Is it possible to have a front end user dashboard that is a front end not part of the October CMS (mainly for layout design purposes) but will allow them to edit content of certain items/pages?

What is the "dashboard" for? ( User Profile, Blog Content, Page Creation, ???? )

Not sure what you mean by "front end not part of the October CMS".

Does the "dashboard" control "(mainly for layout design purposes)" or does the "dashboard" have a different layout then the rest of the site?

Exactly what "certain items/pages" do you want to edit from the front end.

How does this relate to permissions and roles?

Hi Kurt,

The dashboard is for a specific custom group/roles users. The dashboard will also involve other sections/pages. The people can add specific pages that are limited to a certain url structure.

As for the dashboard it's mainly needed due to a different layout than the default October CMA and the other pages.

Hope this helps :)

Some of this could be done with the https://octobercms.com/plugin/fireunion-blogfront plugin. It would allow you to create posts ( stories, articles, etc. ) that have their own URL. You can set the categories for each author and also set whether they can only edit their own posts.

Your would use components from rainlab.blog to display your content and set URLs.

You can create multiple layouts in a theme and add __{% if can('create_stuff') %}__ or other twig function to the layouts to prevent some users from seeing certain content there with the Passage plugin.

Not sure if I have answered your question but if this sounds too complicated or not what you want then I would get some help from a developer to do some custom plugin for you or assist you in configuring existing plugins to accomplish your tasks.