Comparing version 4 and version 3

*Note:* This is quick and dirty and does not really restrict a user from editing other pages, it just restricts which pages they see when logged into the admin tool.  A user could still edit a page by changing the id number of the URL.  An example of this would be admin/pages/edit/1 would still edit the home page (assuming it is ID 1), even though it is not viewable on their admin tool.

h2. What this hack does:


 +--+ Home Page <- Admin starts here when logged in
    |
    +--- About
    |
    +--+ Articles Dogs <- New user 'dog_editor' starts here when logged in
       |
       +--- Greyhound
       |
       +--- Poodle


h2. Can also be used for multiple sites:


 +--+ Home Page <- Admin starts here when logged in
    |
    +---+ www.doggone.com <- New user 'dog_admin' starts here when logged in
    |   |    
    |   +--- About
    |   |
    |   +--- Articles
    |  
    +---+ www.catlovers.com  <- New user 'cat_admin' starts here when logged in
        |    
        +--- About
        |
        +--- Articles


h2. Step by Step Guide

h3. Step 1.

Add in a database field of type integer to the user table called 'page_id'. This can be done with migrations of a database editor like "CocoaMysql":http://cocoamysql.sourceforge.net/

Using migrations, create a new file: 010_add_page_id_field_to_user.rb

 class AddPageIdFieldToUser < ActiveRecord::Migration
   def self.up
     add_column "users", "page_id", :integer
   end
 
   def self.down
     remove_column "users", "page_id"
   end
 end


Then run 'rake migrate' at the command line.

h3. Step 2.

Add in a new select box to the user admin tool to select the top page (optional) to restrict the page view in app/views/admin/user/new.rhtmlapp/views/admin/user/edit.rhtml.

After this code for the user role selection:


 
     Roles
     
         <%= check_box "user", "admin" %> Administrator
         <%= check_box "user", "developer" %> Developer
     
     Roles restrict user privileges and turn parts of the administrative interface on or off.
 


Insert a new select box for what top-level page to restrict to:


 
     Top Level Page
     
      <%= select "user", "page_id", Page.find(:all, :conditions=>['parent_id = 1 and status_id=100']).collect { |s| [ s.title, s.id ] }, 
     :include_blank=>true } %>
     
     Optional. Top level starting page for this user.
 



*Note:* this assumes the home page is page_id 1. If you take out the :conditions specification, then any page on the site will show (and work in the page admin tool).  this way you could set the top-level page for a user further down into the site.  I added the conditions for parent_id = 1 (first-level page like about, or articles) and status_id = 100 is published.  You can also restrict to certain layouts this way, etc.

h3. Step 3.

Edit the admin page controller to start at the page specified in the users page_id setting if it exists in app/views/admin/page_controller.rb:



 def index
   #### new code ###########
   user = User.find(session[:user].id)
   if user.page_id
     @homepage = Page.find(user.page_id)
   else
     @homepage = Page.find_by_parent_id(nil)    
   end
   #### end new code #########
 
   ### WAS
   # @homepage =Page.find_by_parent_id(nil)
 end



That should do it. It is QND (quick and dirty), but it just might be enough for your purposes.

Optionally, I locked out access to edit snippets in app/views/admin/snippet_controller.rb:



 require_dependency 'admin/model_controller'
 require_dependency 'response_cache'
 
 class Admin::SnippetController < Admin::AbstractModelController
   model :snippet
 
   only_allow_access_to :new, :edit, :remove,
     :when => [ :admin],
     :denied_url => { :controller => 'snippet', :action => 'index' },
     :denied_message => 'You must have developer privileges to perform this action.'
 
 end

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