This article explains how to give some Readers Trusted Reader access: permission to view all Categories, including restricted ones and yet to be created ones.
What is a "trusted reader"?
BlogHarbor allows you create restricted categories, which cannot be read by just anyone -- they can only be read by people who have permission to do so. Only a reader who is logged in and has permission can read such categories.
Readers can be granted permission to read categories on a per-category basis, or they can be trusted readers -- readers who are allowed to read any category, regular or restricted.
You can use the "trusted reader" permission to separate your readers into two categories:
- Those who see the "public" side of your blog: Strangers, potential employers, perhaps your mom -- basically anyone who should see the entries and photos that you don't mind sharing with the world at large.
- Those who see the "private" side of your blog: close friends, co-workers, significant others, spouse, business partners, perhaps your mom -- basically anyone whom you trust enough to show entries and photos that you don't want the rest of the world to see. These are your trusted readers.
Making a reader a trusted reader, step by step
In this example, we're going to give the person with the Username "exampleuser" trusted reader privileges.
1. Go to the Address Book section.
Log into your BlogHarbor Control Panel and
click the "Address Book" tab of the Navigation bar.
The default page of the Address Book section is List Users, which lists all the users who've been granted some kind of permission for your blog. In this example, nobody has been granted permissions yet, so the list is empty:
2. Go to the Add User
page.
Click the "Add User" item in the submenu:
You'll be taken to the Add Blog User page, which looks like this:
3. Make sure "Trusted Reader" is the
selected permission type.
It's the default selection in the
Permission Type menu, but it
never hurts to make sure.
4. Enter the person's Username into the
Username text box of the Existing User section.
The Username
is the login name that that person uses to log into their Reader
Account. In the case of this example, the Username of the person whom we
want to add as a trusted reader is anotherexample:
5. Click the Add User button.
You will be taken to a page that displays the message "User added" and shows summary information about the person you just added as a trusted reader. This is the page you will be taken to whenever you edit this person's permissions for your blog.
If you click on the List Users item in the sub-menu of the Navigation Bar...
....you will be returned to the Address Book page, where you'll see the newly-added person:
Now let's suppose that your blog has a restricted category called "Members Only". Let's also suppose that "Members Only" contains stuff that you'd like only certain people to see. Here's how it would appear in the Article and Photo Manager section of the BlogHarbor Control Panel:
In this example, the entry "First Post!" is in the "Main Page" category, while the entry "Eyes Only" is in the "Members Only" category.
Let's see how your blog would look from the reader's point of view:
The picture below shows what your blog would look like to someone who isn't logged in. Note that only entries in the "Main Page" category are shown and that the "Members Only" category isn't even visible under "Topics" (where categories and photo albums are listed):
Now let's look at the blog as seen through the eyes -- or more accurately, the account -- of anotherexample, the trusted reader:
Being a trusted reader, anotherexample sees not only the articles posted under the "Main Page" category, but also those posted under the "Members Only" category. Note that anotherexample sees the "Members Only" category under "Topics". Also note that entries posted under restricted categories have a lock displayed beside their titles.
