Changes to password protecting a webpage
The way that you set a page to be password protected has been changed effective June 9. You will notice the following changes when you are in the dashboard of a UMaine WordPress website:
1. There is a “Password Protection” column in the Pages and Posts screens on the dashboard. Password protected pages now have an icon in this column. This column may be hidden by unchecking its checkbox using the “screen options” link in the upper right corner of this dashboard view.
2. When you edit a page or post, the “Visibility” options now only show Public and Private (Password option no longer appears here).
3. There is a new box in the right column for “Password Protect WordPress” where you will see the password that was previously set is now listed as “global” role with the password indicated.
To password protect a page:
1. Open the page for editing.
2. In the “Password Protect WordPress” box you’ll see “Password protected by 0 role” with an Edit button when the page is truly public.
3. On clicking “Edit” link, the default role is “global” and there’s a box to enter the desired password. Keep the “global” role as the setting for current expected functionality, no need to do this for other logged in roles.
NOTE: there is now a quick way to password protect a page from the dashboard, you can click “Protect” on a page in the pages or posts list and the system will set the page to require a password and will assign a random string of characters as the password. You must open the page editor to view the auto-generated password, so this feature is of limited value.