Permissions in XenForo are very powerful. However, this can also create confusion, especially if you are just getting to grips with the concepts in XenForo's permission system. The biggest challenge is often determining why a user has (or doesn't have) a permission. XenForo 1.2 adds a permission analysis system to help you determine this. Using it is very simple: First, you can choose whether you just want to look at global (user group and user) or node permissions. Global permissions still factor into node permissions, so I'm just looking at the latter here. Then you enter the user you want to check the permissions for and--if you're checking node permissions--the node to check. After submitting the form, you'll be given a list of all of the permissions with the final, calculated yes/no/integer values displayed: Each of these can then be displayed with the "details" link showing you exactly what is contributing to that. Looking at the "view node" permission, the final value is yes, but you can see that I revoked viewing for registered users but then re-allowed it for admins. Note that we're actually looking at the permissions for "main forum" here. These changes were on the category, but because the permissions bubble down, they're relevant here. Conversely, for "post new thread", it's revoked for registered users at the "main forum" level itself, but nothing overrides that so it's still no. Now I can quickly see what the permissions are for a particular user and, if they're wrong, diagnose it and change them as necessary.
