Better than the rest of the similar plugins

Hi,

It looks like you have not created a ticket in the support forum or otherwise reached out to me to get help before this review. How come?

If you’re willing to try out the plugin again, I would gladly help you out with any problems.

Otherwise, can you please tell me in more detail what didn’t work and what isn’t intuitive? The plugin page currently has no user guide, so what instructions are you referring to?
This information would be very valuable to me as I could then fix potential bugs and improve the plugin.

Sorry for being unclear about the “instructions” part.
I had a hard time making the script working as intended and tried a few tips you came with in the support forum to other persons running into problems as well.
Since I’m doing this for workrelated things, in which I have limited time to try out different alternatives for my use, I felt this was harder than the other plugins that offered the same solution so I skipped going forward with it.

Of course I will be willing to try out again. I’ve installed the plugin again and here is my problem:
I’ve made a very basic restriction that limits posts with a certain category for non-registered users. The role is “Not logged-in” and the only condition I use is “Categories” and I’ve chosen the category I want to be blocked for non-registered users. The “negate group” is “Target this context”.

In my head, this should work. But it doesn’t. When I go to the page through a Chrome incognito-tab, the post is still unblocked.

In a predicament like this, a good walkthrough would be great. But the support I’m receiving now is also great =)

Thank you for the details. There have been more reports of the same issue with non-logged in users. I have just released a new version; can you confirm/affirm if the problem persists?
If you want the content to be restricted from non-logged in users, you should select another role though. Selecting “Not logged-in” means that only these users can see the content.

I agree that a user guide/tutorial would be beneficial, and it will come one day.
I also understand being on a schedule means that it is annoying to spend time on plugins that do not work as expected. However, as the sole developer of this free plugin, I try to do my best to maintain and support it, and getting 1-star reviews without prior contact is very demotivational.

Thank you, after updating and clearing up on how the roles work, I got the restriction to work as intended.

I’m pretty sure that making at least a quick guide on how to use this plugin and how to read the conditions would help a lot. In comparison to other plugins doing much of the same as yours, this one will at first glance seem “harder” to make work without some sort of guidance along the way.

And since it works, now I feel like an idiot :/

Is there any way to edit a review?

Is there any way to edit a review?

Sure. Click this link and you can edit your review as you like.

https://www.ads-software.com/support/view/plugin-reviews/restrict-user-access#postform

Great that you got it working!

I completely agree that the plugin might have a steep learning curve, but when you get to know it, it is really powerful.
Because I still have a lot of features on the roadmap, the plugin will change drastically (while keeping backwards compatibility), and user guides are just not top priority right now.
I did write a very brief guide here: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/access-plugin-features

Also, you might be able to get help by looking at guides for Content Aware Sidebars (https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/content-aware-sidebars/) as these two plugins have very similar UI.

I would be very glad if you could update your review, and if you have any more questions or problems, do not hesitate to open a new support ticket here: https://www.ads-software.com/support/plugin/restrict-user-access

Jan, thanks for the help, I have now edited my review.

Joachim, I usually love complexity as shown in this plugin, but documentation is alpha and omega if you want people to understand how to use it. Making the interface and rule-building more intuitive would make up for lack of documentation, though. Chose the latter one if you want it to work best for end-user “out of the box”.
I can understand the priorities on this project, but with having the plugin out in the public, one needs to have at least some FAQ or short guidelines. i myself didn’t need much help to make it work, and I don’t think others do either.
If this was an alpha-project, and not public, I can see why one wouldn’t want to prioritize documentation. Developing is more important at that point. But it is indeed public, so… I think I’ve written enough on the matter ??

Again, thanks for the help and good luck on the improvements =)