The Good Lord has changed water into wine, so how can drinking beer be a sin. - Sign near a Belgian monastery ---
**Author:** ![Joannou\_Ng](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9f8e36/32.png) [@Joannou\_Ng](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Joannou_Ng)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2006, 4:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/user-roles/80607/2 "2006-12-29T16:26:27Z")
Joannou Ng wrote: > Can someone explain to me the differences between the user roles? admin - has access to everything, can create accounts, etc… developer - can create pages, snippets, and layouts default - can create pages and snippets – John L. [http://wiseheartdesign.com](http://wiseheartdesign.com) ---
**Author:** ![Joannou\_Ng](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9f8e36/32.png) [@Joannou\_Ng](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Joannou_Ng)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2006, 12:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/user-roles/80607/3 "2006-12-30T12:41:42Z")
These roles are not really useful IMHO. Admin and developer are too close in purpose. User has too much access. I’d like to have individual users with access to certain parts of the site… and an Admin user(s) for control of this. Just my opinion of course. I’m not trying to start a flame war. Cheers, Adam ---
**Author:** ![Joannou\_Ng](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9f8e36/32.png) [@Joannou\_Ng](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Joannou_Ng)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2006, 1:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/user-roles/80607/4 "2006-12-30T13:03:43Z")
It isn’t too bad considering the intended userbase for the CMS. It is intended to be a system for small and trusted groups of users and not a mass of people. It is definitely not for everyone and that is a good thing to me since it isn’t trying to be everything to everyone. It then has a better focus. One must also consider that we are still sitting at .52 for a stable release and it is still growing in terms of its functionality and feature set; one of those being the reworking of the plug-in system. So even if the core does not natively support it, maybe there is a chance for a plug-in to step in. As long as it has a solid API for extension, it can be a lot of things. For now, it is still a work in progress. Of course, John is the man with the plan on this. The system seems to be working for what I need and that is what counts for me. ---
**Author:** ![Joannou\_Ng](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9f8e36/32.png) [@Joannou\_Ng](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Joannou_Ng)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2006, 5:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/user-roles/80607/5 "2006-12-30T17:12:10Z")
Why not have a “role group” which has predefined access to a page (which is inherited by sub-pages) Then you could make your own groups and allocate “normal” users as you saw fit. The only users able to change these role groups would be Developers and Admin. I don’t want users changing the “file not found” pages or the styles pages etc, but the rest are ok. Adam Ps I appreciate that: a) it’s only .52 version b) it’s intended for small groups But I don’t see how planning for growth is a bad thing… I’m using Radiant as well because it best fits my purposes of all the CMS I’ve tried, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. On a similar note: another lack for Radius is unfortunately handling forms, but I see the new extensions in mental branch as taking care of this… ---
**Author:** ![Joannou\_Ng](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9f8e36/32.png) [@Joannou\_Ng](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Joannou_Ng)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2006, 5:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/user-roles/80607/6 "2006-12-30T17:42:19Z")
Adam, I concur with much of what you say here. I think user/group permission/management is one of the weaker, if not the weakest points of Radiant at this point in time. I strongly believe it should be part of the core and not handled by a third party plug-in. Permissions should always be internal to the system, well encapsulated and with proper access right. For now Radiant works for me, but starting this spring I’m going to have my hands full as about 10 people will need some form of access to the back end and we’ll make 3-4 groups each of which SHOULD have their permission set. Instead, we’re gonna have to rely on personal principles and honesty. At any rate, I still think Radiant holds much more promise than Drupal or Typo3 in so far as simplicity and no-nonsense is concerned. ---
**Author:** ![Joannou\_Ng](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9f8e36/32.png) [@Joannou\_Ng](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Joannou_Ng)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2007, 9:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/user-roles/80607/7 "2007-01-09T21:14:37Z")
Just thinking further on these lines… Why not have a “role” group which has access to a page (which is inherited by sub-pages) Then you could make your own groups and allocate “normal” users as you saw fit. The only users able to change these role groups would be Developers and Admin. Adam Ps I appreciate that: a) it’s only .52 version b) it’s intended for small groups But I don’t see how planning for growth is a bad thing… I’m using Radiant as well because it best fits my purposes of all the CMS I’ve tried, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. On a similar note: another lack for Radius is unfortunately handling forms, but I see the new extensions in mental branch as taking care of this… ---
**Author:** ![Joannou\_Ng](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9f8e36/32.png) [@Joannou\_Ng](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Joannou_Ng)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2006, 2:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/user-roles/80607/8 "2006-12-30T14:29:51Z")
Not a bad idea to have a “contributor” role – edit but not add or delete pages, change status from draft to published, perhaps add snippets – hmmm. Maybe. - Clayton