Forum OpenACS Development: Re: Permissions Administrator Package

You can think of the package as a frontend for permissions. Instead of being object based, as it is currently, it is user based.

Instructions are either an implementation of a direct permission or a join group call.
ie. either permission::grant or group::add_member

So p_admin_instructions represents the arguments required to execute these procs.

                                        Table "public.p_admin_instructions"
     Column     |         Type         |                                    Modifiers
----------------+----------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 instruction_id | integer              | not null default nextval('public.p_admin_instructions_instruction_id_seq'::text)
 role_id        | integer              |
 object_id      | integer              |
 privilege      | character varying(6) |
Indexes:
    "p_admin_instructions_pkey" PRIMARY KEY, btree (instruction_id)
    "p_admin_instructions_inst_idx" UNIQUE, btree (role_id, object_id, privilege)
    "p_admin_instructions_role_id_idx" btree (role_id)
Check constraints:
    "invalid_privilege" CHECK (privilege::text = 'read'::text OR privilege::text = 'write'::text OR privilege::text = 'create'::text OR privilege::text = 'admin'::text OR privilege::text = 'none'::text)
Foreign-key constraints:
    "p_admin_instructions_role_id_fkey" FOREIGN KEY (role_id) REFERENCES p_admin_roles(role_id)
    "p_admin_instructions_object_id_fkey" FOREIGN KEY (object_id) REFERENCES acs_objects(object_id)

AJAX is currently required just as a way of making object and user selection easier.

I'm not sure what you mean as a "backdoor to existing package data". It is more of an improved interface for modifying many permissions and group memberships at once.