Hello mkogel! We've been waiting for you. The thing is we don't have a resident expert on user permissions and we kinda figured anybody who tries to use Mr Demo to figure it out and then asks us will become the user perms resident expert. An old dude on a mountaintop wrote it down. With a beard. On a rock. I mean the old dude had the beard - not the rock. He wrote it on a rock, which was actually a short-lived boutique brand laptop with integrated printer serving the mountaintop-dwelling-bearded-old-dude market. They didn't last too long :roll:

Where was I? Oh yeah: go to your Blog settings tab and pick the blog you want Mr Demo to post in. I think you have to do that as "admin". Anyway select the "Use advanced perms" options and behold as new tabs pop up as if out of nowhere. Then start tinkering with the User Permissions and maybe Group Permissions tab(s). In fact, do both and report back here frequently because YOU, kind sir, are the Resident Expert on User Perms ... as it was written. On a rock. Laserjet by the way. Full color. And wow you shoulda seen the font this guy had! 8|

Hope it helps! ;)

...because YOU, kind sir, are the....
to be correct ... because YOU, kind mam, are the... :-)

ok, I will play around with it. (why can't I get an indiots guide???....oh well)

Actually, I am not interested in Mr Demo but my laptop where the localhost is does not have email or internet connection so I wanted to use Mr Demo to test the new users out.

Is there anyway to bypass the email activation option for testing purposes?

Cheers

Ya know what? I've been around the block enough to know not to guess at gender online. Heck even in person it frequently makes sense to "trust but verify" because that which we see is not always that which is eh? Then again that can get you in *big* trouble depending on your method of verification 8|

Yeah so AFAIK there is an option to turn off requiring email verification but I'm not sure where it is exactly. Probably somewhere on the global settings tab? Another thing you can do if all you want to do is test is to simple create new users and check off whatever it is you want them to have credit for.

I used to have installations with 4 or 5 versions of me. admin1 admin2 and so on. All had the same password and email, all got instant credit for email verification, all had slightly different bits and baubles selected and set up here and there. That way I could then visit via IE as if I was another version of me just to see how Joe Blogger would see the back end.

And there ya go!

Oh... the idiot's guide thing. So lots of stuff is covered about user and group permissions. The thing is most of it was learned and documented back before the 2.* generation came out. The whole idea of having to check a box to turn on the permissions tab is totally new. It may be that the info findable here in the forums and in the manual (Docs link up above) is totally valid, but quite frankly I would expect it to be "close but not exactly really close enough". Does that make sense? 2.* is really now starting to get a really good user and knowledge base is the thing.

Here we go...my comments...

I managed to create a new user and assign to the group "blogger" in order to post messages. Apparently my new user belonged to the "basic users" which did not allow the user post a message. So far so good.

I have played around with almost all the settings with different combinations on the User Permissions and Group Permissions tabs. Whatever setting I have used did not have any apparent effect on the user.

Here is the major problem I have. The new users set up as bloggers have too many privileges on the admin panel. I do not want any users to change the skin or change any category or anything else on the blog space. (I know I am not nice) I want my bloggers to be able to only post on their lovely space I have designed for them (not nice again) and not mess around with anything.
You might ask why I am being so cruel to my users. Here is the answer. Despite the technology advances most of my users are so novice, some are only familiar with email only and nothing else (like my mother). My father does not even know how use an email. So, you get the picture... I simply need to provide the basic tools and advance it gradually. Hope this makes sense. I guess b2evolution is too advanced for my needs. I will search for a much basic tool with multi user option.

I think I just figured it all out, and basically it looks like you gave more permissions than you wanted.

I made a level 1 user and put them in the basic bloggers group. On the user permissions and group permissions tabs I clicked "simple" then "publisher". The trickiest part for me was going to "users" then clicking the group name so I could click on "visible link" for the top option. Something like 'access to admin area'.

Anyway my new user, who happens to be me, can post, change his profile, and see that there is a blog settings tab but can't access anything on that tab. On the posts/comments tab my new user can see that there are posts in that blog by other authors, but can't edit any of them because the "producer" permission doesn't allow editing.

Oh well!

Alright, I will not give up so easily... I have checked many other blogging tools including the wordpress multi-user (which I could not even install it) and I found b2evolution to be the best in terms of management of the blogs and users.
I ma playing with the permission settings but still my users are allowed to do to much.
I will install this auto registration program to see how this will affect the permissions.
In the worst case I will write my own blog tool in hundret years (I am not a programmer guru.)
wish me luck

If they are allowed too much it is because you are allowing too much, although it is quite true that not every detail is configurable. By setting a user and group to "producer" they simply did not get to see ANY of the settings for the blog itself. Or even stats for that matter - just the posts in the blog.

If you're talking about the "autoblog" plugin I don't think it works in 2.* by the way.