Since some time users can be grouped so same access is set/edited for all users in a group at the same time.

Important: This works only if MySQL is enabled: MySQL support

To add new group:

1. Go to online Administration and login (if not logged).
2. Go to "Manage groups" tab in the Administration menu.
3. Click "Add group" button.
4. Give the group unique title and some access. Optionally you can give the group some description (for extra info in the groups list) and redirect URL (this fied is used when you want users from that group to be redirected to certain location after log in).
5. Submit the new group.

To edit / delete a group:

1. Go to online Administration and login (if not logged).
2. Go to "Manage groups" tab in the Administration menu.
3. Hover the desired group and additional actions will appear. Select the one you need.

To move users to a group:

1. Go to online Administration and login (if not logged).
2. Go to "Manage users" tab in the Administration menu.
3. Select the users you want to move to a given group (use the checkboxes next to each user).
4. At the bottom of the list "Move selected to" dropdown must be used. Select the desired group you want selected users to be moved to.
5. Save the changes.

Note: Moving users to a group automatically changes its rights to the ones the group has. You can also move users from one group to another directly (without removing them from the first group). Once user is in a group, personal access right cannot be set to this user anymore. They can be set once user is not in any group.

Note2: If given group is removed, all the users form this group are automatically left without a group, but the group access is still acrive for them. So additional actions may be required in such case!

DO NOT USE groups together with protected areas. This is not intended and won't work in any case. 

with Blog Views you can create separate layout options for Blog (to display blog entries with different layout than main blog layout)

to use Blog Views, add one or more View pages in treeview explorer:

after you add view page, specify options in view settings to make view different than main view:

name you chooose for blog view will be used to access this view in your blog :

for example, to access blog view on page index.php, add url and append name of view :   index.php?myview

(you can also use internal url picker in url dialog to select available views)

example default blog view

example alternative blog view

you can also link blog view from menu with external url option on page settings panel --> advanced

Other option you have with the views is the blog online settings. You can set default view for category, entry, search and tags. This way does not involve URL changes.

tip: you can also use views to show short version of article in main view and full article in another view:

on main blog page, add hyperlink : read more and use macro : http://www.ezgenerator.com/howto.php?entry_id=1344965509&title=using-blog-views-feature&compact  (replace &compact with name of your own view) as url