Restrict users from editing post based on the age of the post

Question

In Wordpress, how can I restrict users (based on Capabilities) from editing their published posts after a custom amount of time.

For instance, a user that can publish_posts (authors) can not edit a their post if it is older than 3 days, and a user that can moderate_comments (editors) can not edit any posts that are older than 20 days. Obviously, admins can edit anytime.

How is such thing possible?

Or alternatively, the posts gets locked from editing after a custom amount of time. — Gary Woods, Oct 17 '12 at 16:12
duplicate of http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/69577/restrict-users-from-editing-post-based-on-the-age-of-the-post — fuxia, Oct 17 '12 at 16:49

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:37

This is the duplicate of a question on wordpress.stackexchange.com. I've copied my answer below.

I took the example code from the Wordpress user_has_cap filter codex page and modified it. Add this code to your theme functions.php:

function restrict_editing_old_posts( $allcaps, $cap, $args ) {

  // Bail out if we're not asking to edit a post ...
  if( 'edit_post' != $args[0]
    // ... or user is admin
    || ! empty( $allcaps['manage_options'] )
    // ... or user already cannot edit the post
    || empty( $allcaps['edit_posts'] ) )
      return $allcaps;

  // Load the post data:  
  $post = get_post( $args[2] );

  // Bail out if the post isn't published:    
  if( 'publish' != $post->post_status )
      return $allcaps;

  $post_date = strtotime( $post->post_date );
  //if post is older than 30 days ... 
  if( $post_date < strtotime( '-30 days' )
    // ... or if older than 4 days and user is not Editor
    || ( empty($allcaps['moderate_comments']) 
    && $post_date < strtotime('-4 days') ) ) {
      $allcaps[$cap[0]] = FALSE;  
  }
  return $allcaps;
}
add_filter( 'user_has_cap', 'restrict_editing_old_posts', 10, 3 );

Udan · Answer 2 · 2012-10-17T18:09:31.023

-1

This should work inside a plugin

    function remove_edit() {

    // Adjust 604800 to the number of days in seconds that you want to check against. Posts will only appear if they are newer than that time.//
     if ( !current_user_can( 'manage_options' ) && (current_user_can('edit_posts') && ((current_time(timestamp) - get_the_time('U') - (get_settings('gmt_offset') * 3600) ) < 604800) )
     {
        unset( $actions['edit'] );
     }
   }
   add_filter('post_row_actions','remove_edit',10,1);

From wordpress codex http://codex.wordpress.org/Roles_and_Capabilities#edit_posts

edit_posts
  Since 2.0
  Allows access to Administration Panel options:
   Posts
   Posts > Add New
   Comments
   Comments > Awaiting Moderation

edited Oct 17 '12 at 18:09

answered Oct 17 '12 at 16:35

Udan

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Can you please elaborate how this code works? As far as I can tell, there is no way to set which users this applies to? How do I add capabilities in this...? – Gary Woods Oct 17 '12 at 16:45
check tis function in the codex http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/current_user_can. – Udan Oct 17 '12 at 16:51
Excellent, just one final question: no matter what I set it to, Admins will always be affected. Let me explain, if I set the capability to **publish_posts**, then authors to admins will be affected by it... meaning that admins will be locked from editing posts as much as authors do. Do you understand the problem here? – Gary Woods Oct 17 '12 at 17:29
added condition to ignore admins – Udan Oct 17 '12 at 18:10
Perfect, I was not aware that was possible. Final question if you do not mind, can I execute this script through the functions.php or do I need add it in a custom plugin? – Gary Woods Oct 17 '12 at 18:21
I added your code to function.php and received an error. I am sure it must be a typo in your code? Here is the error: **Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '{'** – Gary Woods Oct 17 '12 at 19:00
1

Can you kindly test your code in Wordpress and confirm if it functions as proposed? – Gary Woods Oct 17 '12 at 19:08
@Udan I would like to know this as well. Is this working? Have you tried it Udan? – Henrik Petterson Oct 17 '12 at 21:53
1

This code would **only hide the LINK to edit** in the Dashboard post list. In other words, users with permission could still edit a post if they get ahold of the edit link. [See this answer](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12938514/restrict-users-from-editing-post-based-on-the-age-of-the-post/12978067#12978067) to prevent all attempts to edit as well as hide links. – Stephen M. Harris Oct 30 '12 at 22:14

Restrict users from editing post based on the age of the post

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