Talk about a positive spin.  A support forum user (blacklotus) reported a bug with the display and linking of the Roles and Restrictions menus.  This problem only affects non-admin users, and only appeared in 1.0.0 Beta 6.  Since “Beta 7″ sounds too unprofessional, I’m focusing on the positive and calling this Role Scoper 1.0.0 Release Candidate 1.

Now that the version 1.0.0 bug reports have stopped trickling in, I’m activating Role Scoper 1.0.0 Beta 5 as the current stable release, with update notification in the Role Scoper Options panel of installed copies.  Beta 5 also adds xhtml validation fixes, an updated language file and a revised Usage Guide.

The recent 1.0.0 beta releases correct a conflict with the Bad Behavior and WP Super Cache plugins, and add Windows Live Writer compatibility. Anyone experiencing conflicts with other plugins or tools should first refer to the Plugin Compatibility Guide.  Please report any undocumented issues to the support forum.

Those anxious to try the upcoming WordPress 2.7 beta release can give Role Scoper 1.0.0 beta 4 a test run with it.  This WP 2.7 support is preliminary and subject to further testing.

A few bugs and plugin compatibility issues are also fixed:

• doc: added RoleScoper_PluginCompat.html to document plugin incompatibilities.  Includes code edit workarounds for Exec-PHP and Maintenance Mode plugins.

• fixed: Windows Live Writer XML-RPC support (technical FYI: WLW passes post_id=1 for new posts)

• fixed: WP Super Cache compatibility

• fixed: For non-Admin users, “Edit Comments” listing omitted some comments, duplicated others

• fixed: Call to undefined function wpp_cache_flush_group() for some installations

31 Oct Update:

I just discovered this beta release had admin menu display problems when running the ozh menu plugin with WP 2.6.  The Restrictions menu was not displayed properly when viewing Roles, and vice versa.  For expedience, the download “beta4.zip” now actually contains the slightly revised beta4b.

Well, in my haste to rush out a responsive fix to several beta issues, I overlooked the creation of a new one.  An easy fix, but sorry to those who wasted their time trying Beta 2.  The other fixes and features mentioned in the Beta 2 post still apply in Role Scoper 1.0.0 Beta 3.

Here’s a beta bug fix revision almost completely driven by user feedback: Role Scoper 1.0.0 Beta 2.  Although we’re now closer to a stable release, this version still needs more testing before being trusted to a production site.  Changes are as follows:

• feature: Filter Recent Comments list (built-in widget) according to post/page visibility

• fixed: Post/Page restrictions were not applied; resulting “array_keys” error message

• fixed: PHP error message in post/page edit form above role assignment tabs

• fixed: Group administrator assignments were not created / modified

• fixed: PHP error message “wrong datatype in… admin-bulk_rs.php” in post/page edit form, php

• fixed: In some wp-admin cases, category count query was not filtered correctly; resulting db error

Role Scoper 1.0.0 Beta 1.  It won’t stabilize your currency, but it might inspire you to create a sacrificial act out of thin air - and give it away.  This may be my last month-of-labor RS offering, but I can tell you there’s freedom in the occasional practice of cutting spending and income.  That homeless carpenter from Nazareth and his camel-skinned harbinger seem more wise and relevant with every burst bubble.

After chewing on some of the more difficult feature requests and recurring user interface critique for almost three months, it’s high time I released Role Scoper 1.0.0 Beta 1.  Note that this version is not ready for WP 2.7.  It is ready to greatly simplify and empower your role administration, though please note that this beta version is not production-ready. Testing, bug reports, documentation help, and some employment would all be appreciated.

Here is the hefty list of new features and fixes:

• change: Group administration is now linked from Users tab
• change: User and Group role assignments are handled together via Roles tab
• change: Realm settings are now a subtab within Options
• feature: Inline hints below admin page headers provide a brief description, can be disabled
• change: “Exclusive Section Roles” are now called “Category Restrictions”, “Link Category Restrictions”, etc.
• change: “Exclusive Object Roles” are now called “Page Restrictions”, “Post Restrictions”, etc.
• change: “Blog Roles” are now called “General Roles”
• change: Simplified menu navigation: Restrictions and Roles tabs each have Category, Link Category, Post, Page subtabs
• feature: Propagation of Page/Post Restrictions (for child pages/posts)
• feature: Bulk administration of Page and Post Roles
• feature: Bulk administration of Page and Post Restrictions
• feature: Improved navigation & viewing of tree Category / Page / Post bulk admin
• feature: Default Restrictions
• feature: Default Roles
• feature: Default Groups
• feature: Pending Revisions
• Contributors can edit posts/pages, creating a pending rev which an editor can “restore” (requires option setting)
• feature: rs_cache_flush.php can be copied from role-scoper/wp_root_optional to WP root and excecuted manually or by cron to clear a corrupt file cache
• feature: When administering Category Roles or Category Restrictions, Manage menu links to “Manage Categories”
• feature: When administering Page Roles or Page Restrictions, Write and Manage menus link to Page submenus
• feature: Option to hide the private posts/pages user can’t read, while teasing unreadable published (exclusive) posts/pages
• feature: Option to use the post excerpt as the hidden content teaser
• feature: Role assignment lists are grouped by assign_for, and natural-case alphabetized within each grouping
• feature: “Check role for all categories/pages/posts” shortcut at bottom of bulk admin tree
• fixed: Object roles selection UI highlighting of implicit user roles sometimes failed to account for post/page restrictions
• fixed: Pages list was excluding private pages, even if user could read them
• fixed: Categories containing only private posts were not listed, even if the user had read access
• fixed: Fatal PHP error following deactivation of post / link data source via Role Scoper Realm setting
• fixed: On Manage Pages screen, subpages were displayed without hierarchy for non-admin user in some cases
• fixed: On Manage Links screen, links were duplicated and possibly non-editable
• fixed: Non-editors did could not view/edit gallery items attached to their post/page
• fixed: On the WP “Edit Category” page, Group names were not displayed in the Group Roles table
• fixed: On the WP “Edit Category” page, User/Group names for “child sections only” role assignments were not grayed
• fixed: On the WP “Edit Category” page, key was duplicated for group/user roles and wasn’t formatted correctly
• fixed: Double underlines on prev, next, top links in Section Roles and Exclusive Sections admin pages
• fixed: In Role tabs of Post/Page Edit form, checkbox captions refreshed erratically in IE6
• fixed: On post/page deletion, restrictions (Exclusive Object Roles) were not deleted
• fixed: Prevent line breaks in various administrative links
• fixed: File cache was effectively disabled if certain Options or Realm settings were modified
• performance: Memory caching of non-stored options to eliminate 5-10 queries in some configurations
• change: Roles propagated on term/object creation get assigner_id 0

Known remaining bugs include Windows Live Writer incompatability, possible issues with Link editing / role administration.  Plugin compatability issues remain with ozh dropdown (simply because I’ve not yet taken advantage of its new menu hooks), Exec-PHP, Mini-Meta, WP-Postratings, Flutter, Microkid.  These issues, as well as WP 2.7 support and a documented workaround for the Maintenance Mode plugin conflict, should be included in a 1.0.0 release within the next 2-3 weeks.

Thanks for your patience in waiting on forum support as I completed this intense revision.  May it serve as a useful tool for your collaborative efforts at constructive and creative communication.

Here’s a code patch for anyone bothered by Role Scoper’s disobedience of the child_of parameter.  Human translation: When you are viewing a page on the front end of your site, if your theme normally narrows the sidebar pages listing down to subpages of the current page, you will instead get a list of all viewable pages. The fix for this affects several files and will be included in the next Role Scoper revision. Until then, here is a manual code patch that will work if your wp_list_pages call is passing child_of and depth=1.

In wp-content/plugins/role-scoper/hardway/hardway_rs.php, add:
if ( ! empty($child_of) && ! empty($depth) && ( 1 == $depth ) ) {
foreach ( $pages as $key => $page ) {
if ( isset($page->post_parent) && ( $child_of != $page->post_parent ) )
unset($pages[$key]);
}
}
just before:
$cache[ $ckey ] = $pages;

Thanks to Marci for the bug report.

Due to a bug I introduced a few versions ago, private pages can only be listed in your site’s sidebar / topbar if Role Scoper’s hidden content teaser is enabled. To make private pages listable for users with a sufficient role, please perform the following officially sanctioned Role Scoper hack:

In wp-content/plugins/role-scoper/hardway/hardway_rs.php, add
if ( $list_private_pages ) $request = str_replace("AND post_status='publish'", "AND ( post_status IN ('publish','private') )", $request);
just before

if ( ( ! is_admin() && ! defined('XMLRPC_REQUEST')
As you know may know, this functionality also requires enabling the checkbox “include Private Pages in listing if user can read them” in Role Scoper Options.

An equivalent fix will be included in the next Role Scoper revision.

Starting around Role Scoper 0.9.15, a new Page Parent filtering scheme for non-administrators allowed pages to be displayed with correct hierarchy even if the user lacks association rights on one or more ancestors.  I must repent in sackcloth and ashes for the means used to accomplish this: re-querying pages at each branch of the parent tree.  This would have little effect for a simple tree of a few pages.  But for blogs with a lot of subpage branches, the slowdown and server drag could become trememdous.  This was easily corrected by querying pages once and passing the result to each branch.  I apologize for any frustration it may have caused page editors.

Also in Role Scoper 0.9.27 are a few fixes related to post editing by users with limited category access:

• fixed: Extremely slow loading of Page Parent dropdown due to recursive queries on page edit by non-administrator

• fixed: If a user who lacks editing capabilities in the default category saves a page without selecting a category, the post was stored as draft/pending in category “-1″ and the user could not re-edit it

• feature: If post would be set to default category but user lacks save/edit/publish capability there, it is instead defaulted to first category in user’s available list

• fixed: Post/Page counts on Manage Posts/Pages were not filtered correctly for users with ID > 9