Allow guests: problem

[fontanil]

Hi,
I'm trying to use Akeeba Engage and don't understand what's happens with guest comments.
In the options-->permissions, I allowed guest to add comments.
First the captcha that is displayed on the form is not the one defined in Joomla configuration (on my test site it's Astroid Captcha or Aimy Captchaless) but the standard one (5 characters I often can't recognize).
Then if the guest text don't fit the minimum number of characters, no error when he sends the form. The form is sent with a success message on the page but no mail to the webmaster and no comment in the Akeeba Engage administrator page nor in the database table.
After that, on the site, if the webmaster logs in, he can view the guests comments, but can't manage them.
If a registered member wants to add a comment, the length of the comment is checked, he can't send the form if the length is not long enough. When he can send, the comment is published, one can see it on the site, the table and the administrator page.
Please what are my mistakes?
Thanks for your advice
fontanil

[nikosdion]

The CAPTCHA is always what you have set up in the component's Options. If it's set to "- None selected -" then and only then the default CAPTCHA from Joomla's Global Configuration will be used.

About the minimum number of characters. If the comment is too short or too long –based on your settings in the component's Options page– you do receive an error message, and the form remains populated with your comment. How, where, and for how long your template renders the message is up to your template, not up to our component; we just tell Joomla to show a message, and Joomla tells your template to please render it. Many templates do stupid things, flashing the message as a toast, or as an automatically disappearing after 2-3 seconds message which is woefully inadequate for any practical use. When you do not meet the length limits your comment is not accepted at all; it's not recorded anywhere until you fix your limits issue. If you do not want this feature you can of course disable it in the component's Options page.

About managing comments, it depends on whether your user has the Edit and Edit State privileges. You can read about permissions in https://github.com/akeeba/engage/wiki/Component-options#permissions As documented, having the Edit State privilege is a requirement for being granted Engage comment admin privileges.

Also keep in mind that privileges cascade between user groups, as well as between categories. Do remember that an explicit Deny anywhere in the cascade cannot be overridden by an explicit Allow. The rules for permissions are simple:

• Inheriting from nothing is an implicit deny
• Inheriting from Deny is the same as an explicit Deny
• Inheriting from Allow is the same as an explicit Allow
• Deny and Allow can override an implicit deny
• Deny can override an explicit Allow
• Allow CANNOT override an explicit Deny; it will be treated as an explicit Deny

These rules have been in place for 15 years. There are tonnes of resources discussing them, Joomla can show you the calculated privileges for a user in its Users built-in component (as long as you enabled Site Debug in Global Configuration), and there are even third party extensions to help you understand the permissions e.g. ACL Manager.

[fontanil]

Thanks Nicholas.

But for the minimum characters, I had no message for guests and a success message was displayed when they submitted their comments. Only registered were blocked when minimum number of characters was not reached.

I'm using Joomla since 2006... so I'm fairly familiar with how it works.

Guests were allowed to create comments. Their comments were sent though the length was not right. I was the only super user and needed to publish their comments, but didn't receive emails nor find comments in the database. That's the reality. The question is to understand why it happened.