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Hi, I need more access levels for my project. I want to build a teaching website, that only lets members at a specified level, to access content designed for that level of student.

Most of the Access level extensions are either way too complicated, don't work or are no longer in (under)development. So as someone newish to Joomla, should I hack the core files, or do would experienced Joomla developers advice a different method that works as well?

I have looked at the ACL and other respective tables in the database, but it would be nice to have access to documentation, on the tables' columns functions and respective PHP files that manipulate them.

Appreciate any help, thanks.

The ACL in Joomla is a difficult issue to fiddle with...
In Joomla 1.5, they haven't upgraded the ACL even though this was an often asked plea... the reason was that this would break compatibility with Joomla 1.0.x ... and with plenty of extensions that are developed for it.

As much as I like Joomla... I'd suggest you looking into Moodle for a learning environment...

Eventually, have a look at the following forum entry for more details on bridging Moodle into Joomla:
http://forum.joomla.org/index.php?topic=38756.15

For 1.0 or 1.5 take a look at JACL from byostech, works fine over here.
For 1.5 a new addition is being developed named ROKacl, still waiting for that to be released...

Alfred

I'm very skeptical of even trying to load JACL, many people have written comments that it doesn't work, besides it's a hack and if there is any hacking going to be done on my system, I want to be the one doing the hacking, at least I know what I did.

Re: Jusrgentje's post, Because Joomla developers have not listened to the overwhelming number of Joomla users, and there desire to have better ACL and more flexible content categorisation included within the CORE DEVELOPMENT, is why I'm going to build this particular site with Drupal, as it doesn't have these inherent weaknesses (even if it isn't as user friendly).

Hey ICEcoffee...

I guess that's cool. Drupal defenitely has its strengths... For version 2.0 of Joomla, they are planning to implement a better ACL and content organisation (that's what I heard on some Joomla Juice podcast anyway) ... but off course... by the time Joomla 2.0 is up and running... you're tutorial site won't wait for that 

And I completely second you on the JACL idea... I'm not very eager of trying it out either, concidering all the remarks to be read on the Joomla extension page. I guess I'll be choosing to live with a little bit of crippleness...

I fully understand your reluctance to hack joomla by installing something like JACL, and I was also disappointed to find out that 1.5 lacked better ACL.
I never regretted installing JACL however because it has worked flawless over here for over a year now and I really needed those extra levels.

Good luck with your site.