Content visible to users logged in or not, setup considerations

ok, there's absolutely no question, I have newbie stamped on my forehead. But, Drupal keeps me smiling with how well it works. Thanks every one.

I have changed this from a bug report to a support request and lowered the priority to normal.

Thank goodness for Advanced Front page module (v6.x-1.1).

I may not be understanding things properly.

As a beginner using Drupal 6x out of the box, I found that to create a front page and have it viewable to all users it was necessary to set permissions to allow anonymous users to access node content. Unfortunately it is all or nothing without some addon module like Tac_Lite or Advanced front page.

There is the exception of the site wide Contact form which has it's own permissions and other modules can create new items with permissions configurable by role, as the Advanced Front page module does now.

It would be nice to have a few more, for the legal, terms, privacy, etc. to allow visibility to all users. I can probably just create them with Views, which even though in alpha provides some good functionality as is.

As a new user to Drupal, it seemed necessary to set user permissions for node module, access content to allow for anonymous users otherwise nothing could be displayed on the front page, except blocks and menus.

Allowing anonymous visitors permission to the node module, access content is actually a very bad setup for beginners. It exposes your entire content to access by visitors who are not logged in which would not be desirable in private areas.

So, in order to display some content as a front page and not expose all content a support module is required such as Tac_Lite that controls access or the Advanced Front page module that allows creating a front page block with view permissions configurable by role.

I'm not really sure which approach is better as I only have some experience with Advanced Front Page and have no experience with Tac_Lite. There may even be distinct advantages in having both for different things.

I'd love to hear the comments of others on this.

Also, is there a way to have this message show both here and also in the Advanced Front page module page? I didn't want to create duplicate posts.

Izzy

Yes, a couple of simple view pages for the legal, terms, privacy along with Advanced Front page and everything is fine.

Izzy

I think it is an essential module for a site that has open and restricted access. Take a look:

http://drupal.org/project/front

Izzy

You misunderstand me. Our problem is solved. The site is restricted access except for the front page but initially we had problems, because to make blocks visible to anonymous users in the center content part of our page we allowed user permissions to give anonymous users access. This opened up all the problems with the browser back button after the user logs out. With the Front page module we turn off user access to nodes in the user permissions and let the Front page module grant access to the front page. Problem solved. After logout, browser back button etc are not a problem.

I have looked at the other modules you suggested and they were not what we needed. Thanks,

Izzy