[Steve]

How do I do this?

I want the forum page to only be viewed by, and posted to, by loggedin members. If a non-loggedin member goes to the forum, the get a notice saying “must be logged in to view this page”.

I tried setting the forum to private and now it gives a 404. So, technically I guess the forum isn’t showing. But this is not a solution.

I read some of the Docs, they sort of explain how to do this, but don’t say “where” to do it.

Seems like a very basic question. Hope someone can help. Thanks.

[Robin W]

if you want the forum’s existence to be public – ie showing in the forum list, but not accessible then use my private groups plugin, with forum visibility set.

Private groups

private groups is a powerful plugin, allowing lots of granularity, but for your initial requirements :

once installed and activated, go to

dashboard>settings>bbp private groups

in group name settings – set up a group 1 to be called anything but say ‘registered’
In forum visibility – activate this, and set up where you want to redirect users to
in assign groups to roles – select ‘Add group on first or no-group login’ and set participants to be assigned group 1
then for each forum that you want users to see exists but not access, go into
dashboard>forums>all forums>edit the forum and
a) set the forum to public – the plugin will stop users seeing content
b) you will see that you can assign it to a group – so set it to group 1

If this is all forums, you will set each to this. If you have public forms where you want anyone to be able to see the forums, then don’t set a group

dashboard

[Steve]

Thanks for the link. I will check out your plugin. It may be what I need. Though still wondering about access control.

I am mostly confused by the “FORUM ACCESS” that is described here,
https://codex.bbpress.org/step-by-step-guide-to-setting-up-a-bbpress-forum/#5-%c2%a0forum-visibility-and-access

It talks about viewing and posting permissions but doesn’t say WHERE it is. It is very frustrating.

Anybody know if these settings really exist and WHERE they are. Thanks.

[Robin W]

I wrote that guide.

it says

Private – Only logged in registered users with a forum role can see these forums

so if you set it to private, then those forums don’t display, so no-one will see that they exist.

so I’m not quite sure how someone not logged in will see it to click it and get the 404?

[Steve]

Hi,

Thanks for the quick reply. Here is what is happening.

ONE
This forum is set to private and gives 404, https://501ez.com/forums/forum/do-i-quality/

TWO
This forum is not private and anyone can see it, https://501ez.com/forums/forum/bylaws/

THREE
The confusing part of the guide is when you explain “Public viewing, public posting”, “Public viewing, registered user posting” and “private viewing, registered user posting”.

I don’t see and explanation of where these settings are or how to make them.

Any tips you have are helpful. Thanks.

[Robin W]

ok, thanks that helps.

ONE

you have set the forum to private in dashboard>forums>all Forums>do-i-quality>edit and visibility options on the right hand side in the forum attributes set to private.

A private forum is one that is not public, so its existence is also not public. It therefore returns a 404 error to someone not logged in, as bbpress doesn’t know the difference between a user who is not logged in and any member of the public. Once logged in they see the forums. Most users click the remember me button and save passwords in their browser. When not logged in they will not see the existence of the forums. If you want the forums to be visible, then the private groups plugin above will do that.

TWO

This is simply a forum with dashboard>forums>all Forums>bylaws>edit and visibility options on the right hand side in the forum attributes set to public.

THREE

I’ll look through the wording again to see if I can make it better – I did write it some time ago, and probably due for a review but the settings are in there viz

Forum visibility:

Public – Anyone can see these forums
Private – Only logged in registered users with a forum role can see these forums
Hidden: Only Moderators/keymasters can see these forums

Visibility is set for each forum, go into Dashboard>forums> and when you add/edit a forum, you will see visibility options on the right hand side in the forum attributes.

By default forums are available to be publically viewed. If you set anonymous posting to be on (see 4. Above) then anyone can also post.

[Steve]

OK. So, I agree with, and understand, what you are saying.

And it confirms that, yes, indeed, private forums (for non-logged-in visitors) returns a 404 error.

So, this put’s us back to my original question.

“I want the forum page to only be viewed by, and posted to, by loggedin members. If a non-loggedin member goes to the forum, I want them to get a notice saying “must be logged in to view this page”.

It appears this is not possible within bbpresss. Correct?

So, I will try the plugin you mentioned.

Thanks much.

[Robin W]

no problem, come back if I can help further 🙂

[Anthony Tornambe]

You can set this from your profile setting – to make your profile public OR private.