Hiding blocks from administrators

[nomadic]

Link to my site: http://www.thecbg.org
SMF version: 1.1.16
TP version: 1.0 RC1.1
Default Forum Language: English
Theme name and version:Silverpluss

I've noticed that when I hide a block from members it still shows up for admins. I have some blocks that I only want to show up for guests and nobody else and was wondering if there was a way I could do this.

[ZarPrime]

nomadic,

The TP Team had a discussion a while back on whether the function you are describing, that is, to show a block to no groups, including Admins, but only show it to guests, is working properly, or whether a block should even be able to be shown only to guests without an Admin seeing it.

We are going to have to do some testing on this to see whether this was added in or not so you are going to have to give us some time to discuss this further.  In the meantime, I can tell you with certainty that it definitely won't work with the version of TinyPortal that you have installed on your site as that version is quite old now.  You will definitely need to upgrade your site to the latest version of TP at some point as none of us on the Team even have a test site using the older version of TP that you have installed.  If you choose to upgrade to the latest version, be sure that you have backed up your site, including the database before installing the new version.

ZarPrime

[IchBin]

The setting works fine Zarprime, it's just how it's understood is the hard part lol.

In TPAdmin > Settings there is a setting for this. However, if you select the option to not display all blocks to admin, the admin group no longer takes affect on blocks. The admin must then have a secondary group assigned to him/her in order to view any blocks. It's an all or nothing type of thing.

If that doesn't make sense, let me know and I'll try to explain further.

[ZarPrime]

Thanks Ichbin.

I couldn't remember what we had discussed on this but let me do some testing on this because I haven't done that for awhile.  So, now that you have refreshed my memory on this, all Admins must also have a secondary group in order for this to work properly.  I can test this on an SMF 2.0 test site but Nomadic's site is SMF 1.1.16 so I can't test it on that version of SMF.  So, if another member of the Team that has a 1.1.16 test site can check this, I would be grateful.

ZarPrime

[ZarPrime]

OK, this works fine with SMF 2.0.2 and the latest version of TinyPortal 1.0 Final.  The question is whether it works or not with SMF 1.1.16 and TP 1.0 RC 1.1 (the versions that Nomadic has installed).  That is something that I can't test.

ZarPrime

[nomadic]

I have been preparing to upgrade to the final version of 1.0 but I have to wait until this weekend when I have more free time.

[ZarPrime]

nomadic,

What you want to do might work with the version of TinyPortal that you have on your site but you should still plan to upgrade to the latest version of TP when you can because there are bugs in the version you are using (TP version: 1.0 RC1.1).  If you want to try this right now, we can give you the steps on how to try it.  Here is what you have to do ...

• First of all, you need to create a single purpose membergroup in your SMF Admin area that your admins will have as a secondary group.  You could name this group anything and permissions aren't really important since Admins have all permissions anyway.  For instance, you could name this group "AdminSecondary" or whatever.
• Once you have created that membergroup, you will need to make sure that each of your Admins is a member of that group.  There are several ways to do this so if you need help with this, just ask.
• Once you have done this, you and each of your Admins will have a primary group of "Admin" and a secondary group of "AdminSecondary".
• Now you will need to edit each existing block that exists on your Forum in all panels so that the blocks are visible to the "AdminSecondary" group if you want Admins to see the block when you are done.  If there are any blocks that you want to be invisible to Admins, don't check the new group for visibility.
• If you want to create a new block that is visible only to guests, create the block and, on the edit screen for that block, for "Choose your membergroups that will able to see this block.", simply check  "guests" only.
• OK, almost done ~ Under the TP general settings (YourSite/index.php?action=tpadmin;sa=settings), select "No" for "Admin can see all blocks?" and save.
• Now, any block that is set to be shown to the "AdminSecondary" group will be shown to Admins and any block that is not set to show to that group will be invisible to Admins.

In addition, if you have another database available on your site, I would highly recommend setting up a clone of your existing site, in a separate folder for testing purposes.  There are topics over at SMF on how to do this.  That way you can do your testing on the cloned site without affecting your live site.  Once you have the clone setup, you could even upgrade it to SMF 2.0.2 at your leisure and then install the latest TinyPortal.  The clone would be your test bed.  Any questions on this, feel free to ask.

ZarPrime

[nomadic]

Awesome thanks, I'll see what I can do. Actually I have a clone site up and running right now going to give this a shot on there and see what we get.