The Joomla publishing account and its permissions

Joomla decides who may do what. Content Uploader therefore does not act as itself: it acts as one Joomla account that you choose when you connect, and Joomla checks that account's permissions for every article, category, tag, custom field and image, exactly as it would for a person using the administration. Nobody needs to sign in with that account.

Which account to choose#

On the connection screen, Publish as lists the unblocked users who may create articles in at least one published category, by name and username. Members of the Super User group are listed too and marked Super User. If more than 100 accounts qualify, a search box (Find an account) searches by name, username or email.

A dedicated account is safer. A Super User passes every permission check, so a Super User account lets a mistaken mapping write anywhere. A dedicated account, for example a user named Content Uploader in the Publisher group, can only do what that group may do. Publishers may create, edit and publish articles and add categories, tags and images.

If no account qualifies, the screen says No account may create articles yet. Add a user to a group that may, such as Publisher, then return to this screen. Create the user in Users → Manage → New (it never has to sign in), add it to the Publisher group, and return.

Who may connect#

Only users who may manage extensions can connect the site, choose or change the publishing account, reconnect or disconnect. By default that is only Super Users. A user who may only open the connection screen sees Only users who may manage extensions can connect this site or choose the account it publishes as. By default, only Super Users may manage extensions. Group permissions for the connector are under Components → Content Uploader Connector → Options → Permissions: Access Administration Interface lets a group open the screen, but connecting still needs permission to manage extensions.

What the account needs#

Content Uploader checks each of these before it sends an item, so a missing permission is reported in the review and not as a failure after you approve. Whatever the account may not do is simply not offered in the configuration editor.

A few consequences:

• Status. Without Edit State, only Unpublished is offered, and a cell saying Published is a check error. If workflows are switched on for articles, Status and Featured are not offered at all; new articles start in the workflow's default stage.
• Authors. Created by is offered only when the publishing account may manage users. Joomla's own article form ignores the author for everyone else, so offering it would silently do nothing. Without it, articles are created by the publishing account.
• Custom fields. Joomla's fields plugin saves values without checking the permission itself, so Content Uploader checks it: a field the account may not edit is reported before publishing and is not silently dropped. A field whose access level (or its group's) the account does not have is left out of Joomla's article form for that account, so it is not offered either; both are listed in the editor with the reason (Joomla custom fields).
• Moving an article to another category also needs Create permission in that category, as in the article form.

The connection screen puts the same reminders beside the Publish as list: To write custom fields, the account's group also needs Edit Custom Field Value in Articles: Options → Permissions. To set article authors from a column, it needs Access Administration Interface in Users: Options → Permissions.

If the account stops working#

Every request checks that the account still exists, is not blocked and may still create articles. If not, publishing stops with a message such as This account is blocked or may no longer create articles, so publishing fails. Choose another account and reconnect. (shown on the connection screen) or An account that no longer exists. Choose another account and reconnect. The review and the Sites page show the matching error.

Changing the account#

1. Open Components → Content Uploader Connector.
2. Choose another account under Publish as.
3. Select Reconnect, continue to Content Uploader and approve the same workspace again. The site is recognised as the one that was connected before: mappings, history and what was published stay, and it does not count as a new site.

Articles that were already published keep the author they have; their Modified by becomes the new account the next time they are updated.

Where changes show up on the site#

Joomla records the publishing account as the one who created or modified each article, and keeps a content history version of every save with the version note Content Uploader. That is how site administrators can see what Content Uploader changed and when.