Designer permissions

If you have a user with strong HTML and CSS knowledge who is able to make reasonable changes to the entire layout of the website or just to the module templates, then you can assign that user to the group Designer.

A designer must have the following set of permissions:

• Add Stylesheet Associations
• Add Stylesheets
• Add Templates
• Manage Menu
• Manage Themes
• Modify Files
• Modify Stylesheet Associations
• Modify Stylesheets
• Modify Templates
• Remove Stylesheet Associations
• Remove Stylesheets
• Remove Templates
• View Tag Help

This set of permissions allows the designer of the website to perform any task related to the design of the template. However, the designer will not be able to edit the content, submit news, or set any site preferences.

Time for action – creating a test area for the designer

1. In the admin console, click on Content | Pages.
2. Click on Add New Content and create an inactive Section Header named Design Test as shown:



3. Click on Submit.
4. Click on Add New Content again, choose the section header Design Test (created in step 2) in the field Parent. Select the Options tab, scroll down, and select the user or the whole group Designer in the field Additional Editors.
5. Click on Submit.
6. Log out and log in again as Designer. Click on Content | Pages to see the test page.

What just happened?

You have created a new page and placed it below an inactive Section Header. The pages placed below inactive pages cannot be displayed in the website structure. Even if you use the parameter show_all with the Smarty plugin menu (for example, in the sitemap) the page will not be displayed. However, it is active, and it can be accessed directly through the magnifying glass icon, and can be used by the designer as a test area.

In the admin console (Site Admin | Global Settings), under the Advanced Setup tab, you can define Basic Properties for the additional editors such as Image. Here, the editor can choose an image from a drop-down list and thus assign an image to a certain location in the template defined by the designer.

There is a useful third-party module called Template Externalizer. It allows you to use any external editor to edit your templates and stylesheets. After installing and turning on Development Mode, the module automatically extracts all stylesheets and templates into the specified directory. If you modify templates in this external directory, changes are automatically detected, imported to the database, and take effect immediately. When the module is installed, there is the permission Template Externalizer that can be granted to the group Designer.

Viewing the admin log

The admin log records the details of the changes made to the site by all users. This log can be found in the admin console (Site Admin | Admin Log) and includes records about the creating, deleting, and changing of:

• Pages and global content blocks
• Templates and stylesheets
• Users, groups, and permissions
• Site preferences
• Modules

At the top of the log, you will find a navigation section providing links to the first, next, previous, and last pages of the log. There is also a link to download the complete log as a tab separated text file. At the bottom is the Clear Admin Log link. This will clear the entire log.

Important! You won’t be asked to confirm the Clear Admin Log, and this action cannot be undone once completed.

Once the admin log is cleared, there is no evidence of who has changed anything on the website and what the changes were. Therefore, there is even a separate permission called Clear Admin Log that is granted separately from the permission Modify Site Preferences.

There are five columns in each log entry, which are as follows:

• User: This shows the username of the user who performed the action. Even if the user is deleted later, the username is still saved in the log.
• Item ID: This shows the database ID of the affected item. Note that item IDs are only unique to the Item Name shown in the next column and not across the whole database, so the same item ID may appear repeatedly.
• Item Name: This shows the name of the item affected.
• Action: This describes the type of change made to the item.
• Date: This saves the date and time the change was made.

If you have novice users with access to the admin console, then you probably would like to keep all versions of the content to be able to restore them if something goes wrong. There is no such feature in the standard installation of CMS Made Simple, but there is a nice third-party module that you can install additionally.

Archiving changes and restoring them

Once the Archiver module is installed, it keeps a copy of every content page, global content block, stylesheet, or template that is edited or deleted. It also provides the possibility to restore anything in the archive to the current state. This means that your users can edit various aspects of the site, and you can reverse their changes later.

To install the Archiver module, open the admin console, and click on Extensions | Module Manager. Click on the Available Modules tab, and then click the Download & Install link which can be found in the same line as the module name. The module is installed.

After installation, the module will automatically start saving changes into the archives. For example, if you would like to track the changes of the start page, open the page, and save it without any changes, so that the first version of the page is created. This version will be used as a base for future restorations.

Time for action – restoring changes made by an editor

Assuming that you have installed the Archiver module, as just described, you can restore the changes made by the editor as follows:

1. Log in as the editor and edit any page that you are allowed to.
2. Log out and then log in again with the administrator account.
3. Click on Content | Archive Manager Module.
4. Search for the name of the page that has been edited in step 1, and click on it.
5. In the Expanded Archive View, find the second last version (revision) of the page and click on the last icon in the column Operation.
6. View the page.

What just happened?

You have restored the older version of the content and made it to the current one. The editor’s version is not deleted but just replaced, so that you can restore it any time.

You can automatically purge archives either by the number of stored versions for each item (that is, keep only the last five versions of each page, global content block, stylesheet, or template) or by date (that is, keep the versions of the last seven days only). For automatic purge setup, click the Archive Preferences link in the admin area of the module (Content | Archive Manager Module).

You do not have to purge archives, though you can keep accumulating all changes. However, if you have a lot of changes made daily, you must purge your archive to prevent an overflow of the database.

Overview of all default permissions

Permissions are always given to the group and are shared by all users assigned to this group. In the following table, the first column is the name of the permission, the second column is a suggestion as to what role the permission can be granted to, and the third column advises you if there are some preconditions for the permission to take effect.