Dolphin Privacy Settings Revisted

I tried once again to play with Default Privacy Groups and Default Privacy Values; which are two separate things that can be enabled or disabled independently.

Now I understand the Default Groups; you enable it and in the selection list for each item is a new Default selection.  However, Public is still the default selected value so members still have to go and click on each one and choose Default.  When Default is added it should also become the default item in each selection lists.  That way a member can just compose and hit submit; Having to do a select on each one kinds of defeats the purpose of having the Default Groups in the first place.  There is also one other thing that I may be correct or incorrect on; my understanding is that if one changes the Default Group setting, it affects past posts as well as current posts; that all the posts that was set to friends now get set to public (if one changes it to public).  If I am correct on the last bit I can see that causing a lot of grief and a lot of complaints from my members.

The second one seems to be a really nice feature; Default Values.  It appears that my members can go through and set the default values they want for each item for each type of content.  Which if true would definitely be something very useful and which I would want enabled.  However, in my tests setting those default values does nothing.  I still see public for all items and when hitting the submit button that is true, all were set to public and not to the default values.  Furthermore, no Default item appears in the selection list as with the Default Groups.

Is there anyone using Default Values that can weigh in on this?

I have had issues with the Privacy Groups from day one, but have not worked on them till about 2 weeks ago. From my usage, the Privacy Groups are over complicated and need to be fine tuned and compressed.

Besides all of that, for me, the default privacy groups did not work 100% of the time. So, in order to get things to work properly, I am creating a replacement text and manage page for one of my modules. If it works for that, then I will implement into other modules. Basically, the current text says "you have no content, Click here to add more" (or something to that effect). I want to replace it with hidden form fields that mirrors the default user defined privacy levels. And text that says. "You have no content. Click button below to begin adding content". So, this way, the default privacy group will be set to "me only" for this content in this module.

Now, for a user created privacy group - for me - it works 100% when extending the new privacy group to "me only" privacy group. Basically to me it means that the system should treat this privacy group the same as the me only privacy group for persons in that privacy group. I have no problems with user created privacy groups that are done this way.

In regards to the user defining default privacy groups, that has so far worked fine for me, even in custom modules I have created.

The Default groups I would probably not implement.

I am wondering if the Default Values is working; it is a great idea; but I don't think it is working.  I don't see it working on my site.

Does anyone know what functions handle the Default Values?  Has anyone tried to use Default Values on their site?

It the default values group works, I would like some feedback because it is not working on my site, never has.

I would really like the developers to come in and talk about this.  If this is broken, can it be fixed?

I thought I explained it before, but after rereading my post, I can't even understand it - lololol. So, here goes again. The default values allows users to set the default values for a lot of content. When you enable this feature, go into your account page, then click the privacy group's link in the sub menu. there will be a block called default values.

If this is broken, can it be fixed?

 It's not broken.

Yes, I understand where it is located and how it is suppose to work.

I am still at 7.1.0; was this fixed in a later version.

This is what I do.  I go to the Default Values page.  I set the default values for the blogs, post view, post comment, etc.  I save them.

Then I go and create a blog post.  All the dropdown selectors are set on public; OK, no problem because I have Default values set so I assume (yes, make an ass out of u and me) that the public will be overridden by default values otherwise why have the bleeding default values.  I write my post, hit submit/publish, go view it as another member and dang if the comment box is not visible even though I set it to me only (no comments).  I will go try this again, right now, this minute.

No, not working; at least not working for me.  I went into Default values, went to blog, set viewing to public and rating and comments to me only.  On the blog post add page, everything shows as public, but I have default values set,

So, for me, the code that will set the selectors to the default values are not working.  Everything stays at public and when you submit, it makes everything public even though in the default values I set comments to me only.  So, it is not working for me so how can I make this work for me?

I just did it with the groups module. Try it with your groups module and see if it works. If so, then it may be something with that blog module (and maybe other modules) that is not picking up the privacy properly.

OK, slap me silly.  You are correct.  I was only testing with blog posts because that was where I was concern with; it did not occur to me that the blog module might have something wrong with it.  I have modified the blog module to add the cross members block; not sure what else.  However, something changed it so that the default values is not working for blogs

Excuse me while I wipe the egg from my face.

I don't use blogs, but just for ish and giggles, let me try and see if my blogs messes up. If it does, then it may be considered a bug with the blogs module. Unless the blogs was not supposed to follow the privacy settings, in which case it should be removed from there.

 EDIT: OK, i just installed and tested the blogs - the selection of default values in the privacy groups section is not carrying over to the blog module itself. So, I guess the next step is to try and duplicate on demo.boonex.com to make sure it is a bug. Wonder if other modules are not picking up those values either.

EDIT: OK, I guess we have something going wrong. Just tested on demo.boonex.com and it works properly for the blogs. I hope others try this on their own sites and see if it is a consistent issue, although it seems to work on the demo site.

Before I actually submitted this, I went to try again - it seems that it does not carry over to the creation of a new blog, it carries over to the posts within the blog. Which is a confusing nature, as a user may want to restrict the blog as a whole.

Working as expected on my 7.1.4

I tested at the demo site and it is working.

@Professor, you said you had not use the blog module before; had you made any changes in the module?  If not, then it must be something outside of the blog module that you have changed that is affecting it from getting the values from the Default Values.

That means it might be difficult to track down.

one of the things I hate about dolphin, too much of it is used in so many different places, that changing something somewhere can totally screw up something else. I am creating a new site in a few hours so it will be a fresh install. I will check then and see if the blogs responds properly. If not, then the only thing left would be a server issue. But as for you, GG, does the default privacy setting work for new posts within a blog?

No, it does not work with new posts or editing old posts.  I tried several times with changing the default values and they are never picked up in the blog module.  They are picked up in others; including the Notes module from the market.

OK, I can finally close this one.  After a couple of failed upgrade attempts from 7.1.0 to 7.1.1 (failed because I have a lot of mods done and I have to add them in before doing the upgrade and it is tedious and mistake prone) I have managed to upgrade the test site to 7.1.1.  When I went to do a blog post test the default privacy values were added in.  I checked to make sure and the settings for default values are now being applied to blogs.