i want the ## of posts and topics NOT be shown for 1 specific category

[TheDragon]

I have a category whose title VISIBLE to all
but ONLY members of a certain membergroup can click and enter
but I (the client) do not want others to see how much 'action' is there
(ie posts and topics)
if this is EZ - then ok

else I can just make a new category with false and hide the existing name from ALL
and just let the special member group see ITS Board

[Kindred]

you would have to modify boardindex.tample.php with conditional code to not display the stats for that specific board ID...   and manually update it, if your target ever changed or if you ever use another theme with a boardindex, etc

[TheDragon]

sounds 'doable' as you suggested
but have no time for custom programming
(might be easy for some of you wizards / but still little tough for me at times 
will just make a 'ghost category' that no one can post in

thank for reply/suggestion

[margarett]

Actually it should be something really easy in the BoardIndex.template.php

BUT... the main issue would be the fact that the additional membergroups are NOT loaded into the user data, so you would also require another modification for having such information everywhere (there is a post by Arantor that explains how to do this but can't find it now...).
As soon as you have this info, a simple "board id == xx and in_array(user membergroups, yy)" should do the trick

Sorry for the lazy coding presentation, just thinking out loud

[TheDragon]

the client liked my suggestion
eg
EXEC lounge (visible to ALL only as a board title)
and NO ONE can enter post / this keeps post count to zero
and REAL EXEC lounge
visible ONLY to EXEX membergroup and ONLY members called EXEC can access and post