OK, checking Global Permission, we have these three levels:
/** Allowed to login and edit profile */
public static final String LOGIN = "login";
/** Allowed to login and do weblogging */
public static final String WEBLOG = "weblog";
/** Allowed to login and do everything, including site-wide admin */
public static final String ADMIN = "admin";
We don't use "weblog" though, we save it as "editor" in the userrole
table. We also don't use "login" for anything other than to make it the
minimum required setting on pages that don't require an ADMIN setting. All
newly registered users are given "editor" as a minimum, meaning we could
raise minimum from "login" to "editor" and do away with the login role
without any difference in application behavior.
On top of this, we allow the roles additional subroles per the
roller.properties file:
# Role name to global permission action mappings
role.names=editor,admin
role.action.editor=login,comment,weblog
role.action.admin=login,comment,weblog,admin
"comment" is also never used in the application, further, in the above
list we're inconsistently assigning admin to admin but weblog to editor.
Since the permissions are all Russian doll (login < comment <
weblog/editor < admin), it's sufficient to just store the highest role, as
the lower ones are all implied, i.e., we don't need these properties.
My proposal is to:
1.) Replace the above LOGIN/WEBLOG/ADMIN strings with a two-value
enumeration, EDITOR and ADMIN. Later, if we have user demand for LOGIN and
COMMENT, and somebody actually coding in logic that uses those values, we
can easily add in the enumerations for them. (I don't like LOGIN much,
however, if we don't trust them not to blog they shouldn't be lurking
around the UI.)
2.) The "userrole" database table will be dropped, replaced with a new
varchar column ROLE in the Roller_User table. I'll update the migration
script to copy the user's highest role into that column.
3.) The three properties "role.name, role.action.editor, and
role.action.admin" will be removed.
4.) List<String> requiredGlobalPermissionActions() will return a single
enumeration constant instead (EDITOR or ADMIN), stating the minimum
accepted value.
5.) WeblogPermissions looks fine, except I'll just switch the string array
of EDIT_DRAFT, ADMIN, POST, to an enumeration constant with the same values
and have requiredWeblogPermissionActions() return an enumeration constant
instead.
How does this sound? I have other things to work on so I'll wait 72 hours
before proceeding to give time for others to evaluate this change.
Regards,
Glen
On 08/13/2014 08:33 AM, Glen Mazza wrote:
If the methods return just a single permission instead of a collection of
permissions, at least for GlobalPermissionActions, that means we can move
to "Russian doll" type role levels, where each permission level includes
all the permission levels below it (de facto the way Roller runs now). If
we can officially be on that, that means we can toss out the userrole table
and just place a single column "rolename" (indicating the highest role a
person has) in the roller_user table, a very sleek change. (I'm not
talking about Roller_Permission, i.e., permissions a user has on each blog
-- that table is still needed, but the userrole table indicating whether
one's a global admin or not.)
Glen
On 08/13/2014 07:54 AM, Dave wrote:
I don't have a strong opinion, but this seems like change just for the
sake
of change. I doubt that impacts performance in any significant way,
especially when compared to all the database calls that are made during
JSP
or page template processing.
- Dave
On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 9:15 PM, Glen Mazza <glen.ma...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Hi team, one or both of these methods are heavily called within the
application, indeed for almost every action run:
public List<String> requiredWeblogPermissionActions() {
return Collections.singletonList(WeblogPermission.xxxxx);
}
public List<String> requiredGlobalPermissionActions() {
return Collections.singletonList(GlobalPermission.xxxxxx);
}
I've checked every implementation of both methods within the application
-- about 20-25 in all -- every one returns just a single permission
requirement, not a list of items.
I think it would be good to optimize these methods by having them return
just a string or a fast and lightweight enumeration constant. The only
thing lost I can see would be the ability to require multiple
permissions,
but again within the app today and through 12-14 years of Roller it just
hasn't been needed. WDYT?
Regards,
Glen
