I'm new and need a little guidance with capabilities

Re: I'm new and need a little guidance with capabilities

by Andrew Lyons -
Number of replies: 4
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Hello Adam,

The capabilities you define here are the defaults for a new installation or when creating that capability for the first time. Once a capability has been created based on this definition, changes to the defaults have no effect during an upgrade.

If you are just developing, then I would suggest that you change the live definitions in the UI at the same time as you make changes to the defaults.

If you have a live plugin where you need to make changes to a capability then you will need to write these changes in an upgrade script.

Note: Typically we do not set CAP_DENY in a capability definition, we just do not give any user the capability.

Andrew
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In reply to Andrew Lyons

Re: I'm new and need a little guidance with capabilities

by Adam Vasarhelyi -

Alright, so basically I am making this plugin and I want it to show some content to teachers and some content to students. I need something that goes "If the user's role in this context is a teacher, show them this, else, show them that". I am trying to do this with has_capability. Is this the right way to approach the problem? How may I do this? I greatly appreciate anybody's help so thank you all.

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Re: I'm new and need a little guidance with capabilities

by David Mudrák -
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Don't think about it in terms like "if the user is a teacher" or "is a student". Better ask "Can the user view/do this?"

Define a capability to view or do something. Then specify that the teacher and manager archetypes have this capability assigned by default. And then use has_capability() to decide whether or not to display the particular widget.

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Re: I'm new and need a little guidance with capabilities

by Adam Vasarhelyi -

Thankyou for the advice

I'm not sure how to do this. I need a lot of guidance and sorry if it's asking too much. 

1) Define a capability to do something. The other guy said to update this in the UI and not access.php for some good reasons. I shall try to do that.

2) If it is access.php, I'm assuming the context level is "CONTEXT_BLOCK"?

3) Define a capability to "view or do something". In access.php, I am only aware of captype = write. I want something to be shown to teachers, and something totally different to be shown to students.

4) I'm not sure what exactly to code for has_capability. I understand the first parameter is the capability which I'm assuming refers to what I write in access.php, and the second part is the context. If I get the context of the user for the 'block', what exactly am I doing? Where is it defined by default in the system what role a user is in the block I made? Or maybe I should pick the context of the course? I'm not sure what to write or how to write it here.

We will get it working eventually. Thanks for ANY help smile 

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Re: I'm new and need a little guidance with capabilities

by Dominique Palumbo -
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Hi,

in the view.php I've something like that.
So I use the variable $mode to choose what I display to student or to teacher (or any adminstrative role that can create the activity).
Only teacher has the capability to create the module.

if (has_capability('mod/modulename:create', $modulecontext)) {
    $mode = 'teacher';
} else {
    require_capability('mod/modulename:view', $modulecontext); // This to exclude user that have no righ to the activity.
    $mode = 'student';
}

You can also create capabilities to read.
For teacher and manager and if the user don't have this capacity display something else.

'mod/modulename:viewhigh' => array(
    'captype' => 'read',
    'contextlevel' => CONTEXT_MODULE,
    'archetypes' => array(
    'teacher' => CAP_ALLOW,
    'editingteacher' => CAP_ALLOW,
    'manager' => CAP_ALLOW)
),

I hope it's help.
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