User Access Rules

As stated in article 3.2 Basic HTML Pages, webpages are subject to user access rules. The access attribute of the <xpage> tag specifies who can view the page. The options are as follows:-

public	The page is available to anyone regardless of login status.
none	The page is excluded from anyone logged in as a user of any class except the administrator.
any	The page is available to anyone logged in as a user of any class including the administrator.
admin	The page is available only to the administrator.
USER	The page is available to the administrator and the user class(es) named.

With the exception of USER, these are written as is, e.g. access="PUBLIC". If the page is to be accessed by particular types of user, the user types must be named. If multiple user types apply, the user type names are separated by a comma (with no spaces). given this role and this is done by surplanting the <member> tag with a <status> tag.

The <xwho> tag. Detailed application of user access rules

The <xwho> tag applies user access rules to all tags contained within it, and is used to restrict access to sections of pages and other resources. The same five options apply but should be obvious, <xwho> does not override the user access rules that apply to the page. It cannot make available parts of pages that are unavailable!

A common use of the <xwho> tag is where a status bar either has a link to log in or states who is currently logged in. So:-

<xinclude name="statbar">
    <table width="96%" align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" bgcolor="#000000">
    <tr>
        <xwho user="none"><td align="right" class="inverse">Please log in</td></xwho>
        <xwho user="corp"><td align="right" class="inverse">Logged in as %u_orgname</td></xwho>
        <xwho user="cand"><td align="right" class="inverse">Logged in as %u_fname %u_lname</td></xwho>
    </tr>
    </table>
</xinclude>

Note that the navigation bar also enforces the user access rules. There isn't much point having a link in a pull down menu unless you can access it!