User volume access and privileges

As a Xinet administrator, it is up to you to decide how individuals or groups interact with Xinet volumes. This can be done on a volume by volume basis for each user, if you choose. You’ll use the Volumes/Users, User Volumes subtab to set up this kind of access.

The following topics are provided in this section:

•	Summary of volume access

•	Giving a user Web access to a volume

•	Deny a user access to a Xinet volume

Summary of volume access

To review volume access settings for a given user, click Volumes/Users > User Volumes > Summary and then select a user from the Volumes for pop-up list.

Summary of volume access for a user

Two types of Web-accessed volumes exist:

•	User volumes Web volumes with or without a subdirectory restriction, assigned to a particular user or group on a volume by volume basis. You are likely to allow users varying degrees of access to and give different privileges for individual volumes.

•	Global volumes Web volumes to which every user automatically has equal access.

(You can also configure direct, non-Web-based access to volumes, as described in Setting up Xinet Volumes.)

Giving a user Web access to a volume

To establish the folders or subdirectories of a volume to which a new user has access:

1.	Click on the Volumes/Users Volumes, New Volumes tab, then select the user name in the Volumes for pop-up menu.

2.	Select a System Web Volume from the pop-up list, and optionally, select an existing subfolder and/or create a new one to which you want to restrict this user’s access.

Fill-in User and Volume information using popup lists, check boxes or typing, as described below.Configuring a user’s permissions for Xinet access to a volume

• User: This two-tiered pop-up list allows you to choose the customer or user to whom you will give access to the volume.

• System Web volume: This pop-up list allows you to choose the Web volume to which you’re giving the user access. The pop-up list you see here contains all the volumes on the server upon which Xinet has been enabled. You can constrain access to a given subdirectory if you want. (See File system organization for Xinet for ideas about organizing your file system.)

System Web Volumes are originally established through the Volumes/Users, System Volume, New System Volumes page on the server. If you don't find the volume you’re looking for in the pop-up list of System Web Volumes, you need to return to this New System Volumes page and establish a new System Web Volume there.

• Sub-Folder: This is optional. In some cases you may want to limit a customer’s access to a subdirectory or folder within a volume. You can do so by using the pop-up list. You may go as deep as you want, for example, a subdirectory within a subdirectory and may create new sub-folders at will. The GUI displays the current path beneath the pop-up list. This path is interactive, meaning you can click on any segment within it for faster file system navigation.

• User Volume Name: What you type here establishes the name of the volume or subdirectory that the user will see on the Web when he or she goes to your Web site.

3.

Using the bottom portion of the GUI, establish permissions for Xinet volume access. What you see as default settings depends on previously-established volume permissions. Xinet tries to make setting volume permissions as easy as possible by remembering earlier choices and applying rules in the following order:

a.	If they exist, Xinet will use the most-recently-established permissions for a selected user or group.

b.	If it is a user or group without previously-established permissions, Xinet will copy the settings that were most-recently assigned to a user or group.

c.	If volume permissions have never been configured on the server, Xinet will provide its own default settings.

d.	You may, of course, permanently override initial Xinet default settings.

The permission settings fall into six categories which include:

Image Previews

• Small Preview: This determines whether or not users will see small previews of images. Small previews are, at most, 112 pixels in either horizontal or vertical orientation. These are the previews which, by default, users see in Xinet’s Short View. Without Small Previews, images must be identified by custom-icon previews or possibly 72-dpi previews.

• 72 DPI Preview: This determines whether you allow users to view “large” previews of images. The 72-dpi preview is useful for customers who wish to download Web-ready images for use on their own web sites. You may want to turn this feature off if you wish to charge customers for Web-ready images.

File Views

• No icon view: This determines whether or not users, when browsing, can view files in Xinet using the icon format. Icon View shows files and folders together, with a Macintosh-style icon displayed for each item. For images, a custom icon will be generated from the image data. For non-images, the icon will be the icon of the application that created the document. Clicking on an icon will bring up more information about the file. Clicking on a folder will display the contents of that folder in the browser.

• No short view: This determines whether or not users, when browsing, can view files in Xinet using the Short View format. In the short view, all subfolders of the current folder will be displayed first, with an icon next to them. Clicking on the folder name will display the contents of that folder in the browser. Following the folder listing is a table of the files in the folder. The file’s name appears first in each table entry. If available, there will be a 112x112 pixel preview. If not, the icon for the application that created the file will be displayed. Below the image, there will be a set of icons representing actions described above. Which icons are displayed will depend on the permissions given to the user who is connected.

• No long view: This determines whether or not users, when browsing, can view files in Xinet using the Long View format. In the Long View, the display will start with a listing of folders preceded by the icon. Following that will be a detailed listing of each file, including a 112x112 pixel preview. The contents of the listing are identical to the information presented in the information window, with the exception that you will not be able to change keywords. You may also add items to your Collection when viewing files this way.

Default View

• Icon view default: This setting means that the Xinet user will see information in the Icon View format, by default, when beginning a Xinet session.

• Short view default: This setting means that the Xinet user will see information in the Short View format, by default, when beginning a Xinet session.

• Long view default: This setting means that the Xinet user will see information in the Long View format, by default, when beginning a Xinet session.

File Information

• Show Dates: This determines whether or not information appears about the time when the image was last accessed, last modified, and created.

• Show Comments: This determines whether or not users will see the Comments field in image information windows and Xinet’s Long View mode. All Xinet users will see Comments, unless you choose to suppress them.

• Edit Comments: This determines whether you will allow Xinet users to add to, or change, the information which appears in the Comments field of the information window, in Long View, and in the-I dialog box.

• Edit Data Fields: This determines whether or not users can edit Xinet data fields. When enabled, it overrides a conflicting Editable setting in the Permission Set.

• Show FPO Info: By default, each Xinet FPO includes information about itself and its corresponding high-resolution image. You may wish to suppress this information if customers are not interested in FPOs or you do not want to reveal information about the high-resolution images.

• Show History: This option only works in conjunction with the database. Turn on this option if you want a Xinet user to be able to view a detailed history of what has happened to a particular file on the server.

When the option is “on,” a Detailed History button appears in Xinet Information windows. Clicking that button displays the detailed history of the particular file, including information about the actions performed on it, the dates when they occurred, the users who performed them and the users’ IP addresses.

• Show Versions: This Xinet version management option works in conjunction with the Xinet makeversion Action described in makeversion. It allows remote viewers to see the various versions of files in a Web browser, change which of those versions is considered to be the “current” version for production use and download versions.

Be sure that you have also turned on File Management. Show Versions will not work, otherwise. Also, you must enable the database on the volume for this feature to work with archived versions of files.

• Show Linked Files: The linked files viewer allows Xinet users to find and see previews of all the documents in which a selected image has been used, even when that file has been archived. It provides a visual summary about link information stored in the database. By default, when engaged, it will allow the mview CGI to display all levels of linked child and parent files, and, optionally, may effect how child locks will be applied when the Xinet Portal Asset Timer module has been engaged.

Xinet database must be enabled on the volume where the images of interest reside.The linked files viewer operates on InDesign files saved with the Xinet plug-in enabled, and on PDFs that have been generated with the Annotator (Interactive PDF) plug-in in place or that have been produced using Xinet so that they contain OPI comments. It also shows links in PSD files in which each image resides in its own layer.

The multi-level linked file option will also influence how child locks will be applied when the Xinet Portal module, Asset Timer, is in use. For more information, please refer to the section below, About multi-level linked files..

Portal

The Show Gallery View option allows users to review visual snapshots of assets while browsing through the directory structure in the Portal browser window. This option can be set for individual user volumes or set for all volumes for a selected site.

To enable this option per user volume, click Volumes/Users > User Volumes and from the Volumes for drop down menu, select a user. The Summary page displays a list of volumes available for this user. Select a user volume to apply this option to and enable the check box Show Gallery View.

To enable this option for all volumes for a particular site, click Portal > Edit > Site Manager and click the edit icon for a Site Name. The Configuration page is displayed. Scroll down to the Display Options section and enable Show Gallery view button.

The following icon is then displayed in Portal Exhibit theme.

File Permissions

These check boxes allow you to give Xinet users access to and/or permission to manipulate files on the server. Permissions for downloading files have been broken out in a separate pop-up list that appears just below these options:

• Collection: This determines whether customers can use the “Collection” feature and its plug-ins for batch downloading and/or conversion of files.

• Custom Image Order: Turning on this feature allows customers to download images scaled to the size/format they need for a particular purpose. The server keeps track of these activities in its Xinet Access Log. Web Access logs provides information about looking at logs of custom-ordered images.

• Allow Uploads: This determines whether or not a customer can use Xinet to place files on the server. For example, a customer might download FPOs, place them in a InDesign document, and then want to put the document on the server for approval and production. The customer may type in the name of the file or use the Browse button to point to the file. In many cases, you will want to set up a separate volume for uploads. Please note that this option needs to be on if you intend to have clients use Uploader applications to upload files to the volume.

• File Management: This option, when “on,” allows end-users to create folders inside their Xinet volumes, move, rename and delete files and folders.

• Show Archives: This determines whether or not you allow users to see and search for archived files.

• Show All Files: Without this checked, a user will only see image files.

What’s considered an image file? Xinet will consider any file for which it makes FPOs to be an image file. If you turn off FPO generation for any type of file (see Fine tuning preview generation), Xinet will not consider those files to be images and will not, therefore, show them unless you also engage this option.

Download Permissions

These options allow you to specify the kinds of files each user may download from the Xinet server. The pop-up list contains combinations of various sorts of files to be found on the server. Files fall into one of the three following categories:

• High-resolution image files include any file for which the Xinet server generates FPOs

• Other high-resolution files not classified as images include files for which the Xinet server does not generate FPOs, for example, page layout program files and spread sheets.

The files that Xinet includes in this classification (and the next one too) depends on to how you have configured your Xinet server. InDesign layout files, for which FPOs are never generated, will always fit into this class, as will files such as Excel spreadsheets and Word documents for which FPOs are not generated. PDF files and “Vector” EPS files, on the other hand, may or may not fall into the group, depending on whether or not you have decided to produce FPOs for them.

If you would like to check your settings for a volume, select that volume from the Volume/Users, System Volumes, Preview Settings options. Look at settings for:

– Don’t make FPOs for “Vector” EPS files

– Don’t make FPOs for PDF files

– Don’t make FPOs from TIFF files with spot or mask channels

– Don’t make FPOs from native-JPEG files

– Don’t make FPOs from Raw Camera/GIF/ArtPro CTs

• FPOs includes all files for which FPOs have been generated.

The combinations in the Download Permissions pop-up list include:

• Download All Files: This option allows the user to download all files on the specified Xinet volume.

• Download All Files Except Hi-Res Images: This will allow the user to download FPOs, layout files and other files for which FPOs aren’t generated. Keep in mind that Custom Image Order will not work properly without the ability to download high resolution images.

• Download Non-Image Files and Low-Res Video: This allows users to download non-image files such as page layout files and spreadsheets, and low-resolution video files.

• Download Non-Image Files: This allows users to only download non-image files such as page layout files and spreadsheets.

• Download All Files Except FPOs: This setting allows the user to download high-resolution images but not their corresponding FPOs. The user will also be able to download many other kinds of files, such as InDesign, Excel, etc., for which the Xinet server does not create FPOs.

• Download All Files Except FPOs and Low-Res Video: This setting limits the user from downloading FPOs and low-resolution video files.

• Download FPOs only: With this setting, a user can only download FPOs from the Xinet server.

• Disable downloads: This setting means that the user will not be able to download files of any type from the Xinet server.

4.	Once you have finished configuring the volume attributes for the user, submit the form by clicking the Submit button. You will have to do this for each user volume you wish to create.

Deny a user access to a Xinet volume

Denying access to a volume to which a user previously had permission to see is straightforward. Don’t worry if you delete access to a volume by accident while you’re at it. You’re not deleting any files from the server; you’re only removing a user’s access to files in that volume via the Web. You can easily re-establish access by republishing the volume.

Remove access privileges to a volume

1.	Select the Volumes/Users, User Volumes, Summary tab.

2.	Select the user name in the Volumes for pop-up menu. A list of volumes to which the selected user has previously been given access will appear.

3.	Click the Delete Volume icon associated with the volume.

About multi-level linked files

The multi-level linked files option will be engaged, by default, on the Xinet server, which means that any time you engage the Show Linked Files option on a volume, as described on Giving a user Web access to a volume, the mview CGI will display all levels of linked child and parent files. When the multi-level linked files option is off, only a single level of links will be displayed.

The state of multi-level linked files depends on the MultiLevelLinkedFiles setting in the Xinet database. To see the current setting, use the MySQL command:

mysql> SELECT * FROM SEARCHENGINESETTINGS WHERE SettingName = "MultiLevelLinkedFiles";

If for some reason multi-level links have been disabled and you would like to re-engage them, use the following command:

mysql> REPLACE INTO SEARCHENGINESETTINGS (SettingName,SettingValue) VALUES ("MultiLevelLinkedFiles",1);

Alternatively, if you would like to disengage the option, in the command above, change ("MultiLevelLinkedFiles",1) to ("MultiLevelLinkedFiles",0).

4.	The multi-level linked file option will also influence how child locks will be applied when the Xinet Portal module, Asset Timer, is in use. For more information, please refer to the Xinet Xinet Portal Administration Guide.