Well first question is have you checked out the Data Inspector in the forum admin Toolbox? This will allow you to display – to the screen – a whole host of available data. The equivalent of the old $current_user is $spThisUser which now has more data available. You can also view the various view data objects, $sfglobals, $sfvars etc.

The second question has to really by why? Are not the permissions/user groups themselves powerful enough to do what you want? If they are not I would be interested to know why in case there is something there we should perhaps add in. A more detailed explanation of the requirement would help is any case to try and point you to the best way of achieving what it is you are trying to do.

Thanks as always for your quick response!

I didn’t know about that data inspector. VERY COOL!

The use case is that we have a pretty complicated set of criteria that are temporary to each session and the the session is time limited and the criteria is shared with other non sp content. A cookie is read. If the cookie has valid info, then read only access to a certain forum is given. There is a user group that has no members.  In the past v.4 I have been able to dynamically assign the group to the user when conditions are met.

I tried using spThisUser which provides better access instead of using a reference.

But the result seems to be the same.  I can set add the usergroup to the spThisUser array and it sticks but and even if I also set all auths for the forum in question  =1  I still don’t see the forum/subforum in the listing. 

The temporary approach I am thinking of using is to call

    sp_remove_membership($user_group, $current_user->ID);

edit: fixed code changed $forum to $user_group

… on forum load for all users when they access the forum

and then 

    sp_add_membership($user_group, $current_user->ID);

edit: fixed code changed $forum to $user_group

when the conditions are met.

The dynamic approach used with the old sp 4 allowed me to avoid calls to the database …The first one would be for each each user at each access of the forum. The second would be each time the conditions are met.

Hopefully this makes sense.

I am testing the sp_add_membership  and sp_remove_membership approach outlined above.

It seems to slow things down a good deal.

I will need to study this some more. I sort of understand the requirement – tricky as it is! Not sure I totally follow the logic yet and I am a little pushed for time immediately but can look closer later on in the day.

What I would say first off though is that you clearly need to make any data changes early on so I would suggest you attack the $spThisUser object when it is first created. Are you familiar with WP action and filter hooks? Hopefully so and there is an action (NOT a filter) you can use named ‘sph_current_user_class’ that passes in the $spThisUser object. This is passed by reference so any changes you make should stick.

The place to use this action would be in the forum themes spFunctions.php (in the theme /templates folder).

So – I assume you are looking at the ‘auths’ array within the object as it seems to me this is what you need to manipulate. Do you understand the data layout in there – i.e., the forum array key and the numeric auths elements – which map to the auths map available in $sfglobals?

Thanks a bunch.

I added this to spFunctions.php … it sticks but the forums still don’t show.  I don’t quite understand the auth mapping yet, therefore I am just setting everything =1 until I understand.

function test_ppp($a) {
   array_push($a->memberships, array (‘usergroup_id’ => $UG, ‘usergroup_name’ => $UG_TITLE, ‘usergroup_desc’ =>”, ‘usergroup_join’ => 0 ));
   foreach( $a->auths[$aForum] as $key => $value) $a->auths[$aForum][$key]=1; // just for testing, don’t do this in production
   foreach( $a->auths[$aSubForum] as $key => $value) $a->auths[$aSubForum][$key]=1; // just for testing, don’t do this in production
   // echo print_r($a);
}
add_action(‘sph_current_user_class’, ‘test_ppp’);

Where are you seeding $aForum and $aSubForum from? Surely of this is all of the code they will have no value and just equate to zero?

Sorry, I should have clarified. I am using the actual numbers of the usergroup_id and the forum_ids

I replaced them with variables so others would know the values would depend on their own database values.

OK that’s good.

I see no reason why that should not work.

if you look at the function sp_get_auth() (sp-api/sp-api-auths.php) you will quite clearly see that this is the central processing of all auth checks. I will have tp ponder this and also see if Steve can see any reason that should not work.

what is not showing? entire forum?  some posts?  access denied?  maybe a screenshot…  and is this as guest, user or admin? or all of above?  as admin, you wouldnt want to set them all to 1, a couple need to be zero…

Woops, sorry I missed the last post/question. I will try to reply in a bit.

>>> what is not showing? entire forum?  some posts?  access denied?  maybe a screenshot…  and is this as guest, user or admin? or all of above?  as admin, you wouldnt want to set them all to 1, a couple need to be zero…

OK for example, I am on the main forum listing. I have three forums. 2 are open to standard members.  The 3rd forum has the premium permission set.

The current user (non-admin) does not belong to the premium group.

When I list the forum w/out action triggered function test_ppp I see the two forums with that have the standard permission set.  I don’t see the third. That’s as expected.

Then I set the action to fire. (I have reduced the #permissions  per Papa’s suggestion).

// inserted into theme spFunctions.php

function test_ppp($a) {
   global $sfglobals;
   $aForum=13;
   $aSubForum=14;

   array_push($a->memberships, array ('usergroup_id' => 4, 'usergroup_name' => 'Premium', 'usergroup_desc' =>'', 'usergroup_join' => 0 ));
     $a->auths[$aForum][$sfglobals['auths_map']['view_forum']]=1;
     $a->auths[$aSubForum][$sfglobals['auths_map']['view_forum']]=1;
     $a->auths[$aForum][$sfglobals['auths_map']['view_forum_topic_lists']]=1;
     $a->auths[$aSubForum][$sfglobals['auths_map']['view_forum_topic_lists']]=1;

    // foreach( $a->auths[$aForum] as $key => $value) $a->auths[$aForum][$key]=1;
    // foreach( $a->auths[$aSubForum] as $key => $value) $a->auths[$aSubForum][$key]=1;
    // echo print_r($a);
}
add_action('sph_current_user_class', 'test_ppp');

If I do a print_r($spThisUser) in either

function sp_can_view

or

function sp_get_auth

and the auth values seem to stick.

I think I found where they get reset.

Here is a copy of function sp_get_auth

I think the relevant sp_can_view is called here:

./forum/content/classes/sp-forum-view-class.php

No userid is passed, so sp_can_view does this:

    if (empty($userid)) $userid = $spThisUser->ID;

So it is set and it is not an object and it’s an integer.

So, I think the code that applies is below where I added/wrote  “LOOK HERE FIRST”

Doesn’t the sp_get_member_item look in the database? This overwrites the permissions that were set dynamically.

If the code below LOOK HERE SECOND were allowed to run, I think the dynamic permissions would have worked but it is blocked because of the empty condition. 

Hopefully I have not totally misunderstood something !!!

function sp_get_auth($check, $id = ‘global’, $userid = ”) {
    global $sfglobals, $spThisUser;

   //  testing
   // echo print_r($sfglobals[‘auths_map’]);
   // exit;
    if (empty($id)) $id = ‘global’;
 
    # check if for current user or specified user

### LOOK HERE SECOND ####
    if (empty($userid)) {
        # retrieve the current user auth
        if (!isset($spThisUser->auths[$id])) {
            $auth = 0;
        } else {
            $auth = $spThisUser->auths[$id][$sfglobals[‘auths_map’][$check]];
        }
        # is this a guest and auth should be ignored?
        if (empty($spThisUser->ID) && $sfglobals[‘auths’][$sfglobals[‘auths_map’][$check]]->ignored) $auth = 0;
    } else {
        # see if we have a user object passed in with auths defined
        if (is_object($userid) && is_array($userid->auths)) {
            $user_auths = $userid->auths;
        } else  {

 ################## LOOK HERE FIRST ################################

            #retrieve auth for specified user
            $user_auths = sp_get_member_item($userid, ‘auths’);
            if (empty($user_auths)) $user_auths = sp_rebuild_user_auths($userid);
        }
        $auth = $user_auths[$id][$sfglobals[‘auths_map’][$check]];
    }
 
    return ((int) $auth == 1);
}

Wishing you well!

so not sure I followed all this…

if $userid is empty, that means you have a guest viewing the page… but that does not seem appropriate for what you are doing…

also, the code you highlighted, when it has a user id, is logic for checking the user auth cache…  if the auth cache is empty, then it reloads (recalculates) it for the current user…  the auth cache is really just a db entry… look at the sfmembers table… the auths column…  

so when a user visits the site, rather than calculate all their auths, we check that column for the user and then grab their auths…  if that entry is empty, then we calculate the auths and populate that column…  the value stays in the column until something happens on the site that cause a potential change in the user auths (rare once the site is set up)…

so potentially you are seeing this because your users dont have their auths cache primed…

but perhaps still not following…  will try to reread when I have time…