Public, Shared, and Private Pages

Pageflakes users can select one of three levels of access for their pages:

• Private: Only the page owner can see it.
• Shared: The page owner can see it, in addition to a specified list of users that were invited by the owner.
• Public: Anyone can see it.

Flakes need to be aware of the type of user (owner, shared, public) accessing the flake and correctly set their behavior. For example, a “notepad” flake that lives on a public page should only allow the owner to make changes. Conversely, a “guest-book” flake that lives on a public page should allow anyone to make changes to its content.

To solve this problem, Pageflakes provides four types of profiles. Each profile is associated with specific access permissions. In addition, Pageflakes provides functions that the flake can use to determine the current user’s access level, so an appropriate user interface can be displayed.

• Profile - Appropriate for storing globally available profiles, which are writable only by for the owner. This should not be used to store any sensitive information like user names or passwords.
• PrivateProfile - Appropriate for storing private information such as account names, passwords, etc. If the flake is loaded on the page, the PrivateProfile is empty if the current user is not the owner.
• PublicProfile – Appropriate for storing public content.
• VisitorProfile - Appropriate for storing visitor specific content. This profile is a bit different because unlike the other profiles that only have one instance each, this profile has one instance per flake visitor.

To determine the access level of the current user the flake can use the following methods: