What is a user role?
There are three kinds of default user roles in Drupal 7. These are the Admin, or Super User, the authenticated user, and the anonymous, or unauthenticated, user. Each of these roles have very different privileges within a Drupal 7 website.
| Role | Description |
|---|---|
| Admin | This is the most powerful of the user roles. The default Admin can perform any function in the Drupal 7 program and has all permissions enabled. This role has ultimate authority and it is advisable to only have one Admin user. |
| Authenticated | This is your normal, everyday visitor who has registered with the website. This role usually has very limited permissions, but typically more than the anonymous users. These users typically have all the permissions of the anonymous user, but can also publish comments on the site as well. |
| Anonymous | This user is the site visitor that has either not registered with the site, or has yet to log into their account. These users are typically very limited. In fact, the anonymous user can only view comments and published content, and use the site-wide contct form by default. |
Other roles – There are no other roles by default, but many different roles with various permissions can be created. These roles may fulfill different specific duties on the site without giving any particular group too much power. One popular custom role is that of moderator, which can publish, delete, and approve messages and comments. This user can even have the ability to ban other users if needed.
This class will walk you through creating and deleting users as well as changing different default permissions for user roles such as setting or disabling pictures. It will even walk you through creating new roles for your users to give greater diversification among your site visitors.