[TYPO3-hci] A new approach to a less frightening start with TYPO3

[Andreas Balzer]

JoH asenau schrieb:
> Hi folks.
> 
> During the HCI presentation at T3BOARD07 (which actually was really
> impressive) we talked about the major barriers for newbies entering the
> backend for the first time.
> 
> An interim solution could be having different login options from "easy
> editing" over "advanced editing" to "fully blown admin".
> 
> I checked the possibilities that are already available and came to the
> conclusion that there are two ways of handling this stuff that could be used
> together for a less frightening start with TYPO3.
> 
> 1. We already got the possibility to choose between different interfaces.
> Currently there are only "backend" or "frontend" available although there
> are comma separated lists for [BE][interfaces] and [BE][loginLabels] since
> only "alt_main.php" and "../" are hardcoded in index.php.
> But we could easily change that to have some php code executed before
> calling "alt_main.php" in order to modify localconf.php and remove/install
> different extensions there that would modify the backend look and feel.
> 
> 2. We could introduce some more default users than just admin/password and
> some default groups that could be assigned to them to modify the backend
> look and feel.
> 
> Take these two together and you get an almost perfect solution. Just imagine
> the following:
> 
> By default there will be two users in the DB
> admin/password
> +
> editor/password
> 
> Logging in as admin will always give you the fully blown backend view with
> this overwhelming amount of buttons and features.
> 
> While logging in as editor would give you the option to choose between
> "easy", "advanced", "master" or whatever, each of them just assigning
> another group to your backend user before calling "alt_main.php" thus
> adding/removing features to the backend depending on your personal skills.
> 
> This could be done with some minor changes to "index.php" _and_ an
> additional "assign_be_group.php" that would be called by index.php and
> change the usergroup of the logged in users on the fly based on their
> choice.
> We could even use another localconf parameter containing a CSV list of
> groups to be assigned for each of the skill levels, so that an admin could
> offer this feature for any other non_admin user as well.
> 
> I checked the TER for an extension with a similar approach but couldn't find
> any (so please correct me if I'm wrong).
> If I get some +1 from you I will start to code a working example.
> 
> So what do you think?
> 
> Joey
> 
I don't like the idea of having two users set up after installation.. 
Because that means having 2 security problems..

Well, I wouldn't go the way to have 2 completly different usergroups 
(dau and advanced) hardcoded into T3.. It would be better to have the 
option 'Show advanced stuff' in BE, so even simple user settings can 
allow certain 'complex' situations.

However: It would be nice, if T3 comes up with different predefined 
usergroups.. So you just can 'test' out. Well.. I don't know yet whether 
something like this is 'good' for the dummy paket, but it'll be great 
for testsite and so on..

So.. +/- 1.. I don't know yet

Andreas