Private is for Admins and Moderators only. I think you want to use “hidden” in place of private.
Andre – many thanks for your reply. I had checked that but I tested it again as follows:
Forum = Visibility: Hidden
User = Forum Participant
Result = Oh bother! No forums were found here!
Forum = Visibility: Hidden
User = Forum Moderator
Result = Forums and topics show OK
Forum = Visibility: Private
User = Forum Participant
Result = Oh bother! No forums were found here!
Forum = Visibility: Private
User = Forum Moderator
Result = Forums and topics show OK
I also tried posting a topic as the user, but even that does not show.
SDo no luck
mjpg, i just checked and it looks like i’m seeing the same thing you are (with wp 3.21, bbpress 2.1, buddypress 1.5): forum participant user is not able to access either hidden and private forums (although forum moderator works fine).
hmmm…. is this actually working (forum participants can access hidden forums?) for everyone else/
It may be time to open a ticket in Trac.
Selise – thanks for checking.
Andre – before I add this as a possible bug on Trac, is it possible that this is intended or a feature?
It seems to me that making a user a ‘forum participant’ should allow them to view on of hidden/private forums, although I’m not clear about the destinction between hidden and private. But perhaps the Devs think that private/hidden should only be seen by mods and above. If so, it makes private forums tricky.
[WORK-AROUND]
I used the WP plugin ‘User Role Editor’ (WP not bbp plugin)
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/user-role-editor/
to add some capabilities to the ‘forum participant’ role.
These seem to be the extra capabilities required:
[v] read_hidden_forums
[v] read_private_forums
[v] read_private_replies
[v] read_private_topics
If set up without the ‘read_hidden_forums’ capability, forums are visible, but not topics. I don’t know if this is real or because I have been switching the hidden/private setting for the forum during testing.
I have done some basic testing and access/posting/replies/create topic/uploads/subscribe all seem to work OK.
I guess this could be done simply via some code in functions.php, but I don’t have the time to investigate.
I decided this does seem like a bug, or at least a feature that needs change so I added it to Trac:
https://bbpress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/1663
My understanding is the a forum participant should be able to view hidden, but not necessarily private. Private is for groups that are created by something like BuddyPress.
Edits made to function.php will get overwritten when you upgrade, so I think using the plugin is the better route.
Creating the ticket will make JJJ take a look at it and fix it or explain it.
mjpg, thanks for writing up the ticket and for the plugin info. i added “read_hidden_forums” only to forum participant capabilities and now a test user forum participant can see a hidden forum in the forum index, but still can’t read it.
andre, thanks for the info. that makes sense to me wrt to user roles, groups and forums. guess you are right: need jjj to say whether bug or feature and if feature, how to properly configure and use.
Andre and selise – many thanks for your input.
For anyone reading this thread, the conclusion is that this is a bug or feature that needs work.
The work-around is above.
This is effectively closed for now, awaiting Trac feedback.
Hi, I seem to be having the same problem. Did this bug ever get worked out? Thanks!!
There is nothing to work out IMHO. mjpg (posted above) has provided the ideal “Work Around” that I think is perfect. Use another plugin to augment this one and provide even MORE flexibility to your permissions.
Don’t ask the bbPress developers to take their time to reinvent the wheel when someone else has already done it. The Drupal community is excellent at referring to each others modules as “dependencies” for certain functionality.
WordPress has a ways to go in this respect, but I have to admit bbPress is better than any of the Drupal offerings when combined with a nice $40 theme purchased online. The phpBB –> bbPress transfer tools are also both quite useful. I just switched to bbPress and plan to be using it for a long time to come so keep it coming guys! Great work!
Hello,
I’m having this problem after upgrading to 3.5. It was working fine prior to this update.
Thanks.
Fixed.
I changed the user site role from subscriber trying the lowest ranks up to author and left the forum role to participant and it worked. I went back and set the user back to subscriber and it works like before the upgrade.
Thanks.
Following solution works for me:
– install plugin Members
– users > roles > edit Participant role > check read_hidden_forums
I’m having a similar problem. And I must tell Andre that, yes, it seems a bug and is not intended to be that way. As you can read at https://codex.bbpress.org/bbpress-user-roles-and-capabilities/#participant they are supposed to read private forums. My private users (with participant role) can see the private forums and navigate through them and their sub-forums, but all topics (on private forums and also on private sub-forums inside private forums) there is a message that no topic has been found. If I just give them upper permissions (Moderator), then they can see all the topics on these forums and alos reply, etc.
So I think it’s truely a bug. Strange to me that it’s been around for some months without being fixed 🙁
BTW, I’m using bbPress as a plugin within a WP installation.
I’ve tried workaround suggested by @mjpg but it’s had no effect at all!
I’ve edit role for one of the users, with general Author and bbPress Participant roles. Then activated:
read_private_forums
read_private_replies
read_private_topics
And it had no effect: topics inside private forums remained invisible for that user!
Than I tried and activated also, in the main roles section, the following:
read_private_pages
read_private_posts
And, still no effect!
🙁
I’ve also tried changing all those permissions at the general Author role, but still no effect at all.
Solved!
Deactivated Role Editor plugin.
Installed and activated Members plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/members/
(Permissions changed with Role Editor remained.)
Added, for Author role, with Members plugin, the following permission:
read_hidden_forums
That seemed to do the trick. Hope this helps other people with the same problem while bbPress developers don’t fix the bug.
SOLVED! There is actually no need to install any plugin.
The reason the other admin is not able to view the hidden forum is because bbpress has its own user roles and you need to assign the Keymaster Role to the admin in question.
To do that, simply click on Users on your WP admin menu, tick to select the user in question, in the tab that contains bulk actions, you’ll see “Change Forum Role to….” click it and select keymaster.
Then click on the change button to change it.
That should work the magic.
