Usergroups and additional usergroup in vBSuperPMs - lite + Pro

[synseal]

I would like someone if possible who has good knowledge of how usergroups work to explain this issue to me that I have been having with a modification.

Don't worry about the modification itself, I would like your opinion on whether this "ADDITIONAL usergroup" should override the primary usergroup in this situation!?

Ill try to keep it easy...

My forum has a usergroup that is not allowed to post links in Private Messages using a specific modification.



Please have a good look at the image you will see the two user groups I have highlighted which shows what they can and cannot do.

I want for e.g Veterans to NOT be allowed to post links in PM's UNLESS that usergroup makes a donation to the forum using vbulletins paid subscription which then places that person under an ADDITIONAL usergroup using this part of the paid subscription here. You will know that places them into a second usergroup which allows me to keep their user title fundamentally the same but at the same time gives them the extra permissions dependent on how that ADDITIONAL user-group is set up.




SO this means that in the first image there is a conflict of permissions because one usergroup can post links and one user-group cannot due to these usergroups merging.

TK Veteran = who cannot post links.

Forum Supporter = is allowed to post links (extra bonus) due to donation... Following so far lol.

So I have always been of the understanding that vbulletin will choose YES rather than no as YES always overrides no. It even states it here https://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/...ultiple_groups

So a TK veteran who has paid a donation that is now in placed in the additional user group of Forum supporter, the forum should choose YES to allow that TK vet with additional permissions of a forum supporter to now post links.....

I have been told that this is not the case from the modification developer..

[Lynne]

Does the primary usergroup have Allow Users to have Member Groups set to Yes? If not, then they won't inherit any permissions from any secondary usergroup.

And yes, a Yes always overrides a No in default vbulletin permissions. But, the modification owner could be doing the permissions differently. They would know.

[synseal]

Thank you for your fast reply. The primary usergroup TK veteran is set to Yes.

[DragonByte Tech]

As I am the developer responsible for the modification in question, I want to clarify how the modification works.

As you can see by the screenshot, the way usergroup permissions works in vBSuperPMs is a simple tickbox system; ticked means "this usergroup cannot use links" and unticked means "this usergroup can use links".

Here is the exact code that reads the tickboxes:

PHP Code:

is_member_of($vbulletin->userinfo, explode(',', $vbulletin->options['dbtech_vbsuper_pm_no_email_message'])) 


My argument is therefore that this modification does work with Additional Usergroups, as it doesn't matter whether it's the user's primary or member groups that is among the usergroups ticked - they will still be blocked from using links in PMs.

The customer believes that checking whether a user is a member of ANY group that's banned from posting links is in violation of vBulletin's "yes overrides no" design standard. The customer believes that usergroups that are NOT ticked should override usergroups that ARE ticked.
What's actually happening is that usergroups that ARE ticked override usergroups that are NOT ticked. This is identical to how the "normal" vBulletin usergroup permissions would work if the vBulletin Option(s) in the first post's screenshots were Yes (i.e. disallowed from posting links) and No (i.e. allowed to post links) toggles in the default vBulletin Usergroups interface.

I maintain that permissions can go either way, e.g. a tick/yes can be used to describe both "allow" and "disallow" as per the needs of the modification in question.

As a result of my stance, the customer believes that I am not employing vBulletin's "Additional Usergroups" functionality correctly, which I disagree with.


Fillip

[synseal]

If that is the case why did you tell me to avoid using additional groups?



I have never ran into this issue ever before using any other modification, as explained before you abruptly closed my thread after I asked for help from ozzy.

Please allow others to give there opinion as the way that modification is made using additional usergroups is not the same as how vbulletin usually work. I should not have to "avoid using additional usergroups" otherwise every usergroup that pays for "forum supporter" will have their user title changed rather than having these extras added to their already titled usergroup e.g VIP/Veteran etc.

[DragonByte Tech]

Originally Posted by synseal

If that is the case why did you tell me to avoid using additional groups?

I told you to avoid using additional groups because the way the permissions is set up in this mod ("yes" = disallow), additional groups works against you, not for you.

Originally Posted by synseal

I have never ran into this issue ever before using any other modification, as explained before you abruptly closed my thread after I asked for help from ozzy.

Ozzy does not work for DragonByte Technologies at this time. That being said, I can point him to this thread


Fillip

[synseal]

As already stated I would like opinions from others. I didn't intend on making this here to get support from you. You had your chance to support me before rudely closing my thread on your "support site" when I was clearly still unhappy.

I would like an unbiased opinion so respectfully can you and ozzy please now stay out of it. thanks.

[DragonByte Tech]

You would only get an unbiased opinion if the people giving said opinion had both sides of the story, and I've now posted my side of it.

For the record, telling people they "haven't a clue" is also considered quite rude in most circles

I'll await the responses from the unbiased folks


Fillip

[synseal]

There should have been no other side to this in my opinion. I never mentioned the modification in the first post nor the title, I even blanked out your details on the screenshot not to involve you. It is you that jumped in trying to explain why this modification works backwards to all other modifications as already mentioned.

You should not expect me to do all this just to get your modification to work.

Its simple, the additional usergroup if YES and the primary usergroup is NO, it is still a YES as per the manual.

Maybe you coded this mod the other way round but that is what is expected usually when said person purchases a modification.

[ForceHSS]

Why not set it up it moves them to the new group and removes the old group the only way would be to make the new group as primary. But if you really want this mod to work in a different way than it has been coded then you have the option to get a one off version that a coder can recode it the way you need but you would need to pay for that and it won't be cheap. I use the pro version of this mod myself and have it set a way that it works, it just takes time to set it up and a lot of testing, but you can make it work the way you want if you just take the time to set up all the permissions and groups the right way