User Roles and User Rights
Typemill provides some standard user-roles with different rights. If you have admin-rights, you can change the role for a user in the user-management:
- Guest: Can authenticate and view articles in frontend, has no access to his account data.
- Member: Can view, update and delete his account but cannot change his user-role.
- Contributor: This role is not in use right now.
- Author: Can do everything a member can do. Additionally can view all pages, create new pages and update his own pages. He cannot publish, unpublish or delete content.
- Editor: Can do everything an author can do. Additionally can update, publish, unpublish and delete all pages, even if they are from other users.
- Administrator: Can do everything and has access to all system configurations.
A developer can change the existing roles and create new roles.
Usecase for Guests
A guest can only authenticate and view content-pages in the frontend. He has no access to his own account data. You can use the guest-role if you provide a non-public documentation or website. You can then create a guest account and share the credentials with the user who should have access. In the user account of a guest you can also activate the option to login with a link. Be aware that this does not provide any security. It is similar to a share-link for Google Docs, so everybody has access to the website with this link. You can use this link in your software, and if you provide a SaaS solution, you can also restrict access based on the referring IP.
Usecases for Members
If you want to restrict your website from public access, then you can set a password with htpasswd (similar to htaccess) and share that single password to all users, who should have access to the website. Another way is to restrict the whole website to members in the system settings and create individual accounts for each member.
Other usecases are in work right now and will be implemented with plugins. One example is a member-plugin, where members can register with a registration form and haver access to certain content and functions, for example to member content or to downloads. There are also plans to introduce payed member roles for pro-content in future.
Usecases for Authors
An author can only create and update their own content, but they cannot delete, publish or unpublish anything. This is a good role for guest writers for example, so they cannot mess up existing pages or publish content, that you did not check yet.
Usecases for Editors
Editors can edit all pages from all users and also delete, publish and unpublish all pages. This is a typical role for an ... editor. Or a head of content. Or a chief content executive. Or a master of content.
Administrator
Administrators can do everything, configure plugins, change themes, configure system settings, manage users and change user roles. You should be very restrictive with that role, of course.