Lost author access in quick and full edit

@ozcoolie For the Author dropdown, WordPress includes only users whose role has a nonzero level setting. Did you possibly create the role without setting that level?

Can you confirm that your other issue with the plugin is that it doesn’t identify which plugin (if any) a capability is associated with? That would be a nice feature, but it’s really not possible because the WordPress plugin API does not include any such capability “registration” info. Capabilities are associated with plugins by being accessed in that plugin’s source code; all CME has to work with is (1) known WP core capabilities, (2) the array of capabilities stored to each role and (3) capabilities defined in post type / taxonomy registrations.

@kevinb Thanks for your reply.

I created the role by copying the Administrator role, then unchecking one permission – so it should have set the level to the same level as Administrator (I believe).

I have uninstalled the plugin, but what I can confirm is that another ‘user role editor’ plugin was able to list/group core permissions for wordpress, as well as custom post types and custom capabilities – in human readable form – which helped immensely.

It also created the new role(s) I was after without mishap. I’m hesitant to advertise your competition here, but there’s a hint above if you wish to check it out.

Thanks for the feedback @ozcoolie. We’ll look into adding those extra features to CME

@ozcoolie Thanks for your suggestion that CME’s presentation of capabilities could use some improvement. I do want to clarify that CME already organizes capabilities into three separate groupings:

• Post Type / Taxonomy capabilities (each type on a separate row of the grid)
• WordPress Core Capabilities
• Additional Capabilities

Currently, CME includes WooCommerce Products, Orders and Coupons in the post type section, but does not classify other WooCommerce capabilities. I see that URE uses some custom code to classify all WooCommerce capabilities. That makes sense since Woo is such a widely used plugin with a large number of capabilities, so I’ve put some work into meeting expectations here. The next CME release will include separate sections for WooCommerce, PressPermit and PublishPress capabilities, plus a filter that plugins or site owners can hook into to further classify capabilities.

I haven’t been able to confirm your report of a problem with a copy of the Administrator role not including role members in the Post Author dropdown, so nothing to report there.

@publishpress Your welcome ?? I prefer to give feedback than give a bad rating, as I’m a developer myself (although very new to WordPress). I also practice this on Ebay even though it has nothing to do with code dev.

@kevinb I reinstalled the plugin specifically to answer your question, but I can’t find where the “level” appears (perhaps I’m looking in the wrong place?). In the database it shows as role number 10 and, as you suggested, without copying an existing role it shows 0.

Either way, the user it is applied to ceases to be displayed in the author drop-down for Administrators – who, IMHO, should be able to see all authors no matter their level.

I hope info this helps ??

@kevinb Let me just add, I’m not one to suggest how your plugin could/should interact with WordPress core. I know plenty of devs who would because they think they’re gods-gift, but I am not one of them.

As I just scored a new job, I don’t have time to learn how to develop WordPress plugins, so I have zero knowledge to share. But I do appreciate the time you guys commit towards the task and you deserve the common courtesy of feedback over criticism.

My intention was only to state “what I expected from reading the plugin info” and “What I didn’t expect after using it” without giving the plugin a negative rating. I truly hope I have achieved this and it was helpful to you.

Best of luck with it ?? ??

@ozcoolie Thanks for clarifying; I appreciate your approach.

CME allows you to view or set a role’s user level using a dropdown on the bottom left of the Roles and Capabilities screen.

If you have time to revisit that site configuration, can you confirm that the user in question actually had the CME “Administrator Copy” role successfully assigned? I have still not been able to recreate your error. The data point that WordPress checks for the Author dropdown is actually not the level_# capability, but a corresponding entry in the user_meta table. I see that properly assigned when a new user is given a CME role, and updated for each user if the role is edited to a different level.

As for as including all users in the Author dropdown, you may have noticed that WordPress by default excludes users with the Subscriber role. That exclusion uses the method I mentioned above.

If you don’t have any further updates on this, it would be good for me to know whether this is happening on a standard or network installation.

@kevinb PHEW! I’m glad I didn’t ruffle any feathers ??

I would like to be of more assistance however my plate is full right now. If I can get this particular site online with enough time to install another before the new job kicks off, I’ll revisit your plugin on a fresh WordPress and try to help you resolve the issue.

I haven’t looked into a network installation because, quite frankly, I’m a bigger fan of ‘another CMS’. WordPress is OK for a blog site straight out of the box, but when it takes 20 plugins just to simplify the interface, you know it’s not really suited to newbies.

Having said that, as well as reading over your responses, I’m curious if I actually can recreate the issue on a fresh install. I’m beginning to suspect one of 50+ plugins I sampled in my attempts to simplify the interface may have contributed… being the very reason I was trying to clean up behind uninstalled plugins in the first place!

Leave it with me for a bit and we’ll see how much time I have after handing this site over to its owner.