Option for Permissions "administer nodes" to be allowed to "edit composite layouts"

I understand you want to follow convention but your approach needs a little rethinking

1. Why can't you think of it like the "administer taxonomy" permission. Taxonomy module allows you to modify vocabularies and terms only with "administer taxonomy" permission. "administer nodes" does not suffice and it only lets you PICK a term for your node. In that fashion the "administer nodes" should only allow you to PICK a layout (something like picking "Default layout set" in the edit screen of content type) and not really modify any of the existing layouts which could affect potentially the WHOLE site.

1b. And that is similar to how the menu module works. "administer nodes" does not allow you to modify menus as a whole, only to add new items to them. You need "administer menu for that.

2. its misleading to have "edit the layouts" permission since "administer nodes" does the same thing.

3. your module does not allow an admin to let an editor moderate nodes ("administer nodes") but not modify their layouts (which is a VERY valid use case). You might argue that you can give the editor "edit, create, delete" permission on all the content types and deny "administer nodes" but that would not allow him to access "admin/content/node" and thus do any productive work.

my 2c

I agree its a matter of opinion and we could argue for ever

maybe a note in the documentation that "administer nodes" has the same effect as "edit the layouts" would suffice

Can you point me to that part of the documentation that changes Composite behavior ? I would appreciate it.

I am not very familiar with writing custom modules but don't worry about me (I will eventually get there)

if you think this might be a worthy feature you could have an option in the configuration that the admin chooses if the permission to edit layouts is affected by the "administer nodes" permission or not !!

If you are interested in this I can try to prepare something in a patch, it should not be too difficult !!

Here is a tiny patch that lets you choose whether "administer nodes" gets to "edit layouts" (configured per content type)

Current behaviour is the default behaviour thus it will not affect any users updating the module
(administer nodes can edit the layouts)

tested it and its working fine

OK since the patch won't be accepted
here is a easier to maintain solution if anyone is interested

put following code in your template.php

function phptemplate_node_form($form){
  if( user_access('edit composite layouts') == FALSE )
    unset($form['composite_settings']);

  return theme_node_form($form);
}

Forgot to remove the tabs for the unauthorized user

This is to be put in your template.php

function phptemplate_node_form($form){
  if( user_access('edit composite layouts') == FALSE )
    unset($form['composite_settings']);

  return theme_node_form($form);
}

function phptemplate_preprocess(&$variables, $hook) {
  if( user_access('edit composite layouts') == FALSE ) {
    phptemplate_removetab('Zones', $variables);
    phptemplate_removetab('Fields', $variables);
    phptemplate_removetab('Blocks', $variables);
  }
  return $variables;
}

function phptemplate_removetab($label, &$vars) {
  $tabs = explode("\n", $vars['tabs']);
  $vars['tabs'] = '';

  foreach($tabs as $tab) {
    if(strpos($tab, '>' . $label . '<') === FALSE) {
      $vars['tabs'] .= $tab . "\n";
    }
  }
}

NOTE: Tried using altering of menu tabs per user
using my own module

function composite_alter_menu_alter(&$items) {
  if( user_access('edit composite layouts') == FALSE ){
    //unset($items['node/%node/composite_zones']);
    $items['node/%node/composite_zones']['type'] = MENU_CALLBACK; 
    $items['node/%node/composite_field']['type'] = MENU_CALLBACK; 
    $items['node/%node/composite_block']['type'] = MENU_CALLBACK; 
  }
}

but could not get it to work
if I remove the user_access check then it works but tabs disappear for ALL users

But I finally got it to work as a module !!

composite_alter.info

; $Id$
name = Composite Layouts Alter Permissions
description = Allows only users with "edit the layouts" to administer composite layouts.
core = 6.x
package = "Composite Layout"
dependencies[] = composite

composite_alter.module

function composite_alter_menu_alter(&$items) {
  $types = composite_get_types();
  foreach ($types as $type) {    
    if ($type['local task']) {
      $items['node/%node/composite_' . $type['type']]['access callback'] = 'composite_alter_access';
    }
  }
  $items['node/%node/composite_zones']['access callback'] = 'composite_alter_access';  
  return $items;
}

function composite_alter_access($tab, $op, $node) {
  if (user_access('edit composite layouts')) {
    return composite_access($tab, $op, $node);
  }
}