Utilizing User Roles In WordPress

Roles have been an integral part of WordPress for quite some time now — many functions associated with managing them have been in place since version 2.0.0. Despite this longevity, they are rarely utilized which is a shame since they allow for the easy setup of custom user types (and also have the ability to micro-manage them). In this article, you’ll learn everything you need to utilize user roles in WordPress and make the most of this incredible built-in functionality.

Terminology

The main terms to know are “role” and “capability”. Capabilities are the core of the system, they represent the things you can do. An example of a capability is switch_themes. A user who has this capability is able to change the look of the website using the Appearances section in the admin. Those who do not have this capability will not be able to do so.

Roles are simply a named set of capabilities. Imagine you have capabilities like edit_post, add_user and so on. Instead of listing all 50 of them for each and every user who you’d like to be an admin, simply assign each user the “admin” role and then assign all the capabilities to that role.