unsure if this is where I need to be posting this or not but,
I was wondering if there was a mod somewhere to where parts of the forum could be viewable by anyone logged in or not via clicking a link and NOT be listed on the index page
to be more specific a hidden category
That can be done with a little tweak in BoardIndex.template.php, by skipping the relevant "foreach" loop if the category id equals a proper number. I'm not on the computer now, if no one picks it up I will tell you later how to do it ;)
OK, taking the following setup as example:

I have a category I want to hide from BoardIndex. This category has ID 2
Inside I have boards with ID 3 and 4.
Now, I go to BoardIndex.template.php and find:
// If theres no parent boards we can see, avoid showing an empty category (unless its collapsed)
if (empty($category['boards']) && !$category['is_collapsed'])
continue;
Replace with:
// If theres no parent boards we can see, avoid showing an empty category (unless its collapsed)
if ((empty($category['boards']) && !$category['is_collapsed']) || $category['id'] == 2)
continue;
(note the "== 2"? That's the relevant category ID)
So it is gone now:

But I can still access the boards directly via www.forum_address.com/index.php?board=3.0 or www.forum_address.com/index.php?board=4.0 (3 and 4 are the board IDs that became hidden).
This way you will keep all the permissions you can set for a board. Also, the contents will still show in recent posts, unread messages, etc.
wonder if im editing this properly x.x here is the path to the boardindex.template.php that i edited
/public_html/testforum/Themes/default
its in the themes directory, for the default theme.
thats the only place i know that that file is at haha, anyhow, when i make the change it just crashes the forum
"testforum/index.php?action=collapse;c=2;sa=collapse;f833db2=6fd03db8f1cd73cb2501be5845358ea7#c2"
is the actual link to the catagory that im trying to "hide" , its the second catagory there.
im running on smf version 2.0.2 with the default core theme .
only other place i can figure that it could be changed at is
/public_html/testforum/Sources
on the boardindex.php file, but i have not tried editing it there as of yet....
Please attach your file here, with the changes that crash your forum
ok, here ya go :)
ill probably get in trouble for doing this but,
bump~
I'm sorry, I missed this.
The file you attached doesn't have the changes I proposed you to do.
Create a board (accessible only to admins) and put all the other boards as child of that one.
ETA: the only drawback is that the linktree will show the "admin-only" board, and if someone would click on it he gets an error.
at times i feel like such a noob haha on the topic id i needed 2.0 not 2 , haha got it now
thanks so much margarett
Thanks to you too emanuele , haha its a good idea , would of used it if i couldent get this figured out