Viewing and managing users
To create, edit, delete users in Piwigo's administration, you need to click on Users > Manage in the left menu.
The first tab lists the users created in your Piwigo gallery and lets you perform a certain number of actions.
- Creating a user
- Searching for a user
- Editing a user
- Editing multiple users in bulk
- Editing the guest user (anonymous)
How do I create a new user in the administration?
To create a new user in Piwigo's administration, click on "Add a user" in the list of users: a window opens.
This window lets you set the following details for your user:
- username (ID that allows you to log into Piwigo)
- password (click on "generate a random password" to create a secure password)
If you select "Send connection settings by email", the person will receive an email as shown below with their login credentials.
By default, new users all have the same profile type:
- They have User status, meaning they can't log into the administration but only your web gallery;
- They inherit the same settings and preferences as the "Guest" user (which we talk about a bit later in this page).
However, once you have created a new user, you can edit it to customize its profile.
User Mass Register: creating users in bulk
If you want to create multiple users at once, you need to activate the User Mass Register plugin.
This plugin lets you create users in bulk from a list of email addresses. The users are created with the User status by default.
You can then edit these users in bulk using selection mode (see chapter: Editing users in bulk).
How to edit a user?
To edit a user from the user list, simply click on the pen-shaped icon to the left of the name in the user list. The selected user is highlighted using the orange color.
The user editing screen then opens.
This screen lets you edit many settings, options and preferences which will change the user experience on Piwigo. We are listing all of these settings in the chapter below.
What are the different user settings in Piwigo?
User properties
The user editing screen lets you edit the following elements:
Username
Click on the pen-shaped icon to edit it; the username then becomes editable.
Click on the orange icon to save the changes, or the gray cross to cancel.
Password
It is impossible to view a user's password for security reasons; however, an administrator can edit a user's password and thus reset it if it were to be forgotten. To do this, click on "Change password"; the password then becomes editable.
Click on the orange icon to save the changes, or the gray cross to cancel.
Email address
You can edit a user's email address from this window. Don't forget to click on "Update" to save the changes.
Status
You can edit a user's status, namely after its creation, to change it to Administrator, Generic, Webmaster…
To learn more about the roles and the rights associated with each status, read this article.
There are some limitations:
- The administrator that is logged in can't modify their own status
- It is impossible to change the status of the first user of the Piwigo account: they will always be Webmaster.
Privacy level
By default, privacy levels aren't used in Piwigo. You can therefore ignore this setting, except if you have a very specific need.
Learn more about privacy levels
Group
You can associate a user with one or more existing groups from the user editing window.
Allow download
Check this box if you allow a user to download the original version of a photo in your gallery.
If you uncheck this option, the user will be able to view photos in the gallery, but the download icon will be hidden.
User preferences
Preferences change the Piwigo gallery's appearance depending on the users.
You can edit them in the administration when you edit a user. Each user can also edit them themselves when they are logged into the gallery, by clicking on the "Customize" menu.
Lastly, you can edit the preferences of a list of users in bulk by using Selection mode (see chapter Editing users in bulk).
Here are some details about the existing preferences in Piwigo.
Photos per page / Number of thumbnails per page
This is the number of photos shown on a page in the gallery (on an album's page for example). By default, this number is set to 15, which means that beyond 15 photos on a page, page links will be displayed. You can increase or decrease this number.
Theme
In most cases, Piwigo galleries only use one theme. This setting is therefore not to be edited. It is only useful if you have installed multiple themes in your gallery, and you want to display different themes depending on the user.
Language
In each gallery, a default language is set, but you can install several of them.
This way, this setting lets you choose which language will be used for Piwigo's interface for a given user, among the languages activated in the gallery.
Recent period
This is the photos' display period when the user clicks on the "Recent photos" menu in your gallery. This period, set to 7 days by default, can be edited.
Expand all albums
By default, this option is deactivated, which makes the Albums menu in the gallery only list root albums (not sub-albums).
If you select this option, the menu will show the entire tree structure.
Show number of hits
This option lets you display the number of visits of each photo under the thumbnail on listing pages in the web gallery.
Show number of comments
This option lets you display the number of comments of each photo under the thumbnail on listing pages in the web gallery.
How to see a user's history?
The user editing screen shows several useful details:
- Creation date
- Date of last login
These dates are displayed in the bottom left corner of the window.
Visit history
The "Visit history" button lets you open this user's visit history. This lets you see which albums have been viewed, which photos have been viewed and downloaded.
Learn more about the visit history
Administrator activity
To view the detailed history of all actions of a user in the administration, you need to go to the Activity tab in the Users page.
Learn more about the activity history
Editing user permissions on albums
In Piwigo, we can set whether an album is private or public. If it is private, then only authorized users will be able to see it in the gallery.
To learn more about album permissions, read this article.
From a user editing window, you can view and edit the albums they are allowed to view.
To do this, click on "Permissions".
The screen then opens as a window listing private albums:
- on the left, the ones the user is allowed to view
- on the right, the ones they aren't allowed to view.
To edit which albums the user has access to, simply move them from one column to the other by clicking on the arrows.
Searching for a user
The user list lets you perform a search to easily find a user if you have a lot of them.
A search engine lets you find a user through its username. Type a few letters in the search engine: the list is automatically updated.
You can also click on the Filters button to show search criteria.
You can filter the user list by:
- Status (Webmaster, Administrator, Visitor…)
- Privacy level
- Group
- Registration date (user creation)
Editing users in bulk
Do you need to apply changes to a selection of users?
To do this, simply click on the "Selection mode" button from the user list, on the right of the screen.
Once selection mode has been activated, you can select users you want to edit: they appear in a list on the right of the screen, one after the other. In the event of a mistake, you can remove a user from the selected list by clicking on the cross next to its name.
At the top of the screen, the buttons named The whole page / The whole set / None / Invert allow you to go faster with the selection if you have a lot of users to manage.
- Clicking on "The whole page" adds all users visible on screen to your selection list
- Clicking on "The whole set" adds all users of your Piwigo gallery to your selection list
- Clicking on "None" empties your selection list
- Clicking on "Invert" adds all users to the selection, except the ones currently selected.
Once your user selection is done, click on the action of your choice:
- Delete selected users
- Associate to group / dissociate from group
- Allow download
- Privacy level
- Edit preferences (number of photos per page, theme, language, recent period, expand all albums, show number of hits)
Editing the guest user
The user management page lets you edit the guest user.
The "guest" user corresponds to the profile of anonymous visitors of the gallery, who are viewing it without being logged into Piwigo.
To edit the anonymous visitors rights and preferences, click on "Edit guest user".
This will open a window that resembles the user editing window.
This way, you can customize the rights for anonymous visitors of your Piwigo gallery as well as the appearance of your gallery for these visitors.
Allowing or disallowing account creation for gallery visitors
Depending on the way you use your Piwigo gallery, you can accept or refuse that users create an account themselves.
For example :
- Companies and organizations that manage a private photo library with Piwigo don't want a person from outside the company to be able to create an account: users are always created by an administrator.
- Some organizations (tourist offices, for example) allow authorized people (journalists, partners, schools...) to create an account on their photo library to access copyright-free images, but they want this account creation to be approved by an administrator.
- Other photo library managers make part of their content available to the public, but want users to create an account before accessing the gallery, to better understand how their content is used and collect data about the people who are interested.
This way, Piwigo lets you set the rules of your photo library in terms of account creation by visitors.
To do this, go to the administration, in the Configuration > Options menu, in the Permissions section.
One option is offered: Allow user registration.
Selecting this option will show a "Register" link in your gallery, allowing a user to fill out a form to create an account in your gallery.
The associated option to "Email admins when a new user registers" makes it so that every time a person creates an account on your gallery, the administrators will receive an email. This way, they will be able to verify that the person is authorized to register, and to grant them the desired permissions, add them to a group, etc.
You can choose to notify all administrators when creating a new account, or only the members of a group.
Add User Note: Adding a comment to a user
To add a note or a comment to a user, you can activate the Add User Note plugin.
This plugin adds a Notes field in the user editing window.
To enter text, click on the pen-shaped icon: an input field appears to enter text.
When a note has been entered on a user, an icon appears next to its name in the list.
By hovering the mouse over this icon, you will be able to read the note.
User Custom Fields: Adding custom fields to users
You can create custom fields associated with users.
To do this, you need to activate the User Custom Fields plugin.
The benefit of this plugin is that it allows you to request additional information from people who are registering on your gallery (when you have activated this feature). The additional fields can be mandatory or not.
In the example below, we have added the "City" field in the gallery's registration form.
When this plugin is activated, a "Custom fields" button appears on the user editing window.
Clicking on this button lets you view and edit the custom fields’ content.
Crypto Captcha: Preventing the creation of fake users
To prevent robots from creating fake users in your gallery, you can install the Crypto Captcha plugin.
This plugin forces users to enter a Captcha before creating an account. This Captcha can also be added to the comment posting form.
Several options are available to set up your Captcha.
Article summary
- Viewing and managing users
- How do I create a new user in the administration?
- User Mass Register: creating users in bulk
- How to edit a user?
- What are the different user settings in Piwigo?
- User properties
- User preferences
- How to see a user's history?
- Visit history
- Administrator activity
- Editing user permissions on albums
- Searching for a user
- Editing users in bulk
- Editing the guest user
- Allowing or disallowing account creation for gallery visitors
- Add User Note: Adding a comment to a user
- User Custom Fields: Adding custom fields to users
- Crypto Captcha: Preventing the creation of fake users
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