One of the big new features released originally in Joomla! 1.6,
which carries into Joomla! 3.0,
is ACL, or Access Control Lists.
ACL is all about who can see different content on the Web site,
as well as who can create and change which content on the Web site.
You'll here this frequently referred to as permissions.
You can see permissions popping up in operating systems like Linux, and Windows,
as well as in software systems in work environments.
ACL is a very complicated and in depth topic. It's also very much beyond the
scope of this course, as it's advanced.
In this course, Joomla! 3.0:
Essential Training, I am going to focus on the default ACL features with Joomla! 3.0.
If you would like to learn more about ACL, I encourage you to watch Joomla!
1.7 and 2.5: Access Control Lists in Depth.
Now, obviously this course was recorded using a different version of Joomla,
and the arrangement of things on the screen is somewhat different in terms
of the administrators, interface, and where you go to find certain pieces of information.
However, the fundamental way you go through the process to set up ACL has
not changed in Joomla! 3.
So the interfaces are different, but the procedures, and the things you click
on, and the things you configure are really the same between the two versions of Joomla.
So you should be able to still use this course to set up ACL for your Joomla! 3.0 Web sites.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with leaving permissions exactly as they are
set up in the default, which is what we're going to do through this chapter.
For small Web sites, where you may have one person, or a handful of people
maintaining the Web site, it's likely you won't even need ACL at all.
If you're working on a much larger Web site, where you have many contributors, ACL
may be really helpful. Throughout Joomla,
you'll see tabs in various configuration screens for permissions.
This has to do with ACL.
I recommend you stay away from changing these screens until you have a better
understanding of what you're doing.
Remember, just because you can doesn't mean you should. For now, let's
concentrate on understanding ACL's default configuration in the upcoming videos.