I don't play with this stuff much, but I'm pretty sure the end result of what you seek can be done with settings in the back office.
First go to "Blog settings -> pick a blog -> Features" and check the box for "use advanced perms". Now go to "Users" and click the name of the group you will be putting your bloggers in. Let's pretend it'll be the "bloggers" group, so click that group name. This is a huge list of stuff to play with.
For "Access to Admin area" go with 'visible link'.
For "Blogs" go with 'Depending on each blog's permissions'.
For "Stats" and "Files" go with what feels good to you.
For "System admin permissions" I'd say go with 'no access' on all three and do not check the checkbox for skins but it'll throw an error at your bloggers so go with 'view only' for "antispam".
Now go to "Blog settings -> pick a blog -> Group perms" and make sure the layout is 'simple'. That'll be a link over on the right side of the page. Anyway it'll be in 'simple' mode when you see a row of radio buttons for each group. 'advanced' mode gives you a heck of a lot of checkboxes for each group. Once you got simple mode select the radio button for "publishers" and you'll have basically mostly what you want.
Test it. Add a new user and put that user in the "bloggers" group, then log in as that user and see what they get. They WILL get a "Blog settings" tab, but they won't be able to do anything with it. Pretty much the same as not having the tab at all right?
Oh and welcome to the forums! If you want to donate that'll be cool, but really just make sure you keep a linkback to b2evolution on your blog and we won't hate you ;)
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I don't play with this stuff much, but I'm pretty sure the end result of what you seek can be done with settings in the back office.
First go to "Blog settings -> pick a blog -> Features" and check the box for "use advanced perms". Now go to "Users" and click the name of the group you will be putting your bloggers in. Let's pretend it'll be the "bloggers" group, so click that group name. This is a huge list of stuff to play with.
For "Access to Admin area" go with 'visible link'.
For "Blogs" go with 'Depending on each blog's permissions'.
For "Stats" and "Files" go with what feels good to you.
For "System admin permissions" I'd say go with 'no access' on all three and do not check the checkbox for skins but it'll throw an error at your bloggers so go with 'view only' for "antispam".
Now go to "Blog settings -> pick a blog -> Group perms" and make sure the layout is 'simple'. That'll be a link over on the right side of the page. Anyway it'll be in 'simple' mode when you see a row of radio buttons for each group. 'advanced' mode gives you a heck of a lot of checkboxes for each group. Once you got simple mode select the radio button for "publishers" and you'll have basically mostly what you want.
Test it. Add a new user and put that user in the "bloggers" group, then log in as that user and see what they get. They WILL get a "Blog settings" tab, but they won't be able to do anything with it. Pretty much the same as not having the tab at all right?
Oh and welcome to the forums! If you want to donate that'll be cool, but really just make sure you keep a linkback to b2evolution on your blog and we won't hate you ;)