🌐 Qwiki Manual
Administration Guide / Access Control, Users & Security / Access Modes & Visibility Controls

Access Modes & Visibility Controls

Standalone Qwiki enforces access rules server-side across page rendering, sequential chapter navigation, live search, RSS feeds, and LLM API retrieval.

Public Access vs. Private Portal

Configure global portal access under admin ▾ ➔ ⚙️ Settings ➔ 🔒 Access & Security ➔ Portal Access Mode:

  • Public Access (Default): Anyone can read and search published public chapters without signing in. Authentication is required only for editing, uploading, user management, and admin tools.
  • Private Portal (requireLoginToView): Visitors must log in (as viewer or admin) before seeing any documentation. Unauthenticated requests render a dedicated full-page login gateway with zero sidebar chrome, document titles, or content leakage.
Note

Even in Private Portal mode, individual documents explicitly marked Allow Public Sharing remain accessible via their unguessable 16-character ?share=... URLs—useful for sharing single guides with external stakeholders without opening the rest of the portal.

Category & Document Visibility Rules

You can restrict specific sections inside a public portal without making the entire site private:

  1. Category-Level Visibility: Open a category's ⚙️ menu ➔ 🔒 Access & Security ➔ Visibility:
    • Public (Everyone)
    • Logged In Users Only
    • Admins Only
  2. Silent Omission: Restricted categories and documents (plus Draft and Archived pages) are silently omitted from the sidebar tree, Previous/Next chapter pagers, live search (api/search.php), and RSS feeds (api/feed.php) for unauthorized visitors.
  3. Document Type Badges: In ⚙️ Settings ➔ 🌐 General, toggle Show Document Type Badges Only to Admin Users if you want clean reader navigation without MD, PDF, HTML, GDOC, or FORM pills shown to end users.