Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/7940 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: node system Category: bug reports Priority: normal Assigned to: mathias Reported by: mathias Updated by: killes@www.drop.org Status: patch Some people think, that the node settings _should_ be reset after editing. There are good reasons for some of the settings to be reset, for exampel in case of the "promote" bit. I cannot see such reasons in case of the "comment" bit and would like to see that part of the patch included. killes@www.drop.org Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 21, 2004 - 04:00 : mathias How to recreate: 1. As admin, navigate to: administer » content » settings, and uncheck 'publish' for stories. 2. As admin, create a story and assign it to a user that can create and maintain their own stories, say this user's name is Mark. 3. Login as Mark and edit that story. 4. Instead of staying published, it reverts back to it's unpublished state. I think this behavior is a bug as these content settings are default settings and should only be applied during node creation (not editing). I know Drupal-contrib project owners get bitten with this everytime they edit their project pages. I'll work on a patch within the next day. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 21, 2004 - 16:59 : mathias Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_defaults.patch (1.05 KB) Proposed solution: If a node is being updated: respect the following existing settings: 1. node status (published/unpublished) 2. node promotion (promoted on front page) 3. node static (static on front page) For any node, force the defaults for: 1. moderation 2. revisions With our current situation, say the admin makes 'promote to front page' and 'static on front page' the default settings for stories. Another user posts a story and bam! it's of course immediately visible. The admin decides he/she doesn't like that story and demotes it. Well as soon as that user edits his story, the default settings are re-assigned and his post is right back on the front page. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 3, 2004 - 20:38 : mathias Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_defaults_0.patch (1.19 KB) When editing nodes, the following node properties should not be overwritten - node status (published/unpublished) - node promotion (promoted on front page) - node sticky (top of the list) Currently, if the author of a node doesn't have 'administer node' privileges, than the above settings will always revert to the default behavior of their node type group. This makes nodes disappear and node authors very very confused. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 3, 2004 - 20:56 : ccourtne Don't forget to take moderation into account. If a node is edited should it go back through moderation? Some sites may want the behavior of going back some sites may not. This is probably best as a toggle option on workflow default config screen. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 3, 2004 - 22:21 : mathias I don't think my patch interferes with the moderation features. If the default workflow for a type of nodes is set to 'moderate', than the moderation flag will always reset itself to 'moderation' upon editing. I did not alter this functionality. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 29, 2004 - 23:00 : mathias Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_defaults_1.patch (1.64 KB) I was recently bitten by this bug again, so I'll try to describe the exact nature of the problem. If an user of a node doesn't have 'administer nodes' permission, than whenever they edit their own node the status, promotion, static, moderation and revision settings revert to their default state. This can cause: - A demoted post to once again be promoted. - A promoted post to be demoted. - A static post to disappear from the front page. All of these scenarios have happened to me simply by authors editing their own content. This patch allows all options except moderation and revision to stay with a node once it's created. Note: along a very similar line, the one-line 'node_validate does not respect group editing patch [1]' has been rolled into this as well. I'll take it out if need be. [1] http://drupal.org/node/11071 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 29, 2004 - 23:00 : mathias I was recently bitten by this bug again, so I'll try to describe the exact nature of the problem. If an user of a node doesn't have 'administer nodes' permission, than whenever they edit their own node the status, promotion, static, moderation and revision settings revert to their default state. This can cause: - A demoted post to once again be promoted. - A promoted post to be demoted. - A static post to disappear from the front page. All of these scenarios have happened to me simply by authors editing their own content. This patch allows all options except moderation and revision to stay with a node once it's created. Note: along a very similar line, the one-line 'node_validate does not respect group editing patch [2]' has been rolled into this as well. I'll take it out if need be. [2] http://drupal.org/node/11071 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 30, 2004 - 20:08 : Dries When someone edits a node that has been promoted, I do want to demote it from the main page. If not, the system is open for abuse. IMO, this is 'by design'. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 30, 2004 - 21:00 : Bèr Kessels Both Dries and Mathias have valid points here. If I add a post with loads of ugly stuff inside it, but an adminstrator decides not to delete it (because the post is still not too bad, or because of policy), but demote it, I can promote my spam next minute again by simply editing my content. This is bad. If I add a post with lots of good information, so that an administratr promotes it, next thing i can do is open it up and add loads of ugly spam to it. Buth are unwanted scenarios. The first is what we have now. The second is when this patch is committed. I think we need to seriously rething the workflow logic, maybe splitting workflow up into "add" and "edit". But maybe there are even better options? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 30, 2004 - 21:01 : Bèr Kessels Both Dries and Mathias have valid points here. If I add a post with loads of ugly stuff inside it, but an adminstrator decides not to delete it (because the post is still not too bad, or because of policy), but demote it, I can promote my spam next minute again by simply editing my content. This is bad. If I add a post with lots of good information, so that an administrator promotes it, next thing i can do is open it up and add loads of ugly spam to it. and then i have a promoted post with spam on that site. Both are unwanted scenarios. The first is what we have now. The second is when this patch is committed. I think we need to seriously rething the workflow logic, maybe splitting workflow up into "add" and "edit". But maybe there are even better options? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 30, 2004 - 21:02 : Bèr Kessels Both Dries and Mathias have valid points here. If I add a post with loads of ugly stuff inside it, but an adminstrator decides not to delete it (because the post is still not too bad, or because of policy), but demote it, I can promote my spam next minute again by simply editing my content. This is bad. If I add a post with lots of good information, so that an administrator promotes it, next thing i can do is open it up and add loads of ugly spam to it. and then i have a promoted post with spam on that site. Both are unwanted scenarios. The first is what we have now. The second is when this patch is committed. I think we need to seriously rething the workflow logic, maybe splitting workflow up into "add" and "edit". But maybe there are even better options? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 30, 2004 - 21:11 : Dries The first problem can be solved by blocking the user account, or by revoking the user's permissions. The second problem can probably be solved using the node-level permissions. Whenever I promote a post to the front page, I could revoke the user's edit rights. It would only work, if the modules don't by-pass the access rights, of course (I believe some do). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 3, 2004 - 22:28 : mathias Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_defaults_2.patch (4.22 KB) Dries is right about using the power of node-level permissions for community editing. I think this patch would assist that goal. As it stands, node-level permissions don't work with community editing, at least in the sense we're used to. For one node_validate transfers ownership of the node to the current editing user which may not always be the author. This causes many problems since original authorship usually implies special privileges (e.g. 'edit own foo', delete). Second, sites have different trust levels for users. On some sites there's just a handful of trusted users that edit and maintain all the content. The current approach for community editing is to create a new role and give it the 'administer nodes' permission, which in my opinion makes the node form interface much more cluttered and gives users in that role full access to node properties. Full access is not always desired. Using a combination of node-level permissions and allowing a node to retain some or all of its options makes a clean, easy to use approach to maintainance. This new patch lets the admin control how node_validate handles node options during editing. It splits the default workflow screen into two parts: Creation settings, and Editing options. The creation settings is the default workflow we're all used to. The editing options allow the admin to say what happens to those node options when they are edited. I've created a node-level permissions module [3] based on JonBob's work that allows a user to choose which roles can view and/or edit their post. Unfortunately it needs this patch to allow node_validate to be a little less controlling. I'd like to contribute this module if it didn't need a patch. [3] http://www.asitis.org/tmp/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 3, 2004 - 22:30 : mathias Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_defaults_admin_content.png (22.39 KB) Screenshot of the new default 'node editing options' interface. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 4, 2004 - 16:16 : Bèr Kessels Mathias, First: using radio's for a Boolean is bad UI design IMO. It would be much better if you use checkboxes. Second: If you use radio's you can make the same matrix as above, for each node-type a reset foo flag. This will not only make the UI more consistent, but also improve usability by allowing per-node-type reset flag. Ber ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 4, 2004 - 19:08 : Dries The settings GUI's help text is rather hard-core and will scare many user away. It will even frighten most Drupal developers. Also, I'm not sure I understood the screenshot correctly. The functionality introduced is much needed but the GUI and configuration parts needs work IMO. Keep working on it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 14, 2004 - 22:55 : mathias Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_defaults_3.patch (4.74 KB) As per Ber's feedback, I changed the interface to use checkboxes and allowed the reset flags to be set for each node-type. The result is a much more familiar and consistent experience. Dries: I revamped the help text, removing the scary bits and sticking to the bare essentials. The dialog concerning this patch has been excellent, and the result of which I feel is a sweet slice of code ready for core :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 14, 2004 - 22:56 : mathias Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_defaults_admin_content_0.png (18.68 KB) Latest screenshot of patch. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 28, 2004 - 21:08 : mathias Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_defaults_4.patch (4.81 KB) Updated the help text to be slightly more descriptive, informing the reader that: Users with "administer nodes" permission can override the editing options. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 29, 2004 - 00:51 : Steven I'm not sure I like that admin interface. My brain tries to correlate the two tables, but the meanings are different (what is the value, keep the value?). Maybe it would be better just to have one checkbox per node type to allow you to either revert the published/frontpage/moderate/sticky fields on editing, or not. This should cover 99% of all use cases with an admin interface that is much easier to understand. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 30, 2004 - 20:29 : mathias Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_defaults_5.patch (5.06 KB) It provides a consistant look and feel if the creation settings are the same as the editing settings since they both manipulate the same components of a node and you're just toggling states based on different actions. I think it is a bad idea to only give site admins an 'all or none' approach to override node options upon editing. Here are some examples why: - You want nodes to remember their 'sticky' setting, but unpublish themselves after editing. Once the node is approved, it goes right back to where it was. - You want nodes to remember their 'promote to front page' setting, but unpublish themselves after editing. Once the node is approved, it goes right back to where it was. - You want nodes to remember all their settings except moderation. The node is still published, but it goes into the queue to be rated again since the content has changed. - By default nodes are unpublished. Once it's been tagged as published it stays that way. Perhaps the moderation tag is reset. I've updated the code to hopefully make things even more clearer. Here's the latest screenshot [4]. [4] http://asitis.org/tmp/node_defaults_admin_content_1.png ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 24, 2005 - 17:41 : moshe weitzman this patch fixes a fairly undesirable problem with our workflow. lets consider it along with other proposed changes to default workflow. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 13, 2005 - 23:04 : killes@www.drop.org Does not apply anymore. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 12, 2005 - 20:07 : r11r I'm still experiencing this problem with latest CVS (head and drupal-4-6) and in addition to the publishing options (Published, Promoted to front page, etc), it also affects the settings for comments. When a user edits the page, the settings revert to the default value for that content type, instead of what is currently set for the specific node. Example of this problem with respect to Comments: ( Create a user with permissions to edit own pages, but not administer comments. ) 1. user creates page (comments default to read/write) 2. admin edits page and turns off comments 3. user edits page and saves 4. comments are reset to read/write Help :) (Am willing to assist in fixing this if necessary) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 12, 2005 - 20:31 : killes@www.drop.org Ok, just some remarks from irc: 21:23 < killes> r11r: After looking a bit more at the code I think it is more of a feature request than a bug. 21:23 < killes> Not that I would mind some more flexibility, of course. 21:24 < r11r> killes: well, node settings magically resetting themselves could be considered a bug.. hehe 21:25 < killes> Well, it is not magically, it is "by design". ;) 21:25 < killes> i don't think we will get that into 4.6. But I woul dwork with you to get it into 4.7. 21:27 < killes> This needs to be part of a more general improved workflow thingie. 21:27 < killes> Did you try clousseau's workflow module? it is amazing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 13, 2005 - 14:59 : r11r Haven't yet looked at workflow, but this issue can be fixed by simply unsetting the node properties for which the user doing the edit does not have permissions. i.e. in node.module (around line 1255) if (!$node->nid): -- load defaults from database settings else: -- unset node->status, moderate, promote, sticky, revision, created also in comment.module (around line 247, the nodeapi hooks) if (!user_access('administer nodes')): -- unset node->comment Because any properties that are not set in the node object do not get passed into the update sql statement, the node will retain its previous values after being edited by a user instead of reverting to the default values for the content-type. Can anyone think of problems with this approach for the time being? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 13, 2005 - 17:52 : r11r Change in comment.module, line 257 for head and 4.6, line 254 for 4.5.     case 'validate':       if (!user_access('administer nodes')) {         if (!$node->nid) {           // Force default for normal users:           $node->comment = variable_get("comment_$node->type", 2);         }         else {           // If the node is being updated, respect its previous settings           unset($node->comment);         }       }       break; ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 13, 2005 - 18:02 : r11r Didn't really mean to change the title! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 13, 2005 - 18:05 : r11r Change in node.module, for head and 4.6, around line 1258     $node_options = variable_get('node_options_'. $node->type, array('status', 'promote'));     if (!$node->nid) {       // Force defaults in case people modify the form:       $node->status = in_array('status', $node_options);       $node->moderate = in_array('moderate', $node_options);       $node->promote = in_array('promote', $node_options);       $node->sticky = in_array('sticky', $node_options);     }     else {       // If the node is being updated, respect is previous settings       unset($node->status);       unset($node->moderate);       unset($node->promote);       unset($node->sticky);     }     $node->revision = in_array('revision', $node_options);     unset($node->created); For 4.5, the code is slightly different in node.module, around line 1095...     if (!$node->nid) {       // Force defaults in case people modify the form:       $node->status = variable_get("node_status_$node->type", 1);       $node->promote = variable_get("node_promote_$node->type", 1);       $node->moderate = variable_get("node_moderate_$node->type", 0);       $node->sticky = variable_get("node_sticky_$node->type", 0);     }     else {       // If the node is being updated, respect is previous settings       unset($node->status);       unset($node->moderate);       unset($node->promote);       unset($node->sticky);     } ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 13, 2005 - 18:06 : r11r Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node.module_head.patch (1.38 KB) Patch for node.module in HEAD ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 13, 2005 - 18:06 : r11r Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/comment_head.module (76.29 KB) Patch for comment.module in HEAD ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 13, 2005 - 18:07 : r11r Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/comment.module_head.patch (976 bytes) Err, sorry too many files to pick from in the directory . :) Here's the patch again. (for comment.module, in HEAD) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 13, 2005 - 18:09 : r11r Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node.module_drupal-4-6.patch (1.39 KB) Patch for node.module in DRUPAL-4-6 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 13, 2005 - 18:09 : r11r Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/comment.module_drupal-4-6.patch (988 bytes) Patch for comment.module in DRUPAL-4-6 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 13, 2005 - 18:10 : r11r Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node.module_drupal-4-5.patch (1.38 KB) Patch for node.module in DRUPAL-4-5 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 13, 2005 - 18:10 : r11r Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/comment.module_drupal-4-5.patch (1010 bytes) Patch for comment.module in DRUPAL-4-5