[wp-trac] Re: [WordPress Trac] #10201: Switch roles to use single role, and no user-specific caps

[WordPress Trac]

#10201: Switch roles to use single role, and no user-specific caps
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 Reporter:  Denis-de-Bernardy  |       Owner:  Denis-de-Bernardy
     Type:  enhancement        |      Status:  accepted         
 Priority:  normal             |   Milestone:  2.9              
Component:  Role/Capability    |     Version:  2.8              
 Severity:  normal             |    Keywords:  2nd-opinion      
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Description changed by Denis-de-Bernardy:

Old description:

> See IRC discussions from June 18th 2009

New description:

 See IRC discussions from June 18th 2009

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 summary courtesy of DD32:

 My points from what i know:

  * The current role system is rather complicated, But has a lot of
 flexibility
  * A lot of the flexibility isn't even used by most (ie. the ability to
 have a user with a Roll + a single capability)
  * The role system starts having trouble with a high number of users
    * To look up every user with a certain cap. it requires loading all the
 users, and then checking individually.

 The proposed changes are:

  * That we reduce the complex system to something much more simple:
    * Roles are retained,
    * However:
      * Limit users to 1 role (This would be on a per-blog basis, based off
 the permission prefix thinggi..)
      * Remove the ability for a user to be part of a Role, and have an
 extra capability added on top of that.
  * This has the ability to significantly increase performance, As now:
    * Looking up users with a specific cap is easy:
      * Filter the role list for roles with that cap
      * SQL the usermeta table for users in those roles
      * Select those users (if needed, else return the ID's)
  * An upgrade path is available which doesnt require extra tables, and
 reduces the ammount of serialization
    * The other option is a whole new set of tables.. which.. those who are
 sane (And there are some insane people in WP Dev..) realise that its not
 really needed.
  * Fine grain control has never been possible from WP without a plugin,
 Nothing would change here, If a user wants fine grained control over
 permissions, They'd still have to run a plugin, Its just that that plugin
 may have to do more heavy lifting now -- since wordpress's API/role system
 would be simpler and not support the extra fangledangles.

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Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/10201#comment:9>
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