Converting single user Plone site to multiuser review based CMS site

by Mikko Ohtamaa — last modified Dec 30, 2008 03:03 PM

One might want to convert an existing single user Plone site to real CMS where people can submit content and it has to be reviewed. This how to gives guidance to achieve the goal.

It's all about workflows and permissions. Please read about workflows and permissions in other tutorials to understand basics.

Publishing all public draft content

The existing site content might be in public draft state. You have been lazy and you didn't care to publish all content after creationg - it's visible but if you are going to demand submit - publish cycle for content you'll lose existing content when you make drafts inaccessible. This section explains how to mass publish all content on a Plone site.

In default Plone, review portlet and full_review_list page allows one to mass publish content which is in "pending" state. We need to modify review mechanism to catch all public draft content, so that we can modify all of it once.

Go to ZMI -> portal_workflow (content tab) -> Plone workflow

Go to Worklists
Create a new worklist

Id: draft_queue
Copy all fields from review_queue worklist as is
Then change all references from "pending" to visible

Now "public draft" items appear in review queue
Go to www.yoursiteurl.com/full_review_list
Select all cotent
Choose change state
Set them to published

Closing draft state

Draft (in-progress) items must be not visible to visitors. This is easily achieved by removing View permissions from anonymous users for this state.

Go to portal_workflow again
For plone_workflow states visible and pending go to permissions tab
Uncheck acquire for View. Check manager, authenticated and owner.

Now authenticated users can view unfinished content, but visitors don't: the content must reach published state first.

Create and edit permissions for users

To allow registered users to submit content you need to do following

Add create permissions

Go to ZMI, portal root, security tab
Add permissions for authenticated users: Add portal content, Add XXX content where XXX is corresponding content permissions for each content type (usually AT... something at the beginning of the permission list)

Make initial state editable

The default plone_workflow might not allow editing created items. Users can create items, but they don't get to the initial edit page
Go to portal_workflow, plone_workflow again
For initial state (visible) uncheck acquisition for modify portal content and check it for manager, owner and authenticated

I am not sure whether the initial edit state problem is bug in Plone. Owner should be able to edit created items, but this has not been the case on some Plone sites I have been administrated.