6. Users
Depending upon their role, users have varying degrees of access to the site.
Smallsite Design sites are designed for being public displays of information. Users do not have any exclusive services available for them, but are purely for creating content and administrative tasks. Most sites will have only one manager and occasional writers for reviewing. Multi-lingual sites will have writers for translating.
| # | Role | Activities |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manager | Site owner or user trustworthy enough to have access to the whole site, and has the opportunity to be the master manager who can change any site element and assign editing tasks |
| 2 | Writer | Eligible for performing editing or review tasks assigned by the master manager |
| 3 | Guest | Passive role with full view access to the site. Not meant for production sites, but for demonstration sites that can be used for training |
Managers have the potential to run the site or ruin it, so they are meant to be someone who understands what the site is for and can provide responsible stewardship. That means that a relative, friend or acquaintance that can do a bit of writing or web programming, but whom you wouldn't trust with your bank account, is unlikely to be a good manager.
There can be multiple managers, only one of which can be the master manager at any one time. A manager automatically becomes the master manager when they are the first manager to log in after the previous master manager clicked the Log out button on the Work list page, or after their 30 minute timeout has elapsed. This allows running the master manager role in shifts, if the site is managed in a busy scenario that needs it.
The writer role is suitable for contractors, by providing access only for writing, translating, editing or reviewing a particular article, or articles that can be used as a source for it. However, any manager can also be assigned any article body task. While managers and writers can be assigned any such task for the master locale, other locales must be enabled for them.
Guest roles are not for a real person, but a role that allows multi-person access with a common Password for viewing almost all the pages of a demonstration or learning site. Guests cannot see the Email field contents for other users. Typically, such sites would have a single token manager user, with bogus details, for setting up and managing the site.
If a guest account is created with an ID of gu, its password can be made available in an article using the Guest password option of the value element. This allows for a site to be publicly accessed for demonstration purposes by multiple people using the same login. Guests can only be created if the site is in Guest mode as enabled in the Access section of the Settings page. Changing a site out of guest mode will delete all guest accounts.
Details△
All users have the same basic details.
| # | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ID | Short user identifier used for logging in. Must be unique. Can be changed by the user or the master manager |
| 2 | Full name | Full user name, for when credited with authoring in the footer of articles. Can be changed by the user or the master manager |
| 3 | Known as | Name used as a salutation in notification emails. Can be changed by the user or the master manager |
| 4 | Email address required for notifications. Can be changed by the user or the master manager | |
| 5 | URL | Optional web site URL for making the author name into a link. Can only be changed by the master manager |
| 6 | Accessibility | Personal accessibility setting for the user when using management pages. Can only be changed by the user |
| 7 | Hover show | Personal setting for whether all the semi-transparent squares indicating the positions of hover buttons are displayed in the Article body page. Can only be changed by the user |
| 8 | Expiry | Date user will be disabled. New writers have an expiry of a month. Master manager can extend by set periods. Never shown for managers as they never expire |
| 9 | Role | Current role. Can be changed for other users by the master manager. Not shown for the master manager |
| 10 | Locales | Non-master locales that the user can be assigned to translate, edit or review. All users can be assigned phases for the master locale. Can be changed by the master manager |
| 11 | Status | Whether enabled. Can be changed by the master manager, except for themself |
| 12 | Remove | Action to completely remove the user. Can be actioned by the user or the master manager on their behalf. Not shown for the master manager |
Managers and writers can change their own ID, Full name, Known as and Email, but except for the master manager, the changes will not be completed until the next master manager action. Except for the master manager, they can also Remove themselves, with the same wait upon the master manager.
Only the master manager can specify the user URL as not all user web sites will fit in with the ethos of the site, so may not be suitable for the tacit recommendation that making a link to it implies.
Any names used in any of the levels of the Author field will not be affected if a user of that Full name is removed, as those fields are plain text and indicate they are the legitimate author of their contributions, whether or not they are still a user.