Hi, Access 2.4.2 has been released and is available in your account downloads area. Please update to the latest version and confirm the issue has been resolved satisfactorily.
Hi Christian,
Back from holidays I just updated all toolset plugins and tested the new Access 2.4.2.
It is effectively not showing previous and next links to not accessible posts, but it was not exactly what I was expecting:
Let's say in a list of 10 posts, nbr 1,4,5,6,9 are only accessible to limited users. Then when browsing post n°1 they see no link for navigation, same for post n°9. While for post n°5 they will see links to post n°4 (previous) and to n°6 (next).
Instead I would have expected to see:
post n°1: no previous, next (n°4)
post n°4: prev (n°1), next (n°5)
post n°5: prev (n°4), next (n°6)
post n°6: prev (n°5), next (n°9)
post n°9: prev (n°6), no next.
Actually, with the 2.4.2, the link navigation cannot be used even though it protects not accessible posts from being seen through previous/next links (at least it is safer!).
But I have to disable posts navigation because when access is not granted, links to next/previous accessible posts are not displayed and then user must go back to the list of posts. This is not a very nice user experience...
Is it possible to have a navigation based only on accessible links?
e.g. if user has full access, navigation links should be 1<->2<->3<->4<->5<->6<->7<->8<->9<->10
if user has limited access, navigation links should be 1<->4<->5<->6<->9
Thank you for your feedback.
Kind regards,
Christophe
I see what you mean, it would be great to show the next and previous links, skipping over any restricted posts. I will reach out to our developers again and see what the expected behavior should be, and if the desired behavior is possible. Sorry for the misunderstanding here.
Hi it turns out that the expected behavior now hides the link instead of linking to the next available post in sequence. I will pass your feedback along to our developers and file a feature request for your desired behavior. I think it makes sense, so hopefully this is a feature request they can implement. I'll keep you posted as I hear more information about this.
OK Thanks.
Waiting for your feedback.
Hi, I'm assigning this ticket to Mohammed, our support team leader and Access developer liaison. He will be responsible for following this request and updating up with you here in the forums. He will update you here when he has more information to share.
Hi Christophe,
Thank you for raising this. I will discuss your request with the developers and let you know the decision.
Thanks.
Hi, Mohammed and I just had a discussion with the Access development team about the possibility of implementing a change to our software that will show the next available post in sequence. The main problem we see is in performance, and for large sites we believe that any solution in the current system will result in unacceptable load times.
As it is currently designed, Access checks several criteria to determine if a specific post should be visible to a user. It first gets the full post object, then it looks for a custom field that is used to define a post group, it looks at the post type and type restrictions, if WPML is in place it checks some translation information, and so on. Each of these checks requires one or more database queries.
When determining the next and previous links to show on a post, first Access must query all posts and find the next one in sequence. Then, it must apply the criteria checks I mentioned above to determine whether or not the next post is visible to the current user. If so, fine. It shows the next post. If not, then the system must submit another query, and possibly another query, and possibly another query, over and over until it finds an available post. In large sites, this type of looped introspective query becomes a serious performance problem, and can cause site load delays or even crashes while the system searches through posts over and over.
Improvements to this system would require a significant change to core Access code, which probably would not be available in a reasonable time frame for your needs. We can continue to discuss this as a team for future work, but I wanted to let you know that a short-term solution that includes the next and previous sequence links isn't likely to be coming soon, based on the discussion we've had so far.
Hi Christian,
Thank you for this detailed explanation, this is fair to say that you don't have the capability to handle this issue in a reasonable time frame. And for sure performance is a key requirement in web applications.
Therefore I have no other choice than wait and expect you'll introduce the necessary changes in a very next release!
Should I leave this thread open or how do you handle this kind of situation?
Kind regards,
Christophe
The protocol here is to close this ticket for now. If I receive any direct information about changes to Access that will support this functionality, I will update the ticket with that information. You can also follow our blog for updates about features that are being planned.
I apologize, I was given inaccurate information about this and my previous post was incorrect. The fix for this issue was not included in the most recent Access release. Sorry for the confusion!
OK Christian,
I effectively tested yesterday the new Access release and couldn't find the fix, so I'll wait for the next release.
But I see the thread is still marked as fixed in next release... so it is wrong!
Kind regards,
Christophe
Our developers have confirmed that the fix will be included in Access 2.4.3.2, the next release that will be available for Access. For that reason, I will leave this ticket marked "Fixed in next release".
Hi Christian,
Thanks for the notification. I'll wait for Access 2.4.3.2 and test the fix.
Kind regards,
Christophe
Hi, Access 2.4.3.2 is now available and includes a feature to show the correct next and previous links. Please update and let us know if the solution isn't working as expected. Thanks for your patience!
