Subforum Access Permissions

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May 29, 2025 8:25 am
Keleth says:
... While private, you cannot edit general permissions on subforms ...
That seems to be working. I wonder if it might not be better to grey it out rather than removing the whole 'General [ Edit ]' section completely, just because people might be confused about things being in different places (really, only 'higher on the page') depending on the Privacy?
Keleth says:
... If you change a game from private to public, ONLY the root game forum is changed to general read on ...
The sub-forums keep what they were set to last? Or will we have to change them all back after a privacy toggle?

If the game is Private, does it matter what the sub-forums are set to? Can they be seen with a link even if they can not navigated to? If not, we can just leave them set as they were?
Keleth says:
... While public, you can edit the general read permissions (and only read permissions) of a subform ...
The buttons and layout look great.

The Save button does not work. It does not react or seem to click and does not change/save the value. Reloading the page shows it is still at Inherit.

Making the game Private and then Public again set 'read' to No, which seems to do what 'read=no' is meant to do, others can not see that sub-forum. Now it is stuck as No since I can not Save the new value.

Presumably Yes is different to Inherit mainly on sub-sub-forums?
May 29, 2025 11:10 am
vagueGM says:
That seems to be working. I wonder if it might not be better to grey it out rather than removing the whole 'General [ Edit ]' section completely, just because people might be confused about things being in different places (really, only 'higher on the page') depending on the Privacy?
Yah, fair point, I can do that.
vagueGM says:
The sub-forums keep what they were set to last? Or will we have to change them all back after a privacy toggle?
You have to set them all back. Otherwise I'd have to keep a record of what they were before, and I don't see people toggling games from public to private and back again frequently enough to warrant that.
vagueGM says:
If the game is Private, does it matter what the sub-forums are set to? Can they be seen with a link even if they can not navigated to? If not, we can just leave them set as they were?
It does matter, because the forums work on optimistic priority. If you're blocked from one source but allowed from a source of equal value, it takes the allowed value.
vagueGM says:
The Save button does not work. It does not react or seem to click and does not change/save the value. Reloading the page shows it is still at Inherit.
Strange. Do you mind trying again with your console open to see if you get a JS error? I can look for PHP errors in the logs. It worked for me on staging, so trying to figure out what the difference in our use cases is.
vagueGM says:
Making the game Private and then Public again set 'read' to No, which seems to do what 'read=no' is meant to do, others can not see that sub-forum. Now it is stuck as No since I can not Save the new value.

Presumably Yes is different to Inherit mainly on sub-sub-forums?
Yes and inherit are always different. However, after your points here, I think changing the subforums to inherit when making a forum private is the better way to go. If you change it to public, it'd stay inherit, thus by default making subforums public, and can be individually blocked if needed.
May 29, 2025 11:18 am
Keleth says:
... I don't see people toggling games from public to private and back again frequently ...
Fair. Especially given the later points.
Keleth says:
... optimistic priority. If you're blocked from one source but allowed from a source of equal value, it takes the allowed value. ...
OK.
Keleth says:
... trying again with your console open to see if you get a JS error ...
Nothing in the console. I will Save again right after posting this so you can have a timestamp for the php logs.
Keleth says:
... changing the subforums to inherit when making a forum private is the better way to go. ...
That sounds like the option most situations would benefit from. Inherit is probably what they were before for most sub-forums, anyway?
May 29, 2025 8:45 pm
Ok, updates pushed to fix setting the general permissions on a public game subforum, as well as setting the subforum's read to inherit when a game is made private.
May 29, 2025 9:01 pm
That seems to be working as intended now.

Saving permissions works; changing the game's Private/Public setting does the right thing with the sub-forums; setting the Group permissions to 'no read' also means the General permissions of Inherit (the default) turns off read; setting Group to 'no read' but General to 'yes read' means players in the game can not see the sub-forums but non-players can (strange arrangement, but if someone wants to override Inheriting it, the system supports it:).

The message: "You cannot edit general permissions while a game is private" is clear enough, though it feels like it could use some refining, but this is not a priority, and I don't have specific criticisms or suggestions.
May 29, 2025 9:09 pm
vagueGM says:
The message: "You cannot edit general permissions while a game is private" is clear enough, though it feels like it could use some refining, but this is not a priority, and I don't have specific criticisms or suggestions.
Yah, def open to changing the text. The AngularJS code is just messy and I threw together what I could.
May 29, 2025 11:17 pm
Quote:
setting Group to 'no read' but General to 'yes read' means players in the game can not see the sub-forums but non-players can (strange arrangement, but if someone wants to override Inheriting it, the system supports it:).
I will use it this way! ;) The goal is not to "spam" the players that are in separate character groups and distinct posting frequencies with tons of emails and a chaotic homepage.

Public = Yes, Game group = No, Specific players of that sub-forum = Yes.

Each sub-forum is actually a separate but related adventure.
Last edited May 29, 2025 11:21 pm
May 29, 2025 11:24 pm
htech says:
Public = Yes, Game group = No, Specific players of that sub-forum = Yes.
Is your game private? Because if it's public, you can do that as it stands now. If you plan on having the game private but want a subforum public, that won't work with the current code. Plus, you'd need to give people the link to the subforum, because they wouldn't be able to access the root forum to get access to the subforum.
May 29, 2025 11:28 pm
Its public =)

I can’t do that in the current version in prod (the public access for that game sub-forums) because of the original issue with the ACP [ref - the first post in this thread] that prevents external access to them.

But the "Game group = No, Specific players of that sub-forum = Yes." is already done and working =)
Last edited May 29, 2025 11:39 pm
May 29, 2025 11:31 pm
htech says:
I can’t do that in the current version
I meant the version on staging :) But vague was referencing a weird situation where someone would have a game private, but subforums public.
May 29, 2025 11:36 pm
Oh, I thought vague was talking about my (admittedly weird) situation where I want my players "not to read" something that they can read if they just logout. =))
[ +- ] why
Last edited May 29, 2025 11:42 pm
May 29, 2025 11:49 pm
htech says:
Oh, I thought vague was talking about my (admittedly weird) situation where I want my players "not to read" something that they can read if they just logout. =))
Feel free to test staging to see if it yields the results you want.
May 29, 2025 11:56 pm
Quote:
Feel free to test staging to see if it yields the results you want.
I am unable to test the emails right now but both the UX and the behavior of the buttons in staging are exactly what I need. =)

I look forward to use that in prod, when you finish implementation and testing. =)
May 30, 2025 12:16 pm
htech says:
Oh, I thought vague was talking about my (admittedly weird) situation where I want my players "not to read" something that they can read if they just logout. =))
...
Not directly, but, yes, that is the situation I was describing.

Now, for this behaviour, you need to set the sub-forum's General Permissions to Read, if they are at the default of Inherit then logged out players won't be able to see the forum's either. You can make that choice now.
htech says:
... I am unable to test the emails right now ...
They should only receive email notifications if they have manually subscribed to the sub-forum, and they can't do that if they can't see (Read) the sub-forum.

However...
May 30, 2025 12:24 pm
@Keleth

I thought there was code that prevented notification emails from being sent to players who did not have permission to read the posts that generated the notification?

If my test player subscribes to a sub-forum (which they can currently read) and then the GM sets it so they can not see it (I just changed the Group Read Permission), they still get email notifications.

It is then tricky to un-subscribe to that forum. Not everyone knows how to get to the Manage Subscriptions page (or even that it exists, judging from the number of times I have pasted that URL:).

This is not related to General Permissions. The game being Public or Private has no effect. Even after the player leaves the (now Private) game they still get the notification emails about a game they can not even see.

I am not sure if we should consider this a bug (or, not a high priority one, anyway), they are subscribed, after all (and can/should just unsubscribe). I don't think this is the intended behaviour, though, and it leaks information about posts in places people don't have permission to see...

Worse was when I was getting @mentions from private games I was not in. :(
May 30, 2025 1:03 pm
vagueGM says:
I thought there was code that prevented notification emails from being sent to players who did not have permission to read the posts that generated the notification?
No, there isn't, but it's on my list of tasks, as when you leave a game, it should just unsub you.
vagueGM says:
Worse was when I was getting @mentions from private games I was not in. :(
This is an interesting one, because it'd have to check your permissions when you get notified. Def doable, but obviously frustrating.

Given neither of these are breaking problems and can be side stepped, I don't think it'll be a super high priority, but yes, something to work on.
May 30, 2025 1:03 pm
The code with the updated permission controls is now live on prod. Have fun everyone.
May 30, 2025 1:06 pm
Keleth says:
... as when you leave a game, it should just unsub you.
...
I am not convinced. Maybe on a Private game, but just because someone can not play in a game anymore does not mean they don't want to still follow its progress.

Maybe make it an option in the Leave Game dialog? Maybe default it to no in a Public game and default it to yes (or forced) in a Private game?
May 30, 2025 1:09 pm
vagueGM says:
I am not convinced. Maybe on a Private game, but just because someone can not play in a game anymore does not mean they don't want to still follow its progress.

Maybe make it an option in the Leave Game dialog? Maybe default it to no in a Public game and default it to yes (or forced) in a Private game?
I think there are a few ways to look at it, but lets move that to it's own thread.
May 30, 2025 1:11 pm
Keleth says:
The code with the updated permission controls is now live on prod. Have fun everyone.
That seems to be working.

Note, that this does not 'fix' any existing permissions. If you want your recent subforums to be viewable by the public, you will need to manually set this (or toggle the game to Private and back to Public).
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