Book: having a hard time understanding its functionality

[iphoneclub]

I'm having a really hard time understanding how the namespace Book works. As of now the namespace Book (and other special namespaces) is/are a "subforum" of my main Wiki forum. I'm trying to achieve the following:

• Have a Book called 'Moderator Handbook'
• This book should appear as a direct link/subforum in the Staff forum
• This book may only be viewed by staff members with appropriate permissions

Creating the book is not so hard, but how do I make this available to my staff members only and preferably directly linked as subforum?

[pegasus]

There are currently two options. Depending on your existing forum setup, you may or may not be able to change forum permissions (option 1), so the second option involves using social groups.

1. 1. You'll need to have the permissions on the forum the chapters are in for staff only.
   2. Sometimes the Book (container) is in a separate forum from its chapters. If this is the case for you, you'll also need the permissions for the forum the book is in for staff only.
   3. You'll need to enter the URL as a Forum Link for the forum you want to be directly linked (in vBulletin's Forum Manager).
   , OR
2. 1. Setup a new usergroup as a generic Social Group Mask, and define it in VaultWiki: General Settings. Then, set staff permissions to be able to create groups that own wiki pages.
   2. You'll need to create a Social Group that only accepts members by invitation, and invite all your staff.
   3. In the Apply tab for every page in the book, set the group ownership to your Staff Social Group.
   4. In the Protect tab for every page in the book, set the page to deny access to non-group members.

[iphoneclub]

Option A sounds like the way to go for me, but I guess this also implies (for point A->B) any defined Book is limited to staff only? I was hoping the option 'Namespace Manager' > 'What special function will this namespace perform?' would allow us to assign this wiki subforum as a Book, but currently this option only shows a single radio button 'None'.

We don't use Social Groups much, so that probably isn't a viable option for me.

And thanks for the detailed explanation, I'm sure others benefit from this as well.

[pegasus]

The namespace itself doesn't count as one book. Instead, think of it as a bookshelf. Where each page in the book namespace's forum is a different book cover/title page/table of contents. The actual content (pages) in the book can be any page in any namespace. They can be added using the Book tab on the page you want to add.

If you only want the one book to be limited to staff, and still want the ability to have other public books, you'll need to create a sub-forum for the staff book to apply the permissions to, and then you'll need to move the book to it. If you don't plan on having other books, then just change the permissions as I described above.

[CedricFP]

I think that when using books, you should be able to add a page to the book by clicking a link on the book page itself, rather than booking an article that has already been completed.

This makes much more sense, logically, as the books articles will all have a relation.

[pegasus]

This is planned for the future: http://www.vaultwiki.org/issues/1354/