Joomla ACL Tutorial for Allowing One Person to Modify Only One Category

October 15, 2011 | Joomla Tutorials | Written by Nick Savov

We recently published a detailed round-up of the best, general Joomla ACL tutorials.

Here's a specific ACL tutorial requested by one of our students. She wanted to know how to allow a single individual to be able to create and modify articles in only single category, so we created this tutorial for her.

Create the User Group

Go to Users >> Groups >> Add New Group

Enter your Group Title >> and select Group Parent as Registered >> and then Save & Close.

Why did I chose Registered? Here's an explanation:

First, I want to mention that there isn't only one "right" answer. It's similar to asking, "How do you get to such and such a place?" There can be multiple ways to get to a destination. However, there is a way that is generally quicker and more efficient and for example, using "Registered" seems to be the quickest. The initial inclination is to choose "Publisher" since the person needs to be able to create, edit, and publish new content within the category and since a publisher can do that, the thinking is, "Why not make them a sub-group of Publisher"? The reason that is not a good idea is that a Publisher can edit all content in all categories and since the new group would be a subgroup of Publisher (if Publisher is chosen) then it would inherit the Publishers access levels. You would then have to either modify publisher or change the access levels of numerous categories instead of just one. Using Registered restricts, by default, access to all categories and thus we only have to modify one category and give access to that group. That's it. In the follow steps we'll do just that.

Access the Category and Set its Permissions

Go to Content >> Category Manager. If you have already created your category then find your category. If you haven't created the category yet then add a new category (and fill in the basic information).

Go to the bottom of the category. Select the User Group that you created in the first step. That will display all the actions and the respective settings for the actions. Adjust the settings to your liking.

Save & Close.

Assign Users to the User Group

The last step is to assign specific users to the User Group. Go to Users >> User Manager. If you have created your user already then find your user. If you haven't created the user yet then add a new user (and fill in the basic information).

Assign that User to the User Group that you created earlier.

That's it, you're done! Congrats! All that's left is to Save & Close and test the front-end to make sure you did things correctly.

Comments

#1 lene 2012-01-27 08:07

Super! Just what I needed! Thanks

#2 Nick 2012-02-01 05:48

You're very welcome, Lene! If you have the time, you should check out our online class if you're looking for more ACL tutorials. We have a whole section in the intermediate class for it:
www.ostraining.com/online

Kind regards,
Nick

#3 Washington 2012-05-23 17:34

I have no words!!! You guys are the best. Simple and effective. Tks!!!

#4 overmars 2012-08-04 09:43

if the article is submitted needs approval from the super admin, how do we manage it?

#5 Dave 2012-12-06 18:56

Excellent. Is there a way to also give that person (or group of people) permissing to edit the category as well as the articles within that category?

#6 craigr 2013-01-14 17:20

this is great - but my user can not select "PUBLISH" article. This must be done from the back end. Did I miss something?

#7 Mina 2013-01-20 15:03

How to make it work for sub category ??? and from back end - i mean i want the user to only view the sub category and it is articles only from back end ?

#8 Roberto 2013-06-07 12:30

As other people said, this way the user cannot automatically publish the article. Is there an easy way to do so?

thank you very much

#9 Amit Patekar 2013-06-08 19:37

Everything works perfectly, but in the end the article will not get published automatically. Super Admin will get message that new article is posted. But Super Admin has to publish it manually.

Any solution please??

Regards
Amit Patekar

#10 Roberto 2013-06-12 08:33

Hi, I found a workaround: in Category management -> Options tab Permissions, you have to check the "Edit state" option. This way, when a user tries to create an article from frontend he can choose its state (so he can publish it right away).
Unfortunately, if the user has to access the backend for some reason, he will be able to edit the state of any article in any category.

Please let me know if you find a better solution.

thanks,
Roberto