We’ve been writing more and more custom plugins lately as we develop sites based on WordPress as a platform. When possible, we are giving those back to the WordPress development community.
Our first released plugin is Manage Tags Capability. This plugin is perfect for blogs with multiple contributing users that need to limit lower-level writers, like authors or contributors, to tags set by administrators or editors.
Why do you need Manage Tags Capability?
By default, WordPress allows any user to add any tag they want to their posts. This could lead to your site having a large database of tags with only one or two posts associated with them. Also, if you aren’t constantly monitoring the tags used on your site, you could find that your authors have used inappropriate tags.
Manage Tags Capability solves these issues by removing the form field for adding tags and replacing it with a checkbox list of all existing tags for specific user levels.
How does Manage Tags Capability work?
Manage Tag Capability limits managing and adding tags to only those user roles with the built-in manage_categories capability. By default, this is editors and admins. Their process is unchanged. For all other roles, the default tag box will be replaced with a checkbox list of existing tags (similar to the category checkboxes) when adding or editing posts.
As a side benefit, users without manage_categories capability will have all existing tags exposed to them. By default, WordPress only allows you to choose from the most used tags. Manage Tags Capability lists all existing tags in its checkbox list, exposing all potential tags to users without manage_categories ability.
Easy Installation
- Download the Manage Tags Capability file.
- Unzip and upload the folder to your wp-content/plugins directory.
- Activate the plugin from your WordPress Admin > Plugins menu.
Set Up
There are currently no settings for Manage Tags Capability. Once the plugin is activated, it will modify the tags menu on posts for users without manage_categories ability.
To modify the default settings for the manage_categories ability, you can add a plugin like Capabilities Manager to turn the manage_categories capability on and off for specific user levels.
Enjoy!
If you find this plugin useful, please let us know. Even better, please rate it in the WordPress Plugin Directory.
I have uploaded, installed and activated this plug-in and nothing happened. I can not see it on my edit/new post page on WP 2.9.1. It’s the default WP “post tags”.
I have cleared cache…CNTL F5 and SHFT Refresh, logged out and logged back in…nothing.
I am also using Firefox 3.6 but it’s not there in IE either.
Any suggestions? I desperately need tag management.
Debbie — Thank you for checking out our plugin.
I suspect you might only be seeing the admin view of the plugin. It does not look any different than the regular WordPress view of tags for admins or editors.
What is affected are the Author and Contributor views. Those are the users that are restricted and their post pages contain tag boxes that look like the screenshot above.
I hope this helps. If you continue to have problems, let us know and we’ll see if we can figure out the cause.
Yes…I set up a new user as an author and the menu is there. As an admin, how can I see the same check box menu?
Thanks you
I understand what you’re trying to do, but you must have a user level that can edit tags. As such, you should not remove the capability from the Admin user.
If you want to modify the capabilities on the Editor level, you can install the Capability Manager plugin and remove the “manage_categories” capability from the Editor. If you remove it from the Admin, you won’t be able to manage any tags at all on your site.
OK Thanks. I only have two people that post. Both are admin levels.
Thanks
Is it possible do this plugin compatible with Simple tags?