Better control of user access in Joomla prior to 1.6

Last Updated on December 2, 2019 by Christopher G Mendla

I needed to make some menu items only available to administrators in the frontend of a Joomla 1.5x site.

This would be relatively easy in Joomla 1.6 since the user control has a finer grain. However, it isn’t that easy in 1.5x.

I found a Joomla extension called Set Special Level.   This extension is simple to use.

1. Download the extension
2. Install it through the extension manager in your site.
3. Go to the plugins and enable the Set Special Access plugin
4. Open the Plugin and look at the top right. You choose which level a user needs to be in order to see a menu, article, section or any component where you can restrict access.
5. Set the restrictions. For example, if you have a menu item that you want to prevent average users from seeing, set the access level to “Special”. Only users with the level you set in the plugin will be able to see that menu item.