User Role Editor - Best User Role Plugin That Works Great for Beginner (Review 2021)
Making use of the WordPress user role management system is a great choice to improve your company website’s performance. Assigning your team to different user roles in WordPress will give them the freedom to explore and promote your website more within their scope. However, sometimes the default user roles by WordPress couldn’t meet your expectations.
That’s where User Role Plugins come to help!
Using the user role plugin, you are able to customize user roles to the utmost possibility. In this article, we will talk about one of the most popular user role plugins in WordPress, User Role Editor by Vladimir Garagulia.
Getting Started
User Role Editor is a WordPress plugin that helps you to alter user roles and powers. Simply check the capabilities you want to add to the selected role and save your changes by clicking the “Update” button. Using this plugin, you can create new roles and adapt their capabilities to meet your needs, either from scratch or as a clone of another position. Not only that, but you can also erase users where a self-made role is allocated.
User Role Editor allows you to do customization at maximum. Customizing default roles to be assigned to each newly formed user is possible. Meanwhile, the capabilities could be assigned to each individual user. A user could be allocated many roles at the same time.
You can add new capabilities and remove old ones that may have been leftover from uninstalled plugins. It also comes with multi-site support.
Read also: Understanding User Role in WordPress – A Way to Smooth WordPress WordPress’ Teams Workflow
What Is User Role Editor?
WordPress has a user role management system that defines what a specific user can and can’t do on the website. Each user has different roles and capabilities scope according to the WordPress user role they have been given by the website owner. With User Role Editor plugin, you are able to customize user roles to the utmost possibility. Moreover, it comes with all features you need to manage user roles for your business team.
What Are the Features of User Role Editor?
User Role Editor plugin offers all features needed to manage user roles, such as:
- Create new roles.
- Edit or rename existing roles.
- Clone existing roles.
- Manage capabilities.
- Allows you to add role capabilities.
- Change default user role.
- Add or Remove capabilities.
- Restore role.
- Assign multiple roles.
- Migrate users.
- Navigation menu permissions in basic.
- Widget permissions in basic.
- Login redirects basic.
What Are the Features of User Role Pro Version?
If you upgrade your plugin to the Pro version, you will get greater features by User Role Editor, including:
Admin Menu Editor
You can use this page to enable and disable admin menus for a certain role. However, if you want to disable that option for the selected role, uncheck the checkbox. The check box will be disabled and the menu will not appear if the position does not have the capability required by the menu.
There are color dot indicators: A green dot denotes that the selected role has the capacity, whereas an orange dot denotes that the selected role does not.
Besides that, you can filter or hide the menu. To filter the currently shown menu items based on their status, use the Hide deselected item(s) and Hide disabled item(s) checkboxes. The grid shows the menu’s name, needed capability, and menu slug, which WordPress uses to identify the menu.
Media Library Permissions
You may regulate user permissions on the Media Library using the Media/Attachment File Permissions capability. In order to control user permissions, the User Role Editor provides various custom capabilities. These additional features will be accessible through the Media box on the role add/edit page.
User-level Permissions
WordPress already provides the User Level Permissions capability to manage users’ permissions on your website. However, the User Role Editor adds various custom features to regulate the permissions of users. These additional features will be accessible through the Users box on the role add/edit page. The deprecated “level” capabilities are used to power these new capabilities.
Advanced Navigation Menu Permissions
You can establish rights for each navigation menu item using the navigation menu permissions functionality (front-end menu). You’ll notice several more fields within each menu item edit box while you’re on the menu editing page.
In these fields, you can set the permissions for that. The permission specifies which user will see the menu item.
Advanced Widget Permissions
The widget permissions feature allows you to customize which widgets appear on the front end based on the user type. You’ll notice some user restriction fields on the widget edit screen, which allow you to set the widget’s access.
Advanced Login Redirects
Use this feature to guide a user to a specific page based on their role once they login or log out. You can also deny the user Wp- access and remove the toolbar (admin bar) from the front end.
Post/Page Extended Permissions
This feature allows you to assign role-based permissions to each post/page on your website. This feature comes in handy when you want to keep specific posts/pages hidden from certain users. The following area appears underneath the post/page content editor when you create or edit a post/page.
Check the “Enable Role Permissions” check box to enable expanded permissions. To remove permissions, the Administrator role cannot be deselected.
Deselect the associated checkbox to revoke a user’s permission. To activate and disable a row of checkboxes or a column of checkboxes, use the choose all/select none checkboxes (first row and first column).
Some checkboxes will be disabled, so you won’t be able to pick or deselect them. The capability of the function is in charge of this. When a position does not have the ability to edit postings, for example, the edit check box is disabled for that role.
To hide a post/page from non-logged-in users, utilize the [Guest] role.
Disable Extended Permissions
Enable the ‘Disable Extended Permissions’ setting against a post type (built-in or custom) to disable extended permissions. If you are not utilizing extended permissions for a post type, it is advised that you activate this setting to avoid conflicts with other plugins.
Custom Post Type Permissions
You can use the plugin to establish capabilities for custom post kinds on your site. When you create a custom post type in WordPress, it defaults to using the “Posts” capability. That instance, if you create a custom post type called “Demo,” anyone with the ability to edit posts will also be able to modify demonstrations. It’s not possible to have one feature activated for post and another disabled for demo.
Some plugins allow you to create specific post kinds within your site, each with its own set of features. bbPress, for example, produces three custom post types. Forums, Topics, and Replies each have their own set of features. When a custom post type has its own capabilities, the plugin will include a section for it in the Add/Edit role screens (except in multisite screens, where custom post types aren’t loaded by default).
Content Restriction Shortcodes
Use the Content Restriction feature to limit what you can see. Shortcodes can be used to restrict some contents of a post/page based on user types.
Import/Export
This screen allows you to export your site’s roles and import them into another site or the same site. You may also use this feature to backup and restore your responsibilities.
Multisite support
This screen allows you to synchronize the network’s roles. You’ll choose a source site, then sync the roles to individual sites or the entire network.
Is User Role Editor Free?
Yes, there is a free version available for User Role Editor plugin. However, the plugin only provides you with the basic features necessary to manage WordPress user roles for your team. If you want to enjoy advanced features provided by User Role Editor, then you should upgrade to the Pro version.
How Much Does User Role Editor Cost?
The Pro version of User Role Editor will give you advanced features compared to the free version. There are 6 plans you can choose from:
Personal
- Costs $29 per year
- For 1 live copy
- 1 year of access to the new versions download and automatic updates
Business
- Costs $79 per year
- For up to 5 copies
- Get a year’s worth of access to new versions, downloads, and automatic upgrades
Unlimited
- Costs $159 per year
- For one year
- Get unrestricted access to new versions, downloads, and automatic upgrades
Personal Lifetime
- Costs $87 (one-time payment)
- For 1 active copy of the plugin
- You will get lifetime access to new versions, downloads, and automatic upgrades
Business Lifetime
- Costs $198 (one-time payment)
- For up to 5 copies of the plugin
- You will get lifetime access to new versions, downloads, and automatic upgrades
Unlimited Lifetime
- Costs $318 (one-time payment)
- For an infinite number of copies of the plugin
- You will get lifelong access to new version downloads and automatic upgrades
Why Should I Use User Role Editor?
User Role Editor can benefit you in many ways since WordPress user roles are significant to:
- Assist with the security of your WordPress site by ensuring that users don’t have access to information they shouldn’t. You don’t want an untrusted user to be able to install new plugins on your site, for example.
- Can aid in the creation of workflows. WordPress, for example, includes pre-built user roles that you can assign to authors on your site to limit their access to only the features they need to produce WordPress posts.
How to Use User Role Editor?
Pros
- Allow users to have multiple roles.
- Allow for the addition or removal of various skills for specific users.
- Can be combined with other user role plugins.
- Easy user interface.
Cons
- No grouped listings for all capabilities.
What Are the Alternatives to User Role Editor?
There are other User Role Plugins for WordPress that as your choice for User Role Editor alternatives. Additionally, you can also combine the User Role Editor with these plugins:
- Members – Membership-focused User Roles Plugin
- WPFront User Role Editor – Basic User Roles Plugin
- Advanced Access Manager (AAM) – allows you to have full control over your user roles.
- User Switching – allows you to swap between different WordPress user accounts with just a single click
Conclusion
You can use the User Role Editor plugin to build your own specialized roles, modify existing ones, and more. Clearly outlining each person’s job and responsibilities are crucial to managing an effective team. Thankfully, WordPress has a built-in solution for this. You may improve your site’s security and efficiency by carefully using WordPress user roles.
To begin, make sure you understand the five (or occasionally six) fundamental user roles in WordPress, as well as what each one can do. Then, to take advantage of this functionality, you can use a few basic strategies. Consider keeping your top-level user pool small, assigning only the permissions that are required, and customizing your roles with plugins.