Add Media button is role dependant

Hey there 4azure,

Hope you’re well! ??

Some functionality is dependant on role you got and this is intended. I don’t see a problem on this perhaps this is some type of protection for the site owner. For example, if you allow all roles to upload media. Your server may run out of memory and this could be a big problem.

I hope I am making sense here. ??

Take care,
Calvin

I think that should be made clear with some notice on the editor screen.

There’s one problem with this that I’ve seen many (many) times.

As soon as a user sees something that says “You don’t have permission to do this” they will rant, rave, scream, and threaten until they get that permission – even if they really shouldn’t. The raelity is that your site should be locked down as much as possible to stop people form doing things that they probably should not be doing. Even something that’s as simple as uploading could backfire if someone uploads a malicious file into your file system – which has happened in the past.

I agree that user backlash can be an issue (and you have my sympathies).

Also, I can see the logic of not letting less trusted users upload media (though perhaps they should be allowed to use media already in a gallery).

A problem is that any user trying to accomplish a task (and finding difficulty), is likely to search WP-ORG, Google, Bing, etc, for answers.

The answer I saw everywhere was “…use the Add Media button…”. Nowhere did I see a reference to restrictions by role, as a reason why the button was not present; I had to figure that out on my own.

My guess is that users would “rant, rave and scream” all the louder, if they can’t do what support and how-to posts, articles and videos tell them to do. Maybe they just scream in a different direction?

Hello Calvin,

I’m sure the restriction on uploading is well founded. I have no problem with the restriction to “Author” or higher for media uploads.

BTW, the reason I was using a “Contributor” user to create posts, was a habit of using least privileged accounts (security best practice). My thinking is it’s best to use an admin account, only for admin purposes – no need for any site visitor to even know the admin username.

Now I know to create posts using an “Author” account (just bumped that user to Author, while signed in as admin).

Carrying that desperation of concerns to an account just to answer site support questions can make sense too. Yes, you have to log in as different users to accomplish different tasks (or use more than one computer – my habit); but seems worth it to me.

Hi 4azure,

Hope you’re well! ??

I suggest you create your custom role and enable the functionality that you want ( you can see the list of functionality you can enable). This is the plugin I recommend for you to take a look at: https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/advanced-access-manager/

Let me know if it helps! ??

Take care,
Calvin

Hi Calvin,

Custom roles – I didn’t know that was an option.
I will check out the plugin. One thing I’ll look for is how it handles updates; could get messy if a WP update assumes only standard role assignments. You also reminded me to start a new thread on a related, but distinct, issue.

Thank you!

Still leaves the issue of some users (standard role contributors), feeling as if they’ve been lead down a blind ally, when they don’t see what they expect to see – an Add Media button.

Thanks again.

Hey there 4azure,

Hope you’re well! ??

The best thing here is always backup.. create a clone of your live site ( same wp version, theme version, all plugin ) into a local environment where you can always test first before implementing it on live site so you will know ahead of time if there is a problem if you update. Also, don’t opt-in for any auto update on your live site.

Also I don’t think that when you update there will be a problem to custom role.

Let me know if it helps! ??

Take care,
Calvin

This is not actually part of the thread – but a related issue:

How do you let any visitor read posts, up to the point of a “read more” link; but limit the ability to read the rest of the post to registered members; and indicate to unregistered users that they can read the rest of the post, if they register.

Probably best if clicking the “read more” link would bring unregistered visitors to registration page.

Couldn’t find a clear answer via search.

Thanks.

There are plugins to control access – do a search for “membership” or “post access” on the Plugin section of www.ads-software.com. Many of these allow the excerpt to be publicly viewable but the full post requires logging in to the WordPress site (as a subscriber with only read access) and being a part of a group (or role or even down to a specific user) that has access to the full post.

Thank you for the advice.

Some of the plugins I looked at for the related issue had mixed reviews – a lot considered them great; but others had very serious issues, with WP updates, when trying to remove or update the plugin, clashes with other components, etc…. My guess is that they tried to do too much, too fine grained control.

Any you’d recommend, that would do just the subscriber or higher to continue reading? I’d like to keep that as simple as possible – to limit complications.

Thanks again.

As this topic is attracting now deleted spam for some reason I am closing this topic down.

If anyone has any problems with the media button then please consider posting a new support topic.

https://www.ads-software.com/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting#postform

I’m re-opening this topic just to add two notes:

1. Try the Members plugin for making custom roles and such. It’s a really good one.
https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/members/

2.

One thing I’ll look for is how it handles updates; could get messy if a WP update assumes only standard role assignments.

Roles and Capabilities are actually built into the WordPress core, and the code to handle customization of them is in core. The only thing really missing is any interface by which to do that sort of editing. These plugins will let you edit Roles and such and they save the data to WordPress in such a way that it will continue to use it even if the plugin is later removed.

In other words, changes to the core Roles system are persistent, even without plugins. That said, plugins may extend the system in some other way that won’t work without the plugin, but just fiddling around with default Capabilities and Roles won’t be lost later.