So I finally figured out the XenForo permissions system

@Moshe1010 you will get it in time. Your avatar says "vBulletin is broken" but you continue to defend it's ways. It's just a matter of old habits dying hard. I thought that way but not anymore.
 
@Moshe1010 as @Brogan says, if you at any time decide to add an additional permission to your users (e.g. a new permission such as the Tagging in 1.2) then with your set-up you have to go to every group and add that permission. With cumulative permissions you only have to make the change in one group and that's it done for everyone who has access to this permission (as they'll all have membership to this group). Similarly if you want to make any other permission change (enhancement or removal) then you have to do it across multiple groups instead of just one. It's easy to lose track of things with an increasing number of groups.

Looking at a couple of your groups:

Honor Users (same as registered just have a permission to read articles before anybody else + have a user banner)
Registered Users

You could simplify the Honor Users group to just have the single permission of reading articles + user banner. No need to replicate all of the Registered Users permissions if you use this as a secondary group and Registered as the primary. Then in the future if you tweak Registered permissions, Honor Users will get the tweak automatically.

One thing to remember is that you can't use automatic usergroup promotions if you are sticking with the single usergroup approach. Usergroup promotions are designed around cumulative permissions, so they will add someone to another group (or remove if they no longer meet the criteria) but they won't swap user groups.
 
The arguments especially by Code Monkey sound logical, opened my eyes and I got it, I think ;) And this, before I even knew that it could be difficult! Thanks a lot!

For me, just preparing the migration from vB to XF very carefully, it still sounds very similar to the vB usergroup system, at least as I used it. Moderators and admins were primery usergroups, ok. This is easy to change. All new members became "registered" and were moved automatically to "higher" usergroups with the time. For more rights I added several secondary usergroups to deserved members. This is very similar to XF, with the exception that I could not take away rights, just add.

So, you say before final import I change all registered, members, senior members (which were the automatically changing primery user groups) to registered?! And as far as I understood user promotions can do the rest.

But - this is my main concern: what is the best way to add a further usergroup to, say 1000 or more users if I put them into normal "registered" before importing?! Frankly, There are one or two more primery usergroups where I added users over the years, one by one manually. Whould it be a wise idea to put them in vB into the same usergroup as secondary, then change the primery to registered and then import them to xf?

Any hints or suggestions, please?
 
Well in xenforo everyones primary should be registered and the other permissions are added on. I still think they should not be called usergroups in XenForo. They are more like an access mask.
 
My permissions are strange ;)

Thankfully I got the xenForo system very quickly, so I knew how to make them up.

For anyone interested, here is my permission setup:

New users go into the primary Registered group. This has no permissions at all.

After a minute, a promotion moves them to the zero posters group. They can poet and view threads etc, but all posts have to be approved.

Once a user has one post, they're removed from the zero posters group and added to the normal users group. This allows them to use the forum normally.

Now, I also have two user groups that are added based on a profile field. If the resistance group is added, then that group has never on the enlightened forum and allow on the resistance. Vice versa for the enlightened group.

This may sound more complex than it could be, but its only like this so I can mass email the zero posters :P

Anyhow, I like the xenForo permissions system. It makes sense, and for me it was easy to understand.

Liam
 
I used vBulletin permissions like this: Several primary usergroups (admins, registered, mods, supermods) and several secondary usergroups (premium, marketplace...). Every primary group had their basic permissions set. Hence, it was difficult to update a basic permissions, for example if I wanted to give them a different post permission, I had to change this in several groups.

After importing my forum to XenForo, I started working with only a primary usergroup: Registered. I went through my user groups, one group at a time and then moved all users to registered, and after that I created the secondary usergroup I needed and setup permissions accordingly. This allows me to have more control over permissions and at the same time, simpler user groups.
 
For those of us that are still lost... after 1-2 months... I would appreciate a link to a thread that gives a rundown. And if one doesn't exist, I'm sure all of you geniuses could help me out. It seems so convoluted and complicated.
 
Code Monkey said:
It only took me like 3 months. I was really hating it big time. Now all of a sudden I see it right there before me. And I feel stupid for not seeing it before. It actually makes sense. It works plain and simple. I finally feel fully liberated from the spell of my former forum love. :D
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It seems to come and go for me one minute i have a total understanding of it then when i come back to it a few months later to work with the permissions it all goes away again.. They are like fleeting moments of dazzling brilliance. (lol where did i hear that?)
 
Moshe1010 said:
I don't have 20 groups; I have 7.
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Moshe1010 said:
I'm not defending anybody, just can't see the logic.
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If you analyze it in terms of 7 groups, you won't see the benefit/loss advantage.

Think of a large site, and not in terms of groups, but in terms of nuanced permissions you may want to give or take from individual users.

Say you have 5, 6, 7 separate private forums: some for moderators, some for paid customers, some for site contributors etc. Then you have 5, 6, 7 permutations of permissions: some users can read and post in forum X; others can read but not write in X, and can read and write in forum Y; others can read X, cannot read Y, but can read + post in Z.

With your solution of 'one group for all permissions', you will need to create a group for each of the permutations. That gives us, in the minimal example I just provided, 5 factorial, or 120 vBulletin usergroups you must have in order to capture all of the nuanced permissions. Or, you can have 5-10 xenForo usergroups, with their layered permissions.
 
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Used the Analysis Permissions feature in 1.2 and wow... :love: It should really help someone mess with permissions and understand how they are implemented across groups. It shows "Overall" permissions on the page, but clicking on more details will show you the process of getting to that final outcome. (y) Fantastic job Kier & Mike!
 
King Kovifor said:
Used the Analysis Permissions feature in 1.2 and wow... :love: It should really help someone mess with permissions and understand how they are implemented across groups. It shows "Overall" permissions on the page, but clicking on more details will show you the process of getting to that final outcome. (y) Fantastic job Kier & Mike!
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Yes sir i was messing with that right off the bat just to take it for a test ride... Very nice and well thought out addition.. Although once you figure out the Permissions system it really is a work of genious.. It sometimes just takes some time.. I understand the theory and from time to time i can even execute it. lol
 
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