Currently, it is not possible to restrict users in the way you describe in either version of Director.

G'day again Brad,

Seems I'm not the only one urgently looking for basic permission control?

http://forums.slideshowpro.net/viewtopic.php?pid=33747

Thanks for your support,

Thomas

bdaily wrote:

Thomas - We've certainly had this requested before, but those who have requested it comprise a fairly small percentage of our user base. I'd guess that 95% of our users (or more) either use Director alone or in a small team where permissions of this nature aren't necessary.

That's not to say we won't do it in the future, but for now we are focused on some features we think will have a greater impact on the user base as a whole.

Brad,

Thanks for your reply mate.  It is clear you guys support your products.

I'm sure you know the demographics of your customers much better than I do but I also assume you are looking to add new types of customers to your user base? I assume that DDI is looking to expand business and not keep the user base static? 

If it is true that Director is intentionally limited and not meant for use by anything bigger than a "small team", and you don't offer permission control, then why have the "Contributor vs Admin" user roles at all?

Even within a small team people will have different levels of skill, knowledge, and responsibility and after months or years of publishing there could literally be $10's or even $100's of thousands of dollars worth of (wo)man-hours invested in setting up the content and slideshows?

Your system appears to treat every "Contributor" exactly the same - appears to trust them all the same - appears to allow each and every one of them to cause system-wide damage if they make a mistake?

Apologies, but to me, this seems absurd and surprising?  From my humble perspective digital content management is all about controlling content contributors with robust permissions?

Thanks for listening.

Thomas

Thanks for the reply Brad,

Thomas

I too find this "perplexing," although "absurd" may be overstating the case a bit.

I suppose it's just speculating, but didn't you already have to build this type of functionality into the version of the app which you use for the hosted Director service? I fully respect the concept of priorities, and working on some items which people are clambering for is just good business sense. However if this would be a port from that version of the app, I know  that there are a lot of us out here who would pay good money for it.

I'm going to take a small amount of hope from the following sentence:

Brad wrote:

If we lose some people while Director doesn't have robust permissions, so be it.

This functionality does really make the difference for me between an app that I can use for my personal sites and an app that I can use professionally.

I sincerely hope that you will reconsider adding this as an option sooner rather than later.

Thanks,
Michael

cve55au wrote:

A constructive idea Scott - I'd certainly look a chipping in given the cost was "reasonable".

IMHO to make this work, and keep the cost reasonable, SSP / DDI would have to consider making an "official call" out to the SSP masses - getting the largest possible list of folks that are willing to pony up for "the rest of us" to all get this functionality.

Personally I think it would be a huge winner . . . and "professional" use of SSP / Director / Hosted Director would move forward as people recognize how slick and good SSP can be for managing web delivery of image content.

Just some thoughts . . .

The way I look at it is either pony up a couple hundred to pay a programmer an hourly rate to hack it, or grab a handful of people to petition for an official upgrade with some cash on hand.  I understand I have little influence with these guys, and their product is their product, but I have no idea why I can set up multiple logins w/ Director, yet everyone basically has equal permissions.  All I need is the ability to keep users from deleting/editing contributions from others.  It can't be that hard...

I'd be weary of suggesting an "official call" to the masses to collect some dough.  That wouldn't look good at all; I'd be appalled if they started asking me for money for developments that I wouldn't utilize.

There's enough opportunity to do this on the forums.

(Moving this thread to the Feature Requests forum]

While I understand your continued interest in this, I stand by my original response. Cash flow is not the issue and users putting up money for development of certain features is not a road we want to go down, as it sets a bad precedent.

Saying "it can't be hard" or "it sounds straightforward" is shortsighted, as you are viewing it from your perspective and your specific needs. For us to implement a feature in Director, we have to make it palatable for tens of thousands of users, which I can assure you is neither easy or straightforward.

What would be more constructive would be to lay out exactly what kind of permissions you are seeking. Include "stories", like "Bill should only edit albums that he uploads". That might give us a better idea of what people are looking for and we can make a determination on if and when we might start working on this.

Brad,

Thanks for the reply and thanks for listening.

Let me add something here that may be missing or misunderstood in this discussion.

From my POV (and I'm sure many others) SSP & SSP D is a valued product set - one that you guys obviously put alot of hard and good work into.  It shows from my POV - that is why I hope to continue to use it.  I love it.

My attempts to discuss with you and my fellow SSP customers my personal needs for more features doesn't  negate my core positive impression of the SSP product set.   Just for the record.

Now:

In terms of what I meant by "permissions" when I started this rant (before noting that others had requested it even before the hosted service started) - All I'd like is to be able to, on a "contributor by contributor" basis, lock down the ability to "make changes" (edit / upload / delete) on an "album by album" or "gallery by gallery" basis. (Then again if albums can belong to more than one gallery then "gallery permissions" may not make sense?)

Maybe the logical extension of this is that those who can't make changes to content in a gallery or in an album can't / don't even "see" those galleries or albums.

This is what I was looking for in the controls / settings when I first started with SSP D.  This would ensure that, after months and years of running a SSP D system, that one "less able/smart" contributor can't somehow destroy / delete / mess up $10,000's worth of (wo)man-hours work.  The one "dumb" contributor could only mess up what they have been given access to. One album, or a set of albums, for example.

I suppose maybe I'd envision an admin screen where all the contributors are listed down the page and all the galleries or albums (or both) are listed across the page with check-boxes for "access" or "no access".

Thanks again for listening.

Thomas in Tassie

Firstly let me start by saying, Great work... Love SSP Director... Its been a pleasure from installation through to use... Looks great, feel great and works great...

Except... I agree, for me the only thing missing is the ability to add users and give them permissions either at a Gallery and/or album level (Add/edit albums and images in a gallery).

I'd love it if you were to add this to the TOP of your list of things to do.

I can't imagine what else you think is more important, I think everything else works great! :-)


Please please please please :-)

I would like to add my voice to the request.
and basically what I want as a new feature is exactly the same thing as what thomas requested and the reason is also the same.
I want to be able to limit the access of a specific user to a specific gallery / album because I don't want a contributor to mess up the content contributed by somebody else.
It is a major issue for me to the extend that at this time I will sadly stop using SSP and turn to something else where this functionality is present or manageable. and that really does not make me happy because the product is great and I love it. But I just cannot trust a contributor and risk to get all my content screwed up.

L

Here here.  I fully agree with doubleedgedpen.  Its time for SlideShowPro Director to start working with teams of people not just a few.  I reviewed this post and others and it seems like Bradleyboy Productions & Dominey Design might be holding back due to cost restraints. 

Like domain mapping, access control is something I am willing to pay extra for.  I really need access control to alleviate having to process the incoming content.

In the past I believe this company has queried users concerning usability.  If you only query users that are satisfied with the product as it stands, then the product will fail to grow and develop.  This software has serious potential.  Don't squash the possibilities by failing to add features that will attract new business.

WebDEZN on the Internet

doubleedgedpen wrote:

I also need the ability to restrict people from editing albums that are not their own.

All of my experience with user access control comes from using Drupal for the past several years.
In Drupal, you can create "Roles" and give permissions to that "Role."  Then you assign any number of "Roles" to each "User" as necessary.

Here's what I would like to see in Director:
User 1: (Role = "Administrator)"
User 2: (Role = "ABC Editor")
User 3: (Role = "ABC Contributor")
User 4: (Role = "XYZ Editor")
User 5: (Role = "XYZ Contributor")
User 6: (Role = "ABC Editor", and "XYZ Editor")

Role "Administrator": (Permission to do everything, Contribute to any Album, Edit any Album)
Role "ABC Contributor": (Permission to Contribute to "ABC Album 1" and "ABC Album 2")
Role "ABC Editor": (Permission to Contribute to and Edit "ABC Album 1" and "ABC Album 2")
Role "XYZ Contributor": (Permission to Contribute to "XYZ Album 3" and "XYZ Album 4")
Role "XYZ Editor": (Permission to Contribute to and Edit "XYZ Album 3" and "XYZ Album 4")

Users could be given roles by clicking check boxes on their account page.
New roles could be created as necessary.
Roles could be given the ability to Edit/Contribute to selected Albums by clicking check boxes.

This would provide very flexible and granular access control.

@njaknjak - Im glad to see others think this is important still.

SSP Admin - please think again about this.
It could be the way for SSP to go viral!
Someone WILL DO THIS.
Someone will rpovide the very best image and video CMS for communities.
Someone will create an image CMS with complete control over member access.
Do you think they wont find a big market for it?
Do you think they wont become super famous for doing it?
Why cant it be SSP ?
Why cant it start by simply adding a little more control to what is already there?


Thanks for creating a great program - I hope you dont mind your fans wanting it to be even better !
              

I built the request you guys were talking about, and am no programming genius (only been coding 3 years).  It is fairly robust.

-only displays recent images, album list, for albums you own
-contributors own one album, can be changed in a dropdown menu by the admin on user screen
-editors own all albums in a given gallery, can create new albums
-users trying to hack the address bar typing in album numbers they do not own get error screen
-hardened security on the login, added blank index.php in the lg folder to keep spiders away
-white label branding and styling of Director with your corporate logos, bigger buttons
-Director styled by device, different stylesheets for tablets, phones, standard
-autodect and add FTP'ed images to all owned albums, so you can update Director from the road (since the Flash updater doesn't work on an iphone/ipad)

I just started programming php a few years ago, inspired by the Director API.  If I can do it, so can they.  I don't think I could legally sell my modification here, but would be happy to show screen captures to the dev team. 

And if not against the terms of use, would entertain freelance offers.

Add one more. Been needing unique logins per album for a while now. I have a new client with 25 albums, each belonging to a different person and I can't allow all of them access to the same Director install. Please provide a solution to this. Love SSP and Director!

g