After having exhaustively searched for the last few nights for information on this topic, I have not been able to find an answer.

I’m currently using the most up-to-date versions of both WP and bbPress. My current website uses Joomla, rokbridge, and phpbb3.

However, I’m trying to setup a new site based on WordPress and bbPress seems like an awesome alternative to having to mess around with forum bridges for phpbb3.

I was well on my way to adopting bbPress as our new forum software. Successfully imported the phpbb forum. Just fixing things up after the import like setting categories and moving forums around into their proper place. Then I realized that private forums were now public.

‘No problem’, I though. I went to each forum settings to be amazingly disappointed that there was only three options: hidden, private, and open.

With our current phpbb setup I can create a group. Add people to it. Then go to the forum (or their group) and give them permission to see the group.

This is especially important as we are a Christian gaming clan. We have a private guild forum that allows members of our clan to discuss things privately amongst each other (like private vent login info). We also have an officer forum that lets us candidly discuss potential applicants.

I would like to allow officers access to certain forums. Guild members to certain other forums. As far as I can tell, bbpress excludes this very basic ability.

I tried using the Members plugin for WordPress that is suppose to have bbpress integration. It wouldn’t work properly. At times it wouldn’t allow a role to see certain forums and other times it didn’t matter what permissions were set, it’d see it anyway.

I’m going to look at support for the Members mod, but it seems kind of silly that this wouldn’t be an integral part of a modern forum software.

Unless I’m missing something, I’ll have to stick with messing around with phpbb for now.

[@robin-w Moderator 10 years, 6 months ago]

@trymedo – ok try this version, it should determine if it is the resultant list being queried, or the process of getting to the list that is causing issues. Basically it does your suggested post__not_in.

private groups tom test

This is only for Tom, and is just a testing version

latest live version is here

https://wordpress.org/plugins/bbp-private-groups/

[@robin-w Moderator 10 years, 6 months ago]

I believe this is an issue for anyone since even non-logged-in users would be able to see this topic if they had the URL for it, which could be generated from a sitemap or something – yet to be confirmed.

just re-tested this, and no they get a 404 error or whatever page you send then to in the settings

[@trymedo Participant 10 years, 6 months ago]

@robin-w The new test doesn’t appear to have fixed the problem, I still can’t view a topics page without it returning a big white screen… so I guess this suggests that the post__not_in doesn’t make a difference, right?

[@robin-w Moderator 10 years, 6 months ago]

ummm, yes it doesn’t make a difference.

So now I’m not sure if running my bit is causing the blank screen, or running a wp-query that large with any ‘post__in’ or ‘post__not_in’ causes an issue. I could prove that by breakimng the execution at that point, but am struggling to see how it breaks it. Another think time I feel ! I’ll come back when I’ve done that.

Or we could return to limiting the number displayed. ok so your pagination will be out, ie it’ll say ‘1-20 of 1550’ topics not ‘1-20 of 155000 topics’, but who does a topic list and goes beyond the first say 4 pages???

what do you think?

[@trymedo Participant 10 years, 6 months ago]

It’s certainly an idea… I’ll have a think about it too and see if I can come up with any ideas.

[@marianne78 Participant 10 years, 6 months ago]

Hi, thank you very much for your plugin. It works – except for the forums page which shows up blank with the ‘oops no forums found’ message. When I disactivate your plugin the forums showup again normally. I am using the headwaythemes…the site is tomateketchup.com . Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I am only interested in private forums – I don’t want to go the buddypress route.
THanks!

[@robin-w Moderator 10 years, 6 months ago]

@marianne78 not quite sure what you are saying.

Can you detail
how many forums you have,
whether they are all private,
when the message appears (eg when not logged in),
whether you are using a forum page with bbp-index in it,
what settings you have for dashboard>settings>bbp private groups in forum visibility settings and general settings

Thanks

[@markthedoc Participant 10 years, 3 months ago]

This plugin is exactly what I was looking for, been struggling with a solution for a while now.

Perfect – thank you very much for developing this.

[@robin-w Moderator 10 years, 3 months ago]

@markthedoc – you’re welcome

[@gvanto Participant 10 years, 1 month ago]

Hi,

Thanks @robin-w for a great plugin.

I have some additional requirements – do you know of a way in bbpress (possibly in conjunction with bbp-private-groups) which gives:

– ability for a user to be set up as a ‘private group moderator’
– the moderator from above can grant access to users who have requested access to a private forum (if this is possible without the need for them to log in to wp-admin that’d be great)

The bbp-private-groups plugin does the private forum (group) stuff but does not allow for moderation of users by other users.

This would be an amazing added feature.

thanks
gvanto

[@robin-w Moderator 10 years, 1 month ago]

ability for a user to be set up as a ‘private group moderator’

see the help text, you can have moderators of single private groups under the plugin.

the moderator from above can grant access to users who have requested access to a private forum

Sorry, doesn’t currently do this, and have no plans to do so for the plugin as yet.

[@gvanto Participant 10 years, 1 month ago]

see the help text, you can have moderators of single private groups under the plugin.

Sorry but where is the help text? And where in plugin settings is this?

I’m currently adding a user to a group (under user edit), but then when I go to view the ‘Management Info’ tab (wp-admin/options-general.php?page=bbp-private-group-settings&tab=management_information)
it doesn’t come up with that user under group1 (where I added myself). Says 0 users in this group.

[@robin-w Moderator 10 years, 1 month ago]

if you set a user as moderator and allocate them to a group then they can moderate that group and any open groups

it doesn’t come up with that user under group1

I’ve just looked and I haven’t altered how this tab displays sine I changed another aspect, so this doesn’t work – I’ll need to do a small update. Thanks for spotting this.

[@robin-w Moderator 10 years, 1 month ago]

I’ll need to do a small update.

Small update done, version 2.4 should count the users correctly !

[@realerq Participant 10 years, 1 month ago]

Hello, Robin.
Thank you very much for your add-on.
But i am experiencing problem with access for my groups.
So i am setting group1 and group2.
I am making forum1 where it is checked that only group2 can access.
When i am creating user who is in group1 he can’t see forum1(which is how it should be), but if he will be given direct link to forum(ex. http://www.mysite.org/forum1) he can enter it and then browse everything inside)
Is it the way it is working or am i doing something wrong?

Thank you very much for your answer,
me

[@robin-w Moderator 10 years, 1 month ago]

@realerq

It could be a theme or plugin issue

Plugins

Deactivate all but bbpress and see if this fixes. if it does, re-enable one at a time to see which is causing the error.

Themes

If plugins don’t pinpoint the problem, as a test switch to a default theme such as twentytwelve, and see if this fixes.

then come back

[@realerq Participant 10 years, 1 month ago]

Hello, @Robin-W

Thanks for your quick reply.

I tried to deactivate all plugins i have except for bbpress(actually i also tried to reinstall all of them that can be connected to bbpress) and it gave no result.
I am in fear of changing my theme as it can just break all the site, so i can’t do it now(but my theme author actually was the on who suggested to use your plugin, so i believe it shouldn’t be the case)

So currently i have this:

Main: WordPress 4.0

Theme: Kleo 2.1.1

Plugins installed and activated:
bbP last post 1.0
bbP private groups 2.4
bbPress 2.5.4
bbPress – Private Replies 1.2
bbPress Enable TinyMCE Visual Tab 1.0.1
bbPress Go To First Unread Post 1.1
bbPress Pencil Unread 1.0.9
bbPress Post Toolbar 0.7.5
bbPress String Swap 1.4.0
bbP topic count 1.3.1
Black Stupio TinyMCE Widget 2.1.6
BuddyPress 2.1.1
Capability Manager Enhanced 1.5.2
GD bbPress Tools 1.6
Global Hide Toolbar 1.6.1
K Elements 2.1.1
Rendez Vous 1.1.0
Revolution Slider 4.6.0
rtMedia for WordPress, BuddyPress and bbPress 3.7.16
Taxonomy Metadata 0.4
TinyMCE Advanced 4.1.1
W3 Total Cache 0.9.4
WordPress Importer 0.6.1
WPBakery Vusual Composer 4.3.4

Plugins installed, but deactivated:(dont really think it matters, but who knows)
Akismet 3.0.3
bbp buddypressprofile information 1.0
bbPress Topic Thumbnails 1.2
bbPress Unread Posts 1.0
BBSpoiler 1.01
Custom Field Suite 2.3.8
Global Hide Toolbar Bruteforce 1.6.1
Google Apps Login 2.5.2
Google Drive Embedder 3.1
Jetpack WordPress.com 3.1.1
P3(Plugin Performance Profiler) 1.5.3.1
Paid Membership Pro 1.7.14.2
Rss Post Importer 1.0.7
Use Any Font 4.2.1
wp-Monalisa 3.4
WP Login Timeout Settings 1.1.0
YouTube Channel 2.4.0.2

What i have now:
5 groups in plugin, member testuserrq is subscriper to a site and a participant to a forum. He is inside group1 in plugin. I have some forums private and they are marked only for groups2-4. This user can’t see this forums when he is browsing forum, but if he will try direct-link he can see it and he can browse it further(for example by direct link to a forum and then to threads in this forum)
I tried different options in plugin, created new forums and changed groups, but still problem with direct link persists. If i will give user reader right in forum he cant see this themes anymore, only as participant. Changing his role to site does nothing(i can even turn it off).
I tried installing capability manager enhanced to look what capabilities this role have and i see it has read private forums – should it be this way? I guess it is how it goes by default.

Please, try to give me any direction where i can look at, because its crucial for my site(as i rely on forum much and forum access security is a subject of a main concern)

Sorry for so many text and this mess 🙁

[@robin-w Moderator 10 years, 1 month ago]

sorry for the late reply, I have been busy elsewhere.

Read private forums is fine, and as it should be.

I have carefully read through the above, and am struggling to help you further.

The best I can suggest is that you set up a test site

https://codex.bbpress.org/creating-a-test-site/

so that you can try with a default theme and not break you live site

[@nishant2hit Participant 9 years, 12 months ago]

Hi Robin and team,
I am using bbp Private groups plugin with bbpress. This has been of great help for many. However, I am having this strange issue with moderator type of forum user.
Moderator user though assigned to a single private group is able to view forum topics and create topic that belong to a different group.
Below are two users I created in the system. Both belong to same private group:

Name Private Group(s) Wordpress & bbPress Roles
—————– ——————– ————————–
nishant.moderator Group1 GroupA Subscriber/Moderator
nishant.participant Group1 GroupA Subscriber/Participant

I have created two forums. Below is a snapshot of Management information tab of bb private groups:
Group1 Group name : GroupA
No. users in this group : 2
Forums in this group :
ForumA
No. forums that have this group set : 1
Group2 Group name : GroupB
No. users in this group : 0
Forums in this group :
ForumB
No. forums that have this group set : 1

nishant.moderator is able to view topics and add topic for ForumB as well which should not be allowed ideally.

Please help me with this issue.

Thanks
Nishant

[@robin-w Moderator 9 years, 12 months ago]

Wish I was a team !!

I suspect that this is how it works.

For participant roles I can use my plugin to tightly control access.

For moderators, originally moderators could see and moderate all forums.

I then amended this to allow them to moderate only forums with no group set or with their group set. However this related to moderation, I have sort of presumed that moderators could see other groups and have participant rights in them, just not moderate, as it was moderation that I was controlling.

I suspect that some users would like it as above, and others with no rights for other private forums, as you desire.

I’ll take another look at the code to see how easy it is to change, but moderation hits into many places in the core bbpress code, and I’m not sure how easy it would be to be that flexible.

[@robin-w Moderator 9 years, 12 months ago]

Ok, I’ve had a look, and worked out where bbpress was overriding the moderator issue.

I have released a new version 2.5.2 which will do as the help text says

Moderators with a group set can only see, participate and moderate open forums (those with no private group set) or forums which they belong to.

Moderators with NO group set can see, participate and moderate all forums

Please update and come back and confirm this does what you want

[@nishant2hit Participant 9 years, 12 months ago]

Thanks Robin for such a quick turnaround, really appreciated. It seems to be working as desired.

[@nishant2hit Participant 9 years, 12 months ago]

However, the moderator is able to view all topics and replies from dashboard. He can edit the same. In dashboard, is there a way to hide topics and replies from forums for which moderator’s group is not set to.

[@nishant2hit Participant 9 years, 12 months ago]

I have disabled dashboard for non-admin users. so, for now, that does the trick. Thanks Robin for your help on this.

[@robin-w Moderator 9 years, 12 months ago]

No problem, it’s good to get the feedback and I’ll take a look and see how easy it is to block the backend – it may have some filters I can use.

It’ll be a few days as I’m tied up else where