CMS Permissions* granularity* usergroups
 

I am a longtime vb administrator who is evaluating whether I can take advantage of the 4.0 presale. The decision is based on whether the new CMS and 4-series features will be able to replace functionality we are currently acquiring from vbadvanced and a handful of other addons. My questions are obviously about the new Suite product.

VB + VBA make up our entire site. Membership is fee-based and we're in the business of exclusive content and access. When logged-in* paid-up members visit our site* they immediately see a front page filled with dynamic content based on forum activity* news articles* buddy lists* user blogs* and so on.

When non-members visit* they see something different. Lots of information about how to join* some teaser graphics* and links into the handful of free forums.

So my question to the VB folks is whether or not the new CMS/grid system has the level of granularity that I need to display unique CMS front pages/components/widgets to users based on their usergroup. Our current VBA setup allows us to make each piece of the "grid" visible to a user dependent upon usergroup. For example* the "Member News" center column appears for logged-in members* but a new user (or unpaid but registered member) will instead see language and graphics talking about the benefits of paid membership. Can the grid change its entire structure according to the status of the user* or is it tied to a basic skeleton and simply swapping in widgets/modules? How flexible is it considering usergroups?

Looking forward to some answers and insight about this (maybe it even deserves a developer blog* if the way we use VBA is in any way typical and others are likely to encounter it). The clock is ticking on that presale discount and I'm hoping for some good news. Having all this as core functionality instead of third party addons would be incredible for us and I've been crossing my fingers for it for years now.