Recently I happened across a thread where Carlos Santos Sáenz was asking about how to best set up Roles and permissions.  As I attempted to duplicate Carlos' efforts, I realized that the root cause of his (and probably so many other people's ) difficulties had to do with Liferay's UI.  I have to admit that it is confusing at times for me too, which is what motivated me to help both the community and myself out. 

Exhibit A

To get to this screen you would venture inside the Enterprise Admin portlet -> Roles Tab -> (Action) 'Define Permissions' -> click on Bookmarks link.  Let's dissect how the old way of defining permissions for a role. 

You might find Exhibit A in the dictionary illustrating the word 'Ambiguity'.  Although there is clearly an instruction at the top, the first thing that jumps out at me is "Resources".  What the heck is a resource?  If I click one of the resources and remain there, I would completely miss the area to assign permissions for the Bookmarks Portlet 'Configuration' action. 

Furthermore, if I did read the instruction, I would still end up saying, "what the heck is a resource?"

The old way also forces you through up to 4 precarious steps, which means 4 refreshes..and 4x the time/effort.

The old way also never shows you a "Finish" or "Save" button. 

Exhibit B

 

Exhibit B is the new look of defining permissions for Roles. 

• Notice there are two total steps and the nice 'save' button at the bottom.  We just increased efficiency by 200%! 
• Now it doesn't really matter what a resouce is, although it's a bit more clear now. 
• See all possible permissions in one central location.
• If you select 'Community' from the dropdown, the 'Select' button will appear.  Upon clicking 'Select', you'll get a pop up window where you can choose multiple communities
• Dynamic "tag" style list of communities you choose

 So how did I go about implementing all these improvements?  Not much...  I opened up an LEP ticket,...and that's about it.  :P  Thanks Jorge!  You can track us bouncing ideas off each other here: LEP-4315

I can tell that Liferay's UI is going through a growth spurt and I look forward to seeing more of it.  People don't put new wine into old wineskins...keep up the awsome work guys!!