Hmm, how are you going to be doing your skin system? The phpBB3 one is alright, but still pretty complicated.

Currently, it's a bit of a combincation of file and database modding. I'm hoping to get it all database'd and done through a control panel.

Anyway, the small bit of work I did on the forums can be seen in the screenshots below:









As you can see, I am not working on any sort of special user interface. It's going to be completely down to the administrator(s).

I take it those screenshots are what appears after each press of appropriate buttons?

Also, WTF, mouse cursor?

That's right I took the screenshots using Gadwin PrintScreen.

Here's another screenshot.



I know this website will look like it has been made by a 10 year old at first glance. But the aim is actually to make it extremely simple. What you're seeing is likely the final version of my stylesheet - as in, I'm not actually going to use one. Although, there are classes and ID's flying around absolutely everywhere inside the code, making the website very easy to skin if need be. Of course, I'll be testing these after the database is fully functioning with the website.

The next thing I need to do is make the registration script work. Easy peasy, but I'm doing stuff I've not tried before, so I may be a little slow.

A security measure I will use for registration and also for logging in (it is actually in use right now in the login script) is a domain/address check, so if a login was initiated from one IP address and the script is run on another, or the resulting login page is loaded on another IP address, it can be seen as a potential risk and the administrator will be able to bar such types of login. This scenario would typically be encountered when a user is browsing through a random proxy server, sending requests across different domains.

Heh, never seen a confirm on username before, lol.

Looking very good. Will users be able to set colours and such, because that would be cool.

Also, where does the link at the bottom go?

I thought I'd do a confirm on a username just to make sure it is definitely the username this person wants. It saves them going in to the control panel and changing it if they go wrong! I guess I'll see what feedback I get on this.

At the moment, the link at the bottom is a mailto link to my email address.

Yeah, I like the idea of that feature, personally. Stops silly mistakes, mostly.

Here's a small change...

So you need the email to log in aswell?

Ja.

OK, so here's the latest on permissions, and you're not going to like it.

Basically, if a user is an administrator and has permission to do everything, but is also a member of the users group that doesn't have permission to do everything (for instance, users cannot create or edit categories), then that administrative user has the same permissions as that user.

The UPM (User Permissions Matrix) is very restrictive by default...

Let's say that in the group "administrators", categories can be created, but in the group "users", categories cannot be created. UPM picks up that the user is a member of both groups, but if it detects a single instance of something that isn't allowed, then it will disallow it completely, regardless of whether "administrators" can create categories or not. Strict eh?

Here's a little example:

"administrator" is only in the "administrators" group


"aaron" is in both the "administrators" group and the "users" group

Actually, that's quite similar to the phpBB3 system, except phpBB3 has 3 options; Never, Yes and No.

Basically, these follow a heirachy - Never>Yes>No.

If someone is a member of 2 usergroups, and one of those permissions is set to no, and the other to yes, then the user will be able to do whatever that permission is related to. However, if instead of No, it is set to Never, then the user won't be able to do this. If all the settings are No, then the user won't be able to. No is the default permission for everything, and makes things very useful, it's kinda like "this isn't set, so don't let them". I really like this system as it allows better use of usergroups.

My system already supports that as 1 = Yes, 0 = No, and 2 = Never. By default, when something says No, it means Never.

LOL, OK, that's good then. That should work well then.

Here's a small example of that system in action...

I am changing the user "aaron" to be a member of the "users" group at first, then a member of both "users" and "administrators", then a member of "users", "administrators" and "banned"...

"aaron" is a member of the "users" group:


"aaron" is a member of the "users" and "administrators" groups:


"aaron" is a member of the "users", "administrators" and "banned" groups:


And here's your first screenshot of code...

Ah, that's much better now.

And the code scares me! Then again, I could probably guess that each lump of similar lines is just for each permission.

Yeah. I didn't use copy and paste either!

You sure about that? I guess after a certian point it becomes quiter to type out a full line rathert han copying and editing the old one, lol.

Yeah, I tried copy and paste but I had to do 3 edit's per line which took longer than actually typing out the line again. I didn't get any typo errors either!

Look at your last load of pictures of group access, should users be able to edit all posts? cause thats what it suggests.

Yeah, you've got a keen eye
I was testing the permissions. You'll notice in the group of screenshots before that they couldn't edit all posts, only their own posts.

Oh that would be very fun, though... A bit like good old YiYi, but worse.

A good old YiYi only takes 30 minutes to make

Oh no... Please, just no!

YiYi?