private user area

[mimamo]

hi together, for each user a private user area is set up in ...jownloads/_private_user_area. when uploading documents i did not found any area where the user can say "upload to private area". in the backend the usage of the private area is allowed. hope you can give me some help how to upload to private area. (best would be if upload to private area is the standard upload and each user is only allowed to upload to his private folder). thanks in advance for your help

[ColinM]

Hi
There is a way of achieving what you want.  The original concept of a Users Private Area is an outstanding piece of work we have not completed basically because of the Joomla! permissions.

Obviously users need to be registered.  The procedure below may appear complex but it is comprised of simple steps.  It is only required once.  When you have a new user who will be allowed their private upload/download area the all that becomes necessary is to allocate them to a User Group (UG) called in this example PrivateUG.

Now I set up all my Private Users in a User Group called PrivateUG with parent UG as Registered.   Also I set up a View Access level called Private-view whose only member is PrivateUG - so actually I set the My Downloads menu item as view access PrivateView.  This arrangement allows other types of Downloaders and Uploaders if needed.

The key aspect is to use the jD menu item type 'List All Downloads'  and set the Ordering field (on right hand side) to My Downloads from the pull down list. This is a little unusual in standard Joomla menus but is a device used to get around some "challenges". At the moment the hint and name of this field are not truly appropriate as JD interprets the field in a special way.  I set the Title of the menu item to 'My Downloads' and set the access to PrivateView.

For my Private Users Downloads I set up one Category called Private.  This is to ensure that the upload as discussed below will not allow users to change the Category and put things in different places.  Using a single Category is slightly counter intuitive but it works! And it makes good use of the Joomla permissions and View access protections .  So when setting up the category its View Access is set to PrivateView which means no one, except of course members of the PrivateUG and any Super User, will ever see that category from the front end.  Next I set up its Permission so that UG PrivateUG has Allow permissions for Download, Create and Edit Own.

We now need to set up the Users Groups Settings for UG PrivateUG .  In these ensure that the Category is set to Private and that the user cannot change the category.  Also set the default Access is PrivateView.  Do not allow user to change who is the Creator, that is do not set that question.  jD will automatically then set the creator to the user who is generating the Download.  Make sure the Ranking level is sufficiently high say 123

You also need a specific upload Menu item again only visible to the PrivateView users.

Sorry this is a bit long - I think I will create an article in the documentation with some pictures to better illustrate.

Have to go - more later

Colin

[Arno]

The original concept of a Users Private Area is an outstanding piece of work...

Correct. But it is planned to finish this part with the next main version (3.5/3.6). Should be ready in the summer.

[mimamo]

with the procedure from colin will the user documents be stored in the user folder? 
the system does create a user folder for each user but up to now i did not found any way that the user docs are stored in the specific user folder.

[ColinM]

Hi
Documents are all stored in the same folder, that is they are stored in the name folder.  They are then identified by by creator name.
Colin