Editor role settings not displaying correctly

[sadhaka]

Hello Vladimir:

I purchased the pro version of your plugin (PI) last week for a client’s website. I’ve assigned the client the role of ‘Editor’, while I remain the ‘Administrator’. I am managing a single site installation of WP (not multisite). I experience the following problems on my local development site when I login as the ‘Editor’.

1) TablePress plugin suboptions ‘View all tables’, ‘Add a new table’, and ‘About TablePress’ are visible in the WP Admin (as per my PI configuration choices). However, when I select any one of those options to view, I receive the error message: ‘You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page’.

2) The WP SEO by Yoast PI was selected to display in the Editor’s WP Admin. It does not appear at all.

3) A list of all posts and pages are visible in the Editor’s WP Admin. However, selection of any post or page to edit returns the error message: ‘You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page’.

4) The Editor role was permitted to view portions of the ‘Appearance’ menu (Customizer, Widgets, Menus, and Background). However, the Appearance menu is not visible in the WP Admin.

I can provide you with screen shots of all my admin settings from both the Settings and User menus of my dev site (*.png files). Just provide the means when you respond so that I can upload the files for your review.

Installed themes: Genesis (parent) and Utility Pro (child)
Dev Server: XAMPP provided by DesktopServer (v3.8)
WP version: 4.3

Regards,

Robert
St. Louis, MO USA

P.S. Just curious…..are you in North America, Europe, or Russia? I am in central North America (UTC -5:00). Wondering how far apart the time differences are between us.

[sadhaka]

Here’s additional information:

1) Deactivated all plugins.

2) Reactivated 4 plugins: a) User Role Editor Pro; b) TablePress; c) EnviraGallery; and d) Yoast SEO.

3) Logged into local development site as Editor. Results:

Problems described in first post remain unchanged.

Conclusion: Issues described in first post a result of plugin configuration and operation.

Still need help in resolving issues.

[Vladimir]

Hi Robert,

Do not use “Block Not Selected” option if you should allow access to the “Posts” menu.
‘edit.php’ URL (which is needed to edit selected post) is obviously not selected at admin menu (as this link is not included to the menu) and thus it is blocked.
I did not get to the conclusion (universal decision) how to resolve similar issues for this moment.

Please try the development version 4.19.b7, which you can get after login from the same download page. It addresses some “Admin menu access” add-on issues related to those you described.

Permanently I live in Russia (GMT+6). But currently and until the next weekend I’m in Czech Republic (GMT+2) and have access to the computer by the evenings only.

Regards,
Vladimir.

[sadhaka]

Hello Vladimir,

I took a break for about a week from trying to setup the plugin (PI) on a client site. Last Friday, September 25, I sat down again to finish the configuration. Per your instructions, I removed the version I had on my development site (current as of Sept. 4) and installed whatever the latest beta version was you were offering (as of Sept. 25). I did resolve items 1, 3, and 4 from my initial post. Since I did not grant permission for an Editor on the site to activate or install plugins, I concluded that the WP SEO by Yoast plugin admin menu was not going to appear on the backend (resolution of item #2). [The Yoast SEO custom fields appear just fine on posts and pages.]

I had one major problem that came up last Friday: Gravity Forms (GF) kept appearing in the WP Admin menu when logged in as an Editor. Under ‘URE User Settings | Editor Role – Custom Capabilities’ I did not select any Gravity Forms settings. And I said earlier, the Editor role was not granted any permission to install or activate plugins. Yet, the GF settings kept showing up in the Editor’s admin menu.

After putting 2-1/2 hours into fixing the problem without getting the desired result, I went looking for a different role editor plugin. I found one in the WordPress.org plugin repository that will do the job. It took about an hour to configure and gave me about 90% of what I wanted.

At this point, I do not plan to use the User Role Editor Pro plugin. I would like a full refund, and to close my account.

Sincerely,

Robert Gadon
developer for ‘yogastlouis.us’
representing client: Bruce Roger (in who’s name the license was originally purchased).

.

[Vladimir]

Hi Robert,

Thanks for the information.
Refund was done.

Regards,
Vladimir.

[sadhaka]

Dear Vladimir,

Thank you for responding quickly to my request and refunding my client their money. Let me share some information from a user’s perspective that might help you improve your plugin.

I noticed you paid great attention to the details of how the plugin is put together and what it can do. Your technical command as a software engineer and developer is outstanding. As a user though, I found the plugin frustrating and time consuming to setup.

What would have helped in the plugin documentation was a reference to the WordPress Codex on ‘User Roles and Capabilities’. I later figured out that all the ‘core’ and ‘custom’ capabilities you built into the User Settings admin panel were functions described in the Codex documentation.

I’m aware that English is not your first language, and so you’re explanations from your blog were a little difficult for me to follow. Save yourself and your users the problem of trying to understand your writing, and refer them where appropriate to the Codex documentation. Say something explicit like ‘Read the Codex documentation on ‘User Roles and Capabilities’ first to understand the function settings used in this plugin before you start your configuration.’

Justin Tadlock, who co-wrote the book ‘Professional WordPress Plugin Development recently updated his ‘Members’ plugin to improve the user interface (UI). I would have loved it if you had simplified your plugin UI to break out the difference sets of functions as Justin recently did in his plugin. We have a saying in English: ‘Impersonation (acting like someone else) is the sincerest form of flattery’. You might find some inspiration for restructuring the UI on your plugin on the lines of what Justin recently did.

When I first wrote to you, you saw that I was using an older version of the URE plugin. You suggested I download and install a newer, beta version, which I did. One annoying feature I ran into was that when I deleted the old PI and installed the newer version, the settings for the older version of the PI were deleted from the database.

I’m glad that you provided a means to save and export the PI settings. However, what was not included in that export file were the administrative settings that appear on the Settings tab. I took screenshots of all the Settings and Tools>User Role Editor admin screens before I deleted the older version of the PI so I could refer back to those settings if necessary. That saved time. However, not all PI users will have that capability.

What would be helpful to other users is if you enabled file attachments (e.g. PDF and PNG files) on your forum. I took about 10 screenshots of all the admin settings panels as I was setting up your PI. Given that you and I are 11 time zones apart, having the ability to send you screen shots of what I setup would have improved our communication.

Best to you in your development work.

Sincerely,

Robert Gadon
St. Louis, Missouri USA

[Vladimir]

Hi Robert,

Thanks a lot for so detailed recommendations/suggestions. I appreciate it. Especially, the news about Justin Tadlock “Members” plugin recent update. It costs to pay the attention for, really.

Regards,
Vladimir.

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