Real-time collaboration: Permissions

[ingeniumed]

With real-time collaboration being developed for inclusion in WordPress 7.0, it's important to figure out how permission handling would work within the existing capabilities and permissions system.

One option is to introduce a custom capability that's then mapped into the edit_post capability with the option of a filter to customise this implementation. Would this make sense, or are there concerns with this approach that aren't easily visible?

We also need to explore and design when a user has permission to edit a post, but not to collaboratively edit. At the moment, they receive no error or indication of why collaboration is not working.

[smithjw1]

Based on about a dozen customer conversations, I don’t think we need a new permission. What I have seen is that a post can enter states where collaboration should be unavailable, most notably in the moments before publication. This could affect any user, regardless of role.

This is in contrast to how the Classic Editor works. That plugin lets you set a default editor by user, and on the surface, it is an analog.

The key difference is that in a collaborative environment, your permissions interact with those of other editors who are editing at the same time.

For example, if you do not have collaborative editing permissions and try to edit a post that's already being collaboratively edited, what happens? Are you locked out? Are the other collaborators?

Or the other way around, if you start editing a post without collaborative editing permissions and someone else with collaborative editing permissions tries to edit it, what happens? Are they locked out, are you?

These scenarios are complex and can be avoided if we don't think of collaborative editing as a separate permission.