Stefan Pietschmann wrote:

What is the benefit of declaring custom roles in a user-role file outside cocoon.xconf, if you can do it together with the configuration inside cocoon.xconf? Is there any? I don't see the point …

Stefan

It helps with conciseness in the cocoon.xconf.

For non-standard custom components, it's probably easier to do the generic <component> xml setup. The Roles file makes it so the config file is a little bit friendlier to users.