[Magic-Komplex]

Hello,
I have created two categories with several forums within, and I’m trying to set up a specific behavior. On the main index, I want all forums to be visible by everyone, even unregistered guests.
Some of these forums should only be visible for unregistered guest, but they shouldn’t be able to enter or even read or post within these specific forums. When they try to enter they should get a message like “You must be logged in to view this forum”.
Logged in members, on the other hand should be able to enter, read and post within these forums.
I have several problems in achieving this. First of all, I only found the possibility to set a forum as private, but that causes the forum only to be visible by logged in members.
So my next step was to have a look at user roles, which caused a lot of confusion. So I installed the plugin “bbp-capabilities”, in intention to be able to set up user roles. The problem is, it only provides the possibility to define the capabilities of a registered user, but not for guests. I’d need to know how I can define roles on a global level, instead of editing every single user and not being able to define what guests can do.
I hope this is clear enough to let you understand what my problem is, I’m German, so please be patient. If there’s something unclear, I’ll try my best to clarify it.
I also asked this question in the German support forum for bbpress, but I got no answer so far, so I’d be very thankful for help.
Thanks in advance,
Sylvia

[Robin W]

‘ I’m German, so please be patient’ no problem 🙂

If I understand, you want

Some forums – to be visible and accessible by both registered and guests
Some forums – just forum titles of all forums to be visible to everyone, and when clicked to get a “you must be logged in…” and logged in users to be able to see and access these forums.

Is this correct?

A coupe of questions please :

1. How many forums are you envisaging will be restricted?
2. Will new forums be added regularly?

[Magic-Komplex]

First of all, thanks for your reply and your attempt to help, very appreciated! 🙂

Some forums – to be visible and accessible by both registered and guests

Almost correct, with one exception. Guests shouldn’t be able to post in these forums, just read. Posting is for registered users only.

Some forums – just forum titles of all forums to be visible to everyone, and when clicked to get a “you must be logged in…” and logged in users to be able to see and access these forums.

Almost correct, not just forum titles, but also forum descriptions should be visible to everyone. 🙂

1. How many forums are you envisaging will be restricted?

6 of nine

2. Will new forums be added regularly?

Not quite sure about this, there may be new forums added in the future, but I don’t think this is going to happen often. If this is a problem, I think I could live with the fact not to add any more forums.

[Robin W]

ok, thanks – let me have a think – the number and frequency are to let me see if a more “manual” solution would work.

[Magic-Komplex]

Thanks for your help, I’m really curious, but I’ll wait patently. 🙂

[Robin W]

ok, so that two posts I haven’t come back to you on !

I had a dig, and this one is not a two minute answer, and I may not be able to solve it for you.

However, I am working on a plugin for an entirely different use, but it is in the same code/function area, so as I am digging I try to see if I can work a fix for you.

BUT, I may not within time available to me

[Magic-Komplex]

Thank you, I’m just going to wait then. Is there anything I can do myself?

[Robin W]

No, nothing you can do, but I’ve just made an error in my plugin, and I think I have solved the problem above by chance !!

The plugin will let you do this, but you’ll have to wait for the plugin though as it is still in dev – expect a week !

I should be able to get content in as well with luck !

Sorry can’t be sooner, but a lot of code to write properly now I know it works !

and of course no guarantee that I won’t find some major flaw !

[Magic-Komplex]

Well this is, even without guarantee, really great news! 🙂 You don’t have to apologize that it takes some time, I’m really thankful for your help and the work time you invest.

[Robin W]

Ok, so my plugin I taking longer to develop than I thought – but they always do!

But I have been through the code needed for what you are after, and it neatly cuts into a plugin of it’s own, so that is what I’ve done.

The plugin and instructions are here

bbp Private Forums Visibility

Read you way through, and let me know if you have any difficulties.

Because I have cut this for you, I haven’t made it very pretty as a plugin, so there aren’t settings for the permalink – you’ll see what I mean when you read the link.

If this doesn’t do what you want or you find issues, please come back, I should be able to fix fairly easily whilst the code is fresh in my brain.

Have a great weekend !

[Robin W]

By the way this does both the private forum visibility and the sub forum description !

[Magic-Komplex]

Wow, many thanks to you, I’m going to install it and let you know how it works for me or if there are any problems. Thanks! 🙂

[Magic-Komplex]

Ok now, I installed your plugin and after spending some time removing another wordpress error I can say it works great, there’s just one problem for me.
I’m using buddypress login and signup and cannot change to bbpress version of this, cause I’m also using super socializer plugin, which is written for buddypress.
So now I’m getting a 404 error when I’m not logged in and try to enter one of my forums. I tried to change the permalink of my registration page to “sign-up”, as described in your doc, that didn’t work. I guess this is because I’m using buddypress sign up instead of bbpress.
About changing the code in the php file, I’m not sure what to change. I tried adding the url of my registration page in line 103, that didn’t work as well.
Do you have an idea how to fix this?

[Magic-Komplex]

I’m sorry, there wasn’t a problem at all. I just forgot to save the changing of the permalink, now it works. It’s really a great plugin, thank you for spending your time on it and helping me out! 🙂

[Robin W]

Phew ! I read the first post and thought oh dear, then your second came through, glad it’s working.

I’ll add a settings page to the code so that you can set which page it goes to for future users.

[Magic-Komplex]

That’s even better, being able to set a specific page for redirect would really be great. 🙂 Sorry for “scaring” you first. I’m working so hard on this community and there are so many errors and problems, that I’m sometimes just a little bit overworked and start making mistakes.

[Robin W]

” just a little bit overworked and start making mistakes” – I know how you feel !!! 🙂

[Magic-Komplex]

I can totally imagine… 😉

BTW, I also posted this thread in the German support forum where I got no answer, so I posted a link to your great plugin there, in case someone else is going to have the same problem in the future.

[Robin W]

Ok, I’ve done a version 2 with a settings page that lets you select from :

Send non-logged in users to any page you wish
Lets you set a message for the freshness column
Hide topic and reply counts
show descriptions
Remove the ‘private’ prefix from the displayed titles

So hopefully more friendly and flexible.

Give it a try

I have left the old version on the website in case you need to revert back.

Otherwise let me know if it breaks anything or I can improve it.

I’ll load it to the wordpress plugins page in a few days

url as before http://www.rewweb.co.uk/private-forums-visibility/

[Magic-Komplex]

Just installed it and so far all I can say is that it’s really great! Now I finally have the freedom to let unregistered users see some of my forums and even post there, while they are still not able to view the more private part.
Everything’s working as expected, no errors, actually this is just pure freedom! 🙂 A huge thank you for developing this plugin and I’m going to donate as soon as possible for me.

[Robin W]

Thanks for the great feedback – much appreciated !

[Magic-Komplex]

If you wanna see it working:

http://www.thespiritualpath.de

The forums part is at:

http://www.thespiritualpath.de/foren-uebersicht-2/

🙂

[Robin W]

Hey, thanks it looks really good !

[Robin W]

I’ve now published this on wordpress

https://wordpress.org/plugins/bbp-private-forum-visibility/

[Robin W]

Ok, I’ve just finished a new plugin called

bbp Private Groups

This plugin adds private groups to the forums, allocating users to up to 8 groups, and combinations of forums to those groups, creating multiple closed forums.

download from

bbp Private Groups

Let me know what you think.

I’ll add this to the wordpress plugin repository in the next few days