As i have noticed in octoberCMS Backend Users and Frontend Users (That you can add by Using the RainLabs Plugin) are different entitys with theyr own databse tables. The reasons for this is explained here: https://github.com/octobercms/october/issues/219 I still don't understand how this duplication helps to keep things simple, but that's besides the point. Here's my dilemma:

I want to make some Plugins that are primarly going to be used in the backend. I plan to use custom widgets on the dashboard to present stuff and i want to give my users acces to some (but not all) backend Functionality ( edit Content but not Partials, manage the Blog Plugin but not the FAQ Plugin) etc. So i figure backend_users is the place where i must keep my users and set up relationships to my plugin's entities.

I'll also need a Forum that's going to be placed in the frontend. Since i am a lazy programmer i want to use a existing Forum Plugin like the one from RainLab rather then coding my own. It's based on the RainLab User's user table. So when i plan to connect my plugin to the forum (or any other plugin that uses users for that matter) i need to use the RainLab's User Plugin to base my relationships on.

So what should i do? Setup my Plugin to use backend_users and code my own Forum/ Blog/ etc.?... maybe i could fork them to use backend_users instead uf Rainlab Users?
or
Setup my Plugin to use RainLab's users and build my own Dashboard/ Management Environment in the frontend?

The ideal solution in my opinion would be to create a way to allow RainLab Users the access to the backend and make use of it's permission system (which i haven't found out yet if it is possible with reasonalbe effort). Another alternative i would be happy with: having a mechanism that makes shure RainLab's Users table and the backend_users table are kept in sync at all times. This seems to be a bit hacky though.

Any thoughts?

+1