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TUsers Security Component v2.x

Overview
TUsers 2.x new features
Selecting the components you want to protect
User Administration
More features
Requirements and limitations of TUsers

Click here to download a sample application showing the TUsers Security Component v2.0 in action.

Log of Updates

Current version: v2.0.5.0

Attention for the new TUsers License Model

Overview

The TUsers Security Component v2.0 is a set of components especially designed to allow developers to easily implement User Authentication and User Rights Management in applications developed with the tools Borland Delphi and C++ Builder. The component allows to control the access of the application through a login screen, where the user's name and password are requested. The component verifies whether the user is valid and reads their access configurations from the security database, applying the user settings in the application.


[Default Login Screen]

The TUsers Security Component is very easy to use. With the TUsers in action, you don't even need to write code to have strong protection covering all the application. Just drop the components in your forms, create the security database (with a utility included in the component package), configure a few properties and your application is then protected.

The component has also several properties, methods and events that allow developers to implement all specific security needs of their applications easily and very fast.

The TUsers allows to control the access to all the VCL, including buttons, menu items, Actions, DBGrids, Queries, Tables and Dataset Fields . The TUsers also works with virtually all the 3rd-party components available on the market.

 

New features in TUsers 2.x

The TUsers is a very versatile component. Its broad variety of features allows to implement from the simplest to the strictest security policy for its applications. Version 2.0 has a series of new features, as follows:

Only one version for any data access component

Now the TUsers has only one version and diverse drivers for each data access component. So you don't need to acquire a TUsers for each component. You just need to use the correct driver for your application. The current version includes drivers for BDE, ADO, IBX, MIDAS, DBISAM and ADS. Visit our web site regularly to download other drivers or send us an email requesting the construction of a driver for the data access component you use. Plus, we have eliminated the error "unit xxx.pas was compiled with diferent version of unit yyy.pas" in the trial versions, therefore the source code for the drivers is included and you can compile them in order to test TUsers.

New User Administration Module

We have totally redesigned the User Administration Module. The new module shows the security information of the application in a more organized fashion and it is easier to use. Besides, we have added a series of new functions to make things easier for the security administrator. We have freed the user administration from the main component and a new component that encapsulates the module has been created.

Profile Inheritance

It's a new feature that aims at facilitating the user administration. The administrator can create a user profile and associate it with a Parent profile. Now it is possible to modify permissions in a profile and spread the changes through the profiles inherited, among other functions.

User can have a different profile for each application

Now the users of your applications can have a different profile for each one of them. They must be associated with a profile to use an application. This has allowed us to eliminate one of the tables from the security database, making it smaller.

Security settings are stored locally

Now the user's access configurations are stored on their computers. This new feature aims at eliminating network traffic when the component applies the user security settings in the application forms, plus a faster load of the data. An internal mecanism updates the local information when there are changes in the user security settings.

Standard Profile

The user administrator can choose one of the profiles available and make it the standard profile for new users in an application. When a new user is created, the standard profile is associated with them.

Automatic Dataset Audit

The TUsers now allow Automatic Dataset Audit for all datasets which are registerd for protection. When a user and a dataset are in Audit Mode, all modifications done by the user are logged by Tusers. If the user edits a record, Tusers will store the original as well the modified record. When the user inserts or delete a record, Tusers will store the original record. The TUsers also allow the developer to restore the original, but this task needs a little programation effort.

 

Selecting the components you want to protect

The TUsers package has a special component that allows the developer to choose the components which will be protected. The developer just needs to activate the Component Registration Form and check the most relevant components. The developer can also change the caption value, to change the text that will be shown in the User Administration Module. Just drop the TUsersReg component in the forms you want and select the components you want to protect.


[Component Registration Form]

 

User Administration

The TUsers includes a ready to use user administration module. In the version 2.x we have totally redesigned the administration module and now it has a new interface, more modern and easier to use.

The User administration module allows the security administrator to perform all the security control of the applications. The administrator can, for example, add new users and profiles, modify the access permissions and visualize the audit information of a specific user. Only the users who are administrators can have access to the administration module.

The administration module is presented as a component, allowing the developer to fit the module in the application or in an independent application for this task.

The new user administration is very easy to use and most of the tasks can be carried through with the mouse. The concession of access rights is made in a more visual fashion. For the access configuration, the administration module shows a list of forms and components of the application and it shows its components in a TTreeView that imitates the hierarchy of the components in the form. The security administrator just needs to click on the desired item to allow or not the user to access a specific component.

For each item/component, it is possible to configure full access (Enabled), read only access (Visible, but Disabled) and no access (Invisible). Each status is identified by an icon so that the security administrator can easily know the meaning of the status.

We are making available a series of screenshots showing the administration module. Click on the miniature to visualize the screen in its actual size.

 
  User Administration Module User Information Profile Information General Application Settings
 
  Setting permissions to a Profile Setting permissions to a form Audit information Profile Inheritance
More features

  » Protection of any visual control and Tfields of your application
  » User's Administration starting from the own application or in a separate application.
  » Customization of the Login Screen
  » Audit: trace of the users' Login/Logout and possibility of trace of other activities as record deletion.
  » Security sub-administrators
  » Selection of components for protection inside Delphi's IDE
  » Registration of components for protection during runtime.
  » Minimum password size and an event for password validation
  » Maximum number of login attempts
  » Event to synchronize the date of the application and the date from a central computer like the network server or the database server
  » Multi-application
  » User profiles
  » Expiration date for the user
  » Forces users to change password periodically
  » Passwords encrypted and it is possible to customize the cryptography routines
  » New user form customization
  » Application Time Out
  » Does not allow multiple logins with a same user name
  » Disables a user after N days without using the application
  » Disables a user after N attemps of login with no success
  » Easy localization of the component.


Requirements and limitations of TUsers

The TUsers v2.0 makes extensive utilization of Clientdatasets for the internal work and therefore, uses the MIDAS technology from Borland.

In order to use the version 2.0 of TUsers, you need to be sure your Delphi or C++Builder includes support to MIDAS

The TUsers supported versions are:

  » Delphi 5 Ent/Arch
  » Delphi 6, 7, 2005, 2006 all versions
  » C++Builder 5, 6 and 2006 all versions