Contact Page (SMFHacks.com Team)

[grizzz]

Greetings,

I just installed the Contact Page by SMFHacks.com Team and it is sort of working.  I say sort of because it works like it should however, I think I am missing something when it comes to the "Guest Mode".

My forum is locked down to registered users only, however I am displaying the Contact to Guests but as of now they need to register before they can use it.  I have granted permission  in ->General Permissions ->General ->View Contact Page but it appears there is another permission somewhere that I need to give in order for this to work.  I do not want to open the forum up for everyone however.

Could someone please tell me what I am missing?

Thanks in advance.

[Arantor]

If your forum is locked out to guests, that kicks in before anything else, really.

Implementing things so it doesn't apply just that one thing to guests is a bit tricky, though it is doable by manually editing the code... still want to do that?

I'm just curious - how do people find your site if they have to sign up to see anything?

[grizzz]

Thanks for the fast reply.

Our Forum is hyperlinked from our website (http://www.cmc-victoria.com/info.html) so we get hits from people from that page.

I am not much of a coder (can do it if someone holds my hand so to speak) and this would help our Forum grow.  Might even open the doors to a couple of other ideas (e.g. opening up the Photo Gallery to guests for viewing).

Any assistance is most appreciated.

Thank you

[Matthew K.]

It's a good idea to post in mod support topics rather than not. If this wasn't posted in a mod support topic, it should have been in SMF Coding Discussion.

Arantor is correct, though

[Arantor]

and this would help our Forum grow.  Might even open the doors to a couple of other ideas (e.g. opening up the Photo Gallery to guests for viewing).[/quote

If you really want it to grow, open more of it up for guests. They're not going to register to see content that they have no idea what they're looking for.

As far as the gallery goes, if it is tied to the forum, it has exactly the same problem.

[grizzz]

You missed the point, but that is ok.

The bottom line is  without re-coding, it can't be done.  To me, I think the permissions need to be more granular but they are not, so I either need to live with it or look for another solution.  Opening up the forum is NOT an answer as it contains information not for everyone.  So maybe then the answer would lay in creating a new permissions group, move everyone into that group and then open up the forum as a guest would not be able to see any of the boards.

Ok....  I guess I really just needed a sounding board to come up with the solution.   

Thanks 

[Arantor]

I don't think I missed the point at all; if you want the forum to grow, you're just not going to be able to do that without making it at least partly open. I'm not suggesting making it all open at all, but if users have to register to see anything, odds are it's going to be slow however you want to go about it.

You don't even have to change any of the groups, you could just turn on the 'allow guests to browse the forum' option, set all the boards so guests can't see them. This would solve all your technical problems, with the exception of the fact that you're going to have a very empty looking forum and that's even less reason to encourage users to register.

[Matthew K.]

Ah yes...I completely missed the point. Good luck getting your answers.

[grizzz]

I don't think I missed the point at all; if you want the forum to grow, you're just not going to be able to do that without making it at least partly open. I'm not suggesting making it all open at all, but if users have to register to see anything, odds are it's going to be slow however you want to go about it.

Sir, you see the forum is mandated to be private - something of which I have little control of.  It is ONLY and STRICTLY for our members, thus can not be open to the public.  Please understand that when I said "grow" I meant for things that could be made public to be made public, e.g. our photo gallery

You don't even have to change any of the groups, you could just turn on the 'allow guests to browse the forum' option, set all the boards so guests can't see them. This would solve all your technical problems, with the exception of the fact that you're going to have a very empty looking forum and that's even less reason to encourage users to register.

When I mentioned  "A sounding board" in the response above, this was the exact one that I came up with.  Sometimes the obvious is not so obvious.  I was looking for a "much harder" solution, that did not need to happen. 

Seriously, I do thank you for your time to 'hit me over the head' and make me look for easier solutions - they are there, I just need to personally take more ownership in the product.  Thank you again.