How to make Parent Category a placeholder?

[cvtrig]

I am in the process of selecting a new forum to replace my old one. I've narrowed it down to SMF and myBB. I really like SMF yet there seems to be some trouble I'm having with formatting the main forum view that I need help from the community with.

In myBB I can create a Forum Type = Category and under that I can create Sub-Categories and Child Forums (aka SubForums), it makes for a nice clean look when you have a lot of forums like I do. The end result is a Single entry with a line of child forums under it that doesn't require collapsing the entire category to simplify the flow of the main page.

In SMF I can create a Category and under it I can create Forums, but the problem I'm having is I can't change the Forum Type for the Category I created. I don't want people posting in the Category I created, I only want them posting in the Child Forums below it. Otherwise I end up with a General Discussion forum that houses my Child Forums which is what I don't want. I want to suppress the discussion from a general area and push it into separate distinct areas. This reduces the need for moderation and moving of posts between forums.

How can I change the Parent Category to be a placeholder only for my subforums?

I looked at the documentation, all I found was this: http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Boards which didn't answer my question. Did I miss it?

I also scoured the forums and couldn't find any reference to it either, the Tidy Child Forum Mod doesn't solve it either because the Category can still be posted in. Is there a Mod that can solve this? or is this a feature request?

Please advise,

CVTRIG

[Kindred]

just for terminology clarity...

in SMF
a forum is the main software, aka your site.
a category holds a group of boards - there are no posts in a category - it is an organizational thing only.
a board is something that holds a group of message threads and possibly child board(s). (these are what are listed under the categories on the main board index page)
a child board is a board that is under another board...  you can have children of children, etc to naerly any layer
a thread is a group of posts.


that being said...
You can set up a parent BOARD with child boards... and then set the parent board to read-only (which will prevent anyone except admins and global mods from posting in it)

[Illori]

http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Cross_references_for_other_software
http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Board_Permissions

[cvtrig]

Thanks that solved it.