Thread

I’m redesigning a site for about 50-60 users, most of whom are HTML novices. The majority of the users will need to be able to edit their own area of the site, like http://www.example.com/bob/, and some users will need access to common areas like http://www.example.com/administrative/. I think I’ve cleared my first hurdle in that I can setup individual weblogs and create a user group (with the one user in it) that has access to only that weblog (their own area). I also seem to be able to create user groups for the common areas with multiple users being able to access the content. The tricky part seems to be the situation in which someone needs access to both a common area and their own private area, but I was thinking a third type of group with access to both areas might work. If what I’ve described seems like I’m using EE incorrectly, can you outline the proper way to set this up?

One issue will be that these users will want to post images, PDFs, and video in addition to lots of text, so I’d need to know how best set EE up so that the novice user can easily upload and embed files into their posts. I’ve read through the documentation and the forum posts and it looks like what I need to do is possible, but I’m looking for the recommended, or most popular way, of doing this.

Finally, a few related questions on how EE handles file uploads:

File Management
- Uploading files seems easy but how can users delete or rename the files that they’ve uploaded?
- If a weblog is created for each user so they each have their own private area to mess around with, is it possible to also give them their own file upload folder so they can keep whatever files they want in there and not interfere with each other?
- Video. How can users upload video files (flv, qt, wmv, mpg, etc.) and embed them in a post like they would with an image or PDF?

By the way, EE looks like a really well made product and I’m looking forward to working with it. Thanks.

Hello, greygoose.  Before we can provide technical support, can you please .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with details about your project?  Especially the membership system and the purpose thereof.

Thank you.

Hi Lisa,
I can do that but I’m unclear as to why sales needs this and what you mean by membership system. We already have a licensed copy of EE and I’m trying to figure out the best way to setup the architecture within EE before we get to the actual design stage.

Thanks.

Hi, greygoose.  My concern is in regards to your ExpressionEngine usage and our license.  We do prefer to handle license issues privately, so please do e-mail sales and we can take it from there.

Thank you.

Thank you for emailing!  Here are some answers to your questions.

I’m redesigning a site for about 50-60 users, most of whom are HTML novices. The majority of the users will need to be able to edit their own area of the site, like http://www.example.com/bob/, and some users will need access to common areas like http://www.example.com/administrative/. I think I’ve cleared my first hurdle in that I can setup individual weblogs and create a user group (with the one user in it) that has access to only that weblog (their own area). I also seem to be able to create user groups for the common areas with multiple users being able to access the content. The tricky part seems to be the situation in which someone needs access to both a common area and their own private area, but I was thinking a third type of group with access to both areas might work. If what I’ve described seems like I’m using EE incorrectly, can you outline the proper way to set this up?

I would sit down and examine how you have set up your infrastructure.  My concerns with it center around not being easily managed nor scalable.  Have you considered using one blog to manage user’s entries, and then using username= in combination with segments to display per-user information?  You can make great use of username=“CURRENT_USER” so that your users can review their own entries, as well.  This would be extremely scalable if set up correctly from the beginning.

Members can only belong in one member group, but by having the members in one shared weblog, you can give that group appropriate access to different posting areas, as well as only adding/editing their own entries.

One issue will be that these users will want to post images, PDFs, and video in addition to lots of text, so I’d need to know how best set EE up so that the novice user can easily upload and embed files into their posts. I’ve read through the documentation and the forum posts and it looks like what I need to do is possible, but I’m looking for the recommended, or most popular way, of doing this.

I would handle this with custom fields in the weblog, and templates designed to display that information.  Then they can upload the information and use, say, “URL Only” in the upload wizard - the template does the magic of display, keeping everything easily maintained, consistent, and with minimal markup in the entries themselves.

- Uploading files seems easy but how can users delete or rename the files that they’ve uploaded?

There is a File Manager module (http://expressionengine.com/wiki/Modules) but that allows everyone to deal with all files.  You would need a custom module, or module/extension combo to handle this.

- If a weblog is created for each user so they each have their own private area to mess around with, is it possible to also give them their own file upload folder so they can keep whatever files they want in there and not interfere with each other?

You would need an extension to handle per-member upload directories, whether you go with a weblog per user or a global weblog.

- Video. How can users upload video files (flv, qt, wmv, mpg, etc.) and embed them in a post like they would with an image or PDF?

Answered above.  Custom fields for the user to enter the information, templates for display.

By the way, EE looks like a really well made product and I’m looking forward to working with it. Thanks.

Thank you for the kind words and working with us. =)

Hi Lisa,

I would sit down and examine how you have set up your infrastructure.  My concerns with it center around not being easily managed nor scalable.  Have you considered using one blog to manage user’s entries, and then using username= in combination with segments to display per-user information?  You can make great use of username=“CURRENT_USER” so that your users can review their own entries, as well.  This would be extremely scalable if set up correctly from the beginning.

Members can only belong in one member group, but by having the members in one shared weblog, you can give that group appropriate access to different posting areas, as well as only adding/editing their own entries.

I know one problem I’m having is transitioning my way of thinking of a web site a series of physical files to a CMS controlled by a database. In a nutshell, I just need to allow my mostly non-technical users to be able to login and create content without them seeing each others files and content. I assumed that everyone would need their own weblog in EE to do this but if it can be handled with one weblog, making it more scalable and manageable then perfect. The majority of my users aren’t interested in blogging and for the most part, make infrequent updates (which we’d like to change). If I’m your average user, when I login to EE, I would be looking for how to enter, edit, and delete the content in an area I have access to. For example, if I published a new paper, I may want to mention it on my main page and then link to the full text in a PDF. Continuing with the example, I might then want to post a PowerPoint presentation with some additional notes. Most of this seems possible from the Publish tab, but if I wanted to do something as basic as linking to another page of mine or another page on my organization’s site, I know they’d be stuck since there’s no way to browse the possible pages (templates) to link to and generate a link, unless it’s an absolute link.

If we go with your suggestion of one weblog for the users to post their content, I how should the users manage their content and templates? Would they need, or should they have access to, templates? What tabs or areas of access would you recommend that a user have in the setup you proposed? While I can setup templates and template groups for each user that would automatically pull in the content they enter, I’m sure some of them will want to separate their content into some sort of custom structure (would the categories or pages subtabs accomplish this?) so are templates something users would typically use, or is that usually reserved for the web developer?

We also have several applications written in PHP using MySQL that were built in-house and I was interested in whether those should be incorporated into EE, or if they should be maintained outside of EE.

Finally, with regard to multiple users needed to upload files, you said

You would need an extension to handle per-member upload directories, whether you go with a weblog per user or a global weblog.

Does such an extension exist or would I need to crate one? If I went with the one weblog per user group, where each user group only had one user, then as I understand it I could create separate upload folders and assign each user group to their own folder. I know it goes against your suggestion of using one blog, but it seems to negate the need for an extension.

I appreciate all the help you’ve provided. I’ve tried to get my head around the EE methodology by reading the entire user manual (believe it or not), going through the quick start tutorial, the video tutorials, searching the forum and parts of the wiki, but I’m still waiting for the light bulb to go on. From reading the forum I know that several other members have been far more frustrated than I am and I think what’s needed for a lot of folks new to EE is a more detailed tutorial, or series of tutorials, showing how all the EE tags work, how to convert an example site to an EE site, and what the best practices are (even though EE was designed to be open and not make assumptions about what you want it to do). Just my two cents—thanks again.

P.S. Anyone wanna write an EE for Dummies book with me? 😉

I know one problem I’m having is transitioning my way of thinking of a web site a series of physical files to a CMS controlled by a database. In a nutshell, I just need to allow my mostly non-technical users to be able to login and create content without them seeing each others files and content. I assumed that everyone would need their own weblog in EE to do this but if it can be handled with one weblog, making it more scalable and manageable then perfect. The majority of my users aren’t interested in blogging and for the most part, make infrequent updates (which we’d like to change). If I’m your average user, when I login to EE, I would be looking for how to enter, edit, and delete the content in an area I have access to. For example, if I published a new paper, I may want to mention it on my main page and then link to the full text in a PDF. Continuing with the example, I might then want to post a PowerPoint presentation with some additional notes. Most of this seems possible from the Publish tab, but if I wanted to do something as basic as linking to another page of mine or another page on my organization’s site, I know they’d be stuck since there’s no way to browse the possible pages (templates) to link to and generate a link, unless it’s an absolute link.

Well, this is more of a user education issue. They need to be able to learn how to navigate, and copy/paste a link, essentially.  You can use a WYSIWYG to make the creation of the links themselves easier.  I may be missing what you are after here, though.

If we go with your suggestion of one weblog for the users to post their content, I how should the users manage their content and templates? Would they need, or should they have access to, templates? What tabs or areas of access would you recommend that a user have in the setup you proposed? While I can setup templates and template groups for each user that would automatically pull in the content they enter, I’m sure some of them will want to separate their content into some sort of custom structure (would the categories or pages subtabs accomplish this?) so are templates something users would typically use, or is that usually reserved for the web developer?

They would not manage their templates.  I am assuming that they do not need completely differently styled templates, and in fact, would not have the skills to design their own templates, from what you said.  I would recommend that they have access *only* to the weblogs that they should be posting in, and that their access should be further drilled down to not allow editing or deleting of “others” entries, only of their own entries.  As you can see in the screenshot, that is entirely possible.

Having them use their own structure is a bit tricker.  You could allow them to add and edit categories, but those are shared.  You might, instead, consider the use of Solspace.com’s Tag module, which allows free-form labelling of entries, essentially.

We also have several applications written in PHP using MySQL that were built in-house and I was interested in whether those should be incorporated into EE, or if they should be maintained outside of EE.

I don’t have enough information to help here. Perhaps another thread, describing these apps, so that we can advise more?

Finally, with regard to multiple users needed to upload files, you said

You would need an extension to handle per-member upload directories, whether you go with a weblog per user or a global weblog.

Does such an extension exist or would I need to crate one? If I went with the one weblog per user group, where each user group only had one user, then as I understand it I could create separate upload folders and assign each user group to their own folder. I know it goes against your suggestion of using one blog, but it seems to negate the need for an extension.

Ok, here is how I see it.  You can set aside the time now to code such an extension (I do not believe one yet exists, though I may be wrong) so that this is all handled, 100% automatically for you in the future, with 0 admin intervention.

Or you can build a site where you have to do hours worth of setup for each individual member, lots of cleaning up if that member leaves, and a large learning curve for future site administrators.

You can see how I feel, I think.  =)

I appreciate all the help you’ve provided. I’ve tried to get my head around the EE methodology by reading the entire user manual (believe it or not), going through the quick start tutorial, the video tutorials, searching the forum and parts of the wiki, but I’m still waiting for the light bulb to go on. From reading the forum I know that several other members have been far more frustrated than I am and I think what’s needed for a lot of folks new to EE is a more detailed tutorial, or series of tutorials, showing how all the EE tags work, how to convert an example site to an EE site, and what the best practices are (even though EE was designed to be open and not make assumptions about what you want it to do). Just my two cents—thanks again.

I hate to say it, but even if we had thousands of tutorials (and between the wiki, our blog, our knowledge-base, these forums, and third-party tutorial site, there are a LOT of resources available) - even if we had thousands, your usage would probably not be covered because it is highly dependent on your particular needs and organization. 

P.S. Anyone wanna write an EE for Dummies book with me? 😉

No dummies books, people that use EE are inherently brilliant, since they already see how wonderful ExpressionEngine is. *grins*

Oh yes, the image with the permissions. =) This is per weblog, btw.