As referred to in my earlier DasBlog plugin post, I've been working on setting up a friend's blog over the last little while.  His old blog was on Blogger and we've moved him over to a hosting solution with Dasblog.  However, he came from a Blogger background and was used to certain features of Blogger - namely, the ability to have multiple contributors to his blog.  Now, DasBlog supports multiple users, but in its current state it required every user to be an administrator.  Maybe in the case of just 2 people running the blog you can run like that, but when you have 5 different people posting and having configuration/edit/delete rights on every post, you can see the potential for disaster in the making.

As this friend is a good one, I began looking through the source code to see how hard it would be to add a different "contributor" level of access into DasBlog...one that couldn't wreak havoc on the blog itself!  The end result was the addition of a "contributor" role in DasBlog.  This role only has permission to add entries to the blog, and edit/delete on only the posts that they themselves have posted - pretty much what Blogger has in a uniquely DasBlog way!   

The code changes have already been checked into DasBlog, so whenever the new release comes out, you can enjoy the "contributor" level of access.   if you're one of those early adopter types (and aren't we all?) I am posting the altered binaries here on the site so you can download them for yourself.  Here are the instructions for altering your release of DasBlog 1.8.  I can't guarantee anything with an earlier build!  Please keep in mind that you're testing out something without an official release as of yet!  I'm willing to help debug, but you are still entering this scenario at your own peril.

Instructions:

Download the zip file.

1. Take the three DLLs inside the zip and load them into your dasblog/bin folder.  Overwrite your existing DasBlog binaries with these three.  These changes allow for correct behavior of the "contributor" role in your DasBlog.
2. Move the aspx files inside the "ftb" folder and replace your aspx files inside your dasblog/ftb folder.  You'll need to do this in order to give the "contributor" role appropraite permission to use the image gallery uploader, etc. etc.
3. Edit your sitesecurity.config file, adding the user whom you wish to grant "contributor" level access.  Instead of the "admin" role, give them a "contributor" role instead.
4. Load your blog, log in as the "contributor" and watch the magic at work!

I don't know how many people really wanted or needed this feature in DasBlog, given DasBlog is largely used when setting up technical blogs (given the background you seem to need to even set this thing up in the first place!  ;) )  However, it's now here and you can use it if you like!  Definitely let me know if you have any problems.