I've not been happy with the permissions UI for some time. There are a number of things I dislike about it.[1]
So, I have a suggestion. I haven't mocked it up or anything yet because it's still mentally a WIP but just hear me out.
You've probably seen the Detailed Reports area? The one where you get a list of every group and every permission? Well, if you're not familiar with it, I've attached an example.
What I'm imagining is essentially that screen, but with subdivisions for groups of permissions, sort of like in the Simple mode. So that you'd be able to see at a glance which groups have which permissions.
As far as changing it goes, I've had various ideas about that, but the one I'm happiest with would be where you could click on the cell you wanted to change it and it would pop up some option to let you change it. I'm thinking it would expand that cell to include either a dropdown (for yes/no/never), or slightly more controversially, two tickboxes, Allow and Deny.[2]
I'm not really fussed about the exact way the permissions selection bit would be, I'm more interested whether the overall deal of seeing permissions at once would be worth pursuing. As far as post count permissions goes, you'd have a button to switch from groups to post count groups and back, because there's only so much room on screen for it.
What do people think about this in general? Would like any clarifications?
Note also this might lead to the beginning of phasing out of the detailed reports - there's no need to have the report if you can get the same information elsewhere.
So, I have a suggestion. I haven't mocked it up or anything yet because it's still mentally a WIP but just hear me out.
You've probably seen the Detailed Reports area? The one where you get a list of every group and every permission? Well, if you're not familiar with it, I've attached an example.
What I'm imagining is essentially that screen, but with subdivisions for groups of permissions, sort of like in the Simple mode. So that you'd be able to see at a glance which groups have which permissions.
As far as changing it goes, I've had various ideas about that, but the one I'm happiest with would be where you could click on the cell you wanted to change it and it would pop up some option to let you change it. I'm thinking it would expand that cell to include either a dropdown (for yes/no/never), or slightly more controversially, two tickboxes, Allow and Deny.[2]
I'm not really fussed about the exact way the permissions selection bit would be, I'm more interested whether the overall deal of seeing permissions at once would be worth pursuing. As far as post count permissions goes, you'd have a button to switch from groups to post count groups and back, because there's only so much room on screen for it.
What do people think about this in general? Would like any clarifications?
Posted: November 4th, 2012, 11:31 PM
Note also this might lead to the beginning of phasing out of the detailed reports - there's no need to have the report if you can get the same information elsewhere.
1. | The fact there's a Simple and a Classic view, when neither are particularly wonderful. The fact that deny permissions is extra steps to enable. I could go on. |
2. | You have two tickboxes, allow and deny. Ticking the allow box gives the permission, ticking the deny box means deny as we know it normally, leaving both blank means not granting it, as we would call disallow. If you're unclear, this is what Windows uses for assigning things like sharing permissions. It works. |