Support

Hello Piotr,

There are several reasons why this is not implemented.

Supporting this feature on all versions of all supported CMS / scripts is a very tall order. The development time required to do that simply makes no business sense. So let's assume for a minute that we only support that for Joomla (and you can extrapolate the problem we'll be facing in other platforms).

First of all, what happens if you enter the same username or email address as an existing account? Do we upgrade that account, do we replace it or do we display an error? All possibilities are valid courses of actions depending on the use case.

The new user has to be assigned groups. Which groups? Do we blindly assign the group with ID=8? Or do we scan which groups have the Super User privilege? What happens if there are more than one such groups? Do I pick the first, the last, or all of them?

What if you have non-core user and/or authentication plugins offering integration with another system such as a domain controller or a single sign on service? Do I have to support all of these arbitrary plugins? How do I do that when that requires running Joomla! as a Super User but I can't do so because I need to create a Super User before I write Joomla's configuration, leading to a chicken and egg issue.

That's just what I have on the top of my head. These are all very difficult issues without any good solutions. Implementing such a feature would only lead to more frustration in users because there are Even More Options(tm) which Don't Work As I Expected(R). Besides, such a feature, even if it worked fine for everyone, wouldn't be solving any real issue. The problem you're looking to solve is "my client gave me a backup but not a Super User login, how can I gain access to the darned site". There are two answers to this problem:

• Modify a user account during restoration using ANGIE
• Restore without modifying a user account. Back up the user record you are going to modify. Reset the password following Joomla's documentation. Log in. Create a new Super User. Log our. Restore the user record you modified. Log in with the new user.

The first approach exists because the second one is a pain in the rear and people do have the problem I presented. According to our findings the provided solution is more than acceptable by all users (well, except you, I guess) :)