The Role Scoper 1.1 Release Candidate code includes a bug in the internal caching mechanism.  Cached settings for anonymous users are not properly cleared when roles or restrictions are changed.

This will be corrected soon, but for now you can work around it by temporarily disabling the Internal Cache (Roles > Options > Features > Internal Cache).

Proving once again that

1. User feedback is important and effective
2. I'm not too proud to publish two release candidates in one day

… I give you Role Scoper 1.1 RC3.  This fixes a high profile bug reported in the support forum:

• BugFix : Filtering of the category listing was disabled on first-time installations and after re-saving RS Options.  This did not affect actual content access or posting rights - just the displayed category list / checkboxes.

The category filtering issue had nothing to do with WordPress 2.9.  It stemmed from changes to the way category filtering is enabled / disabled.  These changes allowed me to simplify the user interface for Roles > Options > Advanced.

A more obscure issue is also fixed:

• BugFix : Invalid HTML formatting of Page Parent dropdown if no published pages exist

So after months of painstaking development, debugging and optimization, it comes to this:

Despite feeling the urge to smooth this over with a clever and technically impressive explanation, I need to call it what it is: embarrassing. I simply forgot to test plugin activation. To reduce memory usage, I took out a line of code that was not needed for the plugin to run - but is needed for the plugin to activate.

My apologies to anyone who was discouraged by this. Thanks to rconsidine for the support forum report, which led to an easy fix.

Role Scoper 1.1 RC2 also fixes a problem with the handling or restrictions when using the Custom Taxonomies plugin with one or more hierarchical custom taxonomies.

Have you ever wanted to allow certain users to submit changes to published content, with an editor reviewing those changes before publication?

Doesn't it seem like setting a published post/page to a future date should schedule your changes to be published on that date, instead of unpublishing it until that date?

The Revisionary plugin fills the missing quadrant in the WordPress content management matrix:

With Revisionary in place, the meaning of the "edit_others" capability shifts to grant revision submission rights if the owner lacks the corresponding "edit_published" / "edit_private" capability.

Read more »

Role Scoper 1.1 Release Candidate 1 is available.  It includes some significant new features, performance enhancements, bug fixes and plugin compatibility fixes.  WP-mu support now includes sitewide Role Groups and the ability to set RS Options site-wide.  Date Limits can be applied to role assignments.  The file attachment filter is revamped for better performance and reliability.  New Posts can be defaulted to Private, and/or set to private if the Reader role is restricted.

Many thanks to all of you who have reported issues in the support forum and corresponded with me on reproducing quirks as necessary.  The plugin is so much more stable because of your cooperation.  Also thanks to those who hired me to develop some of the major new features - so my family also has something to show for these 3+ months of work.

Keep in mind that although the bulk of this new code is already running successfully on a few different production sites, it has not yet seen enough testing to be trusted as a full stable release.  Feel free to give it a try as long as you're able to put some scrutiny into it, and roll back to version 1.0.8 (current release in the WP plugins directory) if you run into any problems.

Check back for screen captures (but you've waited long enough !).

The full change log (careful, it's heavy):

WP-mu:

• Feature : Option for site-wide groups when running on WP-mu
• Feature : Most RS options can be applied either site-wide or blog-specific
• Feature : Default settings for per-blog options can be customized via Site Admin > Role Defaults
• BugFix : User RS Blog Roles were not added / removed appropriately with mu user addition / removal for specific blogs
• BugFix : RS General Role assignments were not effective; attempt to add post/page caused redirect to profile page of main blog
• BugFix : Internal cache returned categories from other blogs in some situations

Date Limits:

• Feature : Roles can be assigned with limited duration (grant and expire dates)
• Feature : General Roles and Category Roles can be assigned with content date limits (role only applies for posts/pages dated within specified range)

File Filtering:

• Feature : New filtering scheme eliminates many quirks by using header redirect rather than opening and sending file contents directly
• BugFix : Attachment filtering blocked some unattached files or public files. New scheme uses per-file RewriteRules, does not filter unprotected files at all.
• Feature : File filtering can be disabled / enabled via RS Option.
• Feature : Definition / removal of DISABLE_ATTACHMENT_FILTERING constant definition now forces automatic .htaccess regeneration / restoration
• BugFix : Fatal error due to failed flush_rules call on initialization, in some upgrade scenarios
• BugFix : Auto-regenerate .htaccess if it gets out of sync with DB-stored file access key(s)
• Perf : Reduce unnecessary script loading / execution when applying file filtering

Performance Enhacement Results:

• Default memory usage is lower than v 1.0.8 despite feature additions.
• Further memory savings possible by disabling various features (see below).
• Decreased database execution time in several areas.

Performance Enhancements Details:

• Perf : User role sync at activation (for WP role assignments) was executing a separate query for each user (leading to long delays on some installations)
• Perf : Do not resync all users on each user registration / profile update
• Perf : Extensive optimization of code structure and inclusion logic to prevent unnecessary memory usage.
• Change : Require MySQL >4.1 so LEFT JOINs can be replaced by subqueries
• Perf : Converted LEFT JOIN in posts query to subselect
• Perf : Eliminated unnecessary LEFT JOIN in terms query
• Perf : Further wp-admin memory savings via option to disable filtering of Post Author dropdown (if "Indicate Blended Roles" and "Limit eligible users" also disabled)
• Perf : Further front-end memory savings if you define SCOPER_GET_PAGES_LEAN (don't retrieve page content just to list page titles)
• Perf : Further wp-admin memory savings if you define SCOPER_EDIT_POSTS_LEAN, SCOPER_EDIT_PAGES_LEAN
• Perf : Eliminated redundant filtering for page parent dropdown
• Perf : Eliminated unnecessary RS queries in Media Library
• Perf : Eliminated unnecessary RS-initiated post/page retrieval queries
• Perf : No construction / translation of role names in wp-admin until they are needed
• Perf : set RS option records to autoload

  no, since RS does its own buffering

• Perf : Eliminated lots of PHP warnings for unset variables / array keys
• Change : Stop storing postmeta last_parent entry for pages / posts that have no Parent setting

User Editing / Role Assignment:

• Feature : support distinction between Content Administrator, User Administrator and Option Administrator. Currently designate cap for each via define( 'SCOPER_CONTENT_ADMIN_CAP', 'cap_name' );
• Feature : Option to allow role assignment only by Content Administrators / User Administrators
• Feature : Don't allow the editing of users with a higher level than logged user (can disable via RS Option)
• Feature : Don't allow the assignment of a WP role with a higher level than logged user's level (can disable via RS Option)

Role Definition:

• Feature : Synchronize RS Role Defs to WP Role Defs at installation (eliminates unexpected results when WP roles are customized)
• Feature : On RS Role Defs tab, warn if WP Roles do not have normal RS role containment (WP Author contains RS Post Author, etc.) due to extra caps in RS Role def
• Feature : On RS Role Defs tab, option to synchronize WP Contributor / Author / Editor role def with current RS Post Contributor / Post Author / Post Editor / Page Editor role def
• BugFix : WP Role Definitions tab empty on reload after updating RS Options
• Change : Post Editor / Page Editor role assignment also grants unfiltered_html capability for that content. Can be disabled via Roles > RS Role Defs.

Group Roles:

• Feature : Metagroup for anonymous users - define SCOPER_ANON_METAGROUP. Only to be used when some content should be seen by anon users but not all logged users.
• BugFix : WordPress roles with name longer than 25 characters caused RS metagroup record to be perpetually regenerated with new group_id, leaving orphaned role assignments
• BugFix : Group deletion did not always delete all associated roles
• BugFix : Incorrect eligible groups count if orphaned Group Role assignments are stored
• Change : Delete all orphaned group role assignments on plugin re-activation

Media Library:

• BugFix : non-administrators could not view unattached uploads via View link in Media Library
• BugFix : non-administrators could not see unattached uploads in Library tab of uploader
• BugFix : Authors were not allowed to edit or delete their unattached uploads in Media Library

Post / Page Edit Form:

• Feature : Option to default new posts and/or pages to Private visibility
• Feature : Option to auto-select Private visibility when the Reader role is restricted in Page/Post Edit Form
• BugFix : On post creation, default category was not applied in some situations when author had save / publish capability for it
• BugFix : On post creation, first available category was not applied in some situations when author did not select any categories (and does not have save/publish capability for default cat)
• BugFix : Authors could not edit their own private posts / pages in some configurations
• BugFix : Non-editors were sometimes unable to save subpages of pages based on their Page Associate role; received a "cannot associate with the Main Page" error message
• BugFix : WP Metagroup Category/General Role assignments were not indicated by color coding in Post/Page Edit Form role metaboxes
• BugFix : "Attempt has failed" error when submitting post with some certain WP/RS Role Definitions and editing roles restricted in all categories
• BugFix : Out of memory / timeout error on some servers when non-Administrator views Edit Posts listing
• BugFix : In some configurations where user can edit a subpage based on propagated Page Editor role, that role assignment was lost when they saved a change to the page content.
• Change : Implicit role ownership via Category/General Role assignment is indicated by slashes around user/group name. Previous versions used square brackets.

Post / Page Edit Form - Limited Editing Elements:

• Feature : Option to require blog-wide Administrator / Editor / Author / Contributor role for specified Limited Editing Element IDs
• BugFix : Comment and Trackbacks status turned off when a post was edited with Discussion metabox (commentstatusdiv) hidden via Limited Editing Elements
• BugFix : Custom Post Excerpt cleared when a post was edited with Post Excerpt metabox hidden via Limited Editing Elements setting
• Change : If a specified Limited Editing Element is not a metabox, hide it via CSS
• Change : "Limited Editing Elements" includes customdiv, pagecustomdiv, revisionsdiv by default

Edit Posts / Pages Listing:

• Feature : Custom Role / Restriction indicator columns in Edit Posts and Edit Pages listing can be selectively disabled
• Feature : Custom columns are suppressed if logged user does not satisfy RS Option requirement for "Roles and Restrictions can be set by"
• BugFix : Custom Roles / Restriction indicator columns were sometimes displayed even if none of the listed posts used them
• BugFix : Edit Posts column indicated some false positives for Category Restrictions
• BugFix : Edit Posts listing included Term Roles column even if none of the listed posts had Term Roles

Page / Category Listing (Front End):

• Feature : When remapping a page to visible ancestor, Option for whether remap can bypass an explictly excluded ancestor
• Feature : When remapping a term to visible ancestor, Option for whether remap can bypass an explictly excluded ancestor
• Feature : Support remap_parents, enforce_actual_depth, remap_thru_excluded_parent args to override defaults in a get_pages() / get_terms() call
• Compat : Never remap pages if get_pages called without hierarchical arg (unnecessary, caused conflict with Flexi Pages plugin)
• Compat : Never remap terms if get_terms called without hierarchical arg
• Change : RS Option "Remap Hiden Pages to Visible Ancestor" disabled by default, to avoid conflict with template code that relies on exclude+depth arguments being treated as exclude_tree
• Change : RS Option "Remap Hiden Terms to Visible Ancestor" disabled by default, to avoid conflict with template code that relies on exclude+depth arguments being treated as exclude_tree

XML-RPC:

• BugFix : XML-RPC post submissions created without category selection for users without less than blog-wide Editor role
• BugFix : With some XML-RPC clients, non-administrators can publish new posts but cannot edit them following publish
• BugFix : XML-RPC retrieval of recent posts only returned one post

Custom Taxonomies:

• Feature : Support Restrictions on custom taxonomies
• BugFix : When custom taxonomies are enabled for use with RS, "Category Restrictions and Roles for Posts" checkbox caption was not modified accordingly
• BugFix : Invalid edit URL from bulk role administration form for Post Tags, Custom Taxonomies
• Workaround : WP core forces display of published posts only in Edit Posts listing when filtering by a custom taxonomy term

Front-End Misc:

• BugFix : get_comments() function did not include comments on attachments to private posts
• BugFix : In some installations with a language defined and "suppress private caption" option enabled, fatal error from translate call in template-interceptor
• BugFix : template function is_restricted_rs() indicated some false positives for category restrictions
• BugFix : Tags filter defaulted to limiting number of displayed tags to 45
• BugFix : tag__not_in argument was not supported for manual calls to WP_Query

Admin Misc:

• Feature : Add pending posts and pages total to Dashboard Right Now list
• BugFix : Cannot approve / unapprove comments when capability is granted via Category Role or Page/Post Role
• BugFix : Roles, Restrictions menu icons were not displayed if custom WP_CONTENT_DIR set
• BugFix : PHP Warning on installation / version update due to DB key name conflicting with an existing WP key name
• BugFix : In User Profile, link to edit individual Object Role yielded "insufficient permissions" message
• BugFix : RS roles were hidden from User Profile for users who cannot assign roles due to blogwide role requirement set in RS Options
• Change : Prevent activation (with helpful error message) if another copy of RS is already active
• Change : If RS_DEBUG is defined and the script is plugins.php or edit-plugins.php, don't initialize the plugin (prevents hung server on bad edits via Plugin Editor)
• Change : On RS Options form, rearranged and recaptioned "Realm" options for clarity
• Change : Popup confirmation box before reverting RS Options to defaults
• Change : Update button in all RS forms styled the same as WordPress Update buttons

Misc:

• Change: Pending Revisions feature removed to Revisionary plugin
• BugFix : Warning messages on servers with open_basedir restriction
• BugFix : RS Internal Cache did not work if custom WP_CONTENT_DIR set

API:

• API : ScoperAdminLib::create_group($name, $desript), returns group_id
• API : ScoperAdminLib::get_group_by_name($name), returns group object
• API : ScoperAdminLib::get_group($group_id), returns group object

Plugin Compatibility:

• Compat : Formatting of table header in Role / Restriction bulk admin forms was thrown off by BuddyPress
• Compat : Pages listing was broken when Theme My Login active with option to exclude login page from listing
• Compat : Automatically switch Roles, Restrictions tabs to default(bottom) positioning if some other plugin has moved the Users tab
• Compat : Support nonstandard usage of wp_dropdown_pages filter by Simple Section Nav plugin
• Compat : PHP Warning after AMember creates a role with no capabilities
• Compat : Apply RS restrictions and roles to Snazzy Archives plugin listing
• Compat : PHP Warning "Missing argument 2″ with WMPL plugin
• Compat : Suppress RS filtering when another plugin has initiated a scheduled operation via WP Cron (conflict with WP Robot, Twitter News Feeds)
• Compat : Tiny MCE Advanced (conflict was present in RS 1.1 beta versions)
• Compat : Flutter (may require Flutter code patch, see Notes)
• Compat : Use display names and plural display names defined by Custom Taxonomies plugin

Browser Compat (wp-admin):

• BugFix : Background color not applied to RS Options form in some versions of IE
• BugFix : IE8 tab, checkbox positioning in Post/Page Edit Form role metaboxes

Translation:

• Lang : Added Italian translation (by Alberto Ramacciotti)
• Feature : Default teaser strings included in .po file for translation. Must add this to wp-config.php: define( 'SCOPER_TRANSLATE_TEASER', true );

Download Role Scoper 1.1 Release Candidate 1 and let me know what you think!

The Role Scoper Extension for NextGen Gallery has been updated for a few bug and compatibility fixes. This corrects the following issues:

• BugFix : Current Gallery Page Link (added with NGG 1.4) was not displayed to non-administrator
• BugFix : Page Link setting was cleared if a non-administrator saved without re-selecting it
• Compat : Compatibility with Role Scoper 1.1

Role Scoper 1.0.8 is now available to fix plugin conflicts with Simple Section Navigation, My Category Order, Flutter and Capability Manager.  The SSN and Category Order fixes were accomplished by improving Role Scoper's overall page and term filtering logic.  This is most visible in new RS Options which allow more control over how pages and categories are displayed under visible grandparents when their immediate parents are hidden.

By popular demand, a Role Scoper option now allows you to limit scoped role assignment to blog-wide Editors or to only blog-wide Administrators.

Also included in this release are some improvements to the filtering of unattached uploads in the Media Library.

The full change log:

• Feature : Option to prevent non-Administrators from assigning or viewing content-specific roles
• Feature : For front-end Page and Category listings, parent remapping behavior is now adjustable via RS Options
• Change : When a depth limit is specified for pages/categories listing, default to enforcing that limit based on actual depth prior to parent remap
• BugFix : Fix compatibility with various custom child_of / depth / exclude / order combinations in pages, categories listing
• BugFix : Pages listing filter did not honor number, offset arguments
• BugFix : Terms (categories) listing filter did not apply custom ordering filter with WP 2.8
• Change : Work around WP bug when page / category listing is generated with child_of arg, but first element in result array is not a direct child
• Compat : Simple Section Navigation plugin displayed misplaced subpages in some situations
• Compat : My Category Order plugin
• Compat : Flutter/FreshPage plugin (disable custom menu indexing if plugin is active)
• Compat : Capability Manager plugin (automatically re-sync role defs on role creation / deletion)
• BugFix : When hiding other users' unattached uploads in Media Library, attachment count did not match
• Change : Blog-wide Editors always see all unattached uploads in Media Library, regardless of option setting

A few more bug / compatibility fixes, prompted by user reports, warrant another Role Scoper release.  The main problem was that, since WordPress 2.8, the settings cache for new users was stored without metagroup membership.  That means if you assign content-specific roles based on a user's WordPress role, newly created users would not be credited with those content-specific roles until their profile was modified or the Role Scoper cache was flushed or deactivated.

Other changes pertain to compatibility with the QTranslate plugin, and visiblity of other users' unattached file uploads in the Media Library.

The full change log:

• BugFix : With WP 2.8, new users were not credited for membership in WP Role metagroup until profile edit / cache flush
• Change : Exclude role metagroups from groups column in users list (to reduce clutter)
• Feature : Option for whether non-administrators can see unattached uploads from other users
• Change : By default, non-administrators see only their own unattached uploads in Media Library
• Compat : Disable caching of pages, categories listing if QTranslate plugin is active
• Change : remap get_pages exclude argument to exclude_tree if called with depth=1
• Change : remap get_terms exclude argument to exclude_tree if called with depth=1
• Change : more descriptive error message when another plugin prevents RS initialization

Due to a misplaced source file, Role Scoper did not automatically re-activate following an auto-update to version 1.0.5 / 1.0.5.1.  This is now corrected.

Several bugs pertaining to categories are also fixed.  This update is strongly recommended for WP-mu installations and configurations with limited Category Managers (non-Editors who are assigned the Category Manager role for one or more categories).  Other sites are fine with 1.0.5.x - just make sure it's activated!

• BugFix : Failed to re-activate after WordPress auto-update
• BugFix : In WP-mu, Category Roles not inherited from parent on new category creation
• BugFix : Limited Category Managers could change Cat Parent to None
• BugFix : Limited Category Managers could create new top-level cats
• BugFix : Category Edit Form offered selection of a category as its own parent (though not stored)
• BugFix : In Bulk Roles / Restrictions form, "Collapse All" script hid some Categories / Pages inappropriately

Role Scoper 1.0.5.1 is a minor bug fix release.  Most of the fixes pertain to Group Roles; in some cases Group Category Roles were dropped when a new user was created or added to a group.

The bigger news today occurred when my struggles with Tortoise SVN (a source code uploading tool) led to corruption of the wordpress.org plugin repository.  The result, for about 15 minutes late morning EST, was the publication of a Role Scoper 1.0.5 update which was missing half of its files.  After getting these files back into the zip, I bumped the version number up to 1.0.5.1.  My apologies to anyone who landed this rare glitch!

The full change log:

• Change : Hidden Editing Elements now hidden securely on server side, not via CSS
• Change : In RS Options, recaption "Hidden Editing Elements" as "Limited Editing Elements"
• Change : Updated sample IDs displayed on Role Scoper Options form for Hidden Editing Elements
• Change : Updated default IDs for Hidden Editing Elements
• Compat : Conflict with QTranslation plugin - translation of page titles, term names, bulk admin post titles
• Compat : Support SCOPER_DISABLE_MENU_TWEAK definition for compat with Flutter plugin
• BugFix : New pages by non-Editors initially saved as Pending even if Publish was clicked
• BugFix : Administrator could not modify default category with WP 2.8
• BugFix : Default Groups could not be edited with WP 2.8
• BugFix : Attachments Utility (in RS Options) was not accessible under WP 2.8
• BugFix : In some configurations, fatal error when unavailable user_can_for_any_object() function called with administrator logged in
• BugFix : When editing group, could not remove last group administrator
• BugFix : Group roles were not displayed in group edit form if no members in group
• Change : eliminated orphaned role deletion (no longer needed and deleted non-orphan group roles in some situations)
• BugFix : Object Roles, Blog Roles cache was not flushed following group membership change
• BugFix : On some server, the internal cache did not update following user profile edit
• BugFix : RS menu links were broken if role scoper activated within custom-named directory