Control Anonymous Content Access

Sorry about the late timing on my response, but I ran across this node while trying to find a similar solution. I wanted a simple method of controlling access to nodes by type and role. ie: anonymous users can view announcements, authenticated users can view news, stories, etc. I've only been using drupal for a week, so excuse me if this doesn't work for anyone else...

Here is my .02:

All of my types were "stories", so I installed the contento module and made a slight change in the module to create a "view" access control. The lines I changed in contento.module are:

/**
 * Implementation of hook_perm().
 */
function contento_perm() {
  $perms = array('administer content types');
  foreach (contento_type_list() as $name => $type) {
    $perms[] = "create $name content";
    $perms[] = "edit own $name content";
    $perms[] = "administer $name content";
// Added by Mark
    $perms[] = "view $name content";
// End of Add
  }
  return $perms;
}

/**
 * Implementation of hook_access().
 */
function contento_access($op, $node) {
  global $user;
  $type = is_string($node) ? $node : (is_array($node) ? $node['type'] : $node->type);
  
  if(user_access("administer $type content")){
    return TRUE;
  } elseif ($op == 'create') {
    return user_access("create $type content");
// Added by Mark
  } elseif ($op == 'view') {
// End of Add
    return user_access("view $type content");
    
  } elseif ($op == 'update' || $op == 'delete') {
    if (user_access("edit own $type content") && ($user->uid == $node->uid)) {
      return TRUE;
    }
  }
}

This creates a "view" permission for the defined node under administer->access control->contento module

Then, I created a few new node types using the contento module: (announcements, news, etc). Since I wanted announcements on the main page, I adjusted the "administer->settings->General Settings->Default Front Page" to announcements.

Then under administer->access control->contento module:
uncheck node module->access content
check contento->view announcement content

These settings worked for me, but I've only been using drupal about a week. I'm willing to bet there are much better ways to implement node access control in a simple way. This was what worked in my particular situation, since I didn't like any of the existing methods I've tried.

Here is a PHP snippet that I place in my Anonymous Users section of FrontPage settings to get the same "nodes" on the home page.

<?php

$result = db_query(db_rewrite_sql("SELECT n.nid, n.created FROM {node} n WHERE n.status = 1 AND n.promote = 1 ORDER BY n.sticky DESC, n.created DESC"), variable_get('default_nodes_main', 6));

while ($node = db_fetch_object($result)) {
  $output .= node_view(node_load(array('nid' => $node->nid)), 1);
}

print $output;

?>

This ties into the variable used in the settings page for # of nodes on home page. This grabs sticky nodes and puts them at the top. It themes the nodes as well.