Homepage Login to SMF Forum Backend

[galanb]

My apologies if I am posting this in the wrong place and also if I am asking a question someone else has already answered: I am new to SMF and I am not familiar with its terms and nomenclature, which makes searching the community forum difficult.

I want to use SMF to setup a private forum, not open to the general public.  Therefore, I do not want users landing on my website's homepage to be able to view the homepage of the forum.  Therefore, my thinking is to have a homepage on my website (outside of the SMF Forum) that simply allows people to login or register for the forum.  I would like to use the SMF registration and login processes and database, but without exposing to forum's homepage.  Basically, I was thinking of building my own input dialog boxes for registration and login info capture, which I would then like to pass into the SMF database either directly or via SMF processes. Can this be done fairly easily?  If so, I would appreciate any guidance/links etc to draw from.  If my approach is completely wrong and I am barking up the wrong tree, please pick me up and turn me around and point me to the better way.  Thank you in advance for any help.

[SaltedWeb]

If I am seeing this right, why not use a portal you can allow or disallows any parts of that front, as far as the forum easily can be hid in permissions to guest. Further more you could add to the front portal a login as most have a member box of some kind or just use the one that would still be there.
But you can hide the whole forum and only have a login fairly easy. If I am reading what you were looking for. Tiny Portal and Simple Portal are both fairly power portals that accomplish allot as a mod.

[Kindred]

I am confused...   if you don't want users to see the forum until they login/register, then just turn off guest access.

All done.

[galanb]

If I am seeing this right, why not use a portal you can allow or disallows any parts of that front, as far as the forum easily can be hid in permissions to guest. Further more you could add to the front portal a login as most have a member box of some kind or just use the one that would still be there.
But you can hide the whole forum and only have a login fairly easy. If I am reading what you were looking for. Tiny Portal and Simple Portal are both fairly power portals that accomplish allot as a mod.

Thank you SaltedWeb for your help!  I will take a look at both of those portals and see which is best for my needs.  I may try both; hopefully they will uninstall cleanly.

[galanb]

I am confused...   if you don't want users to see the forum until they login/register, then just turn off guest access.

All done.

Thank you for replying Kindred.
I have removed/disabled Guest logins as far as I can tell: there seems to be several settings in a number of places; hopefully I haven't missed one somewhere. 
Regarding using the default SMF Home page: the home page header area is displaying "News" by default, which means it is viewable by anyone landing on the site.  Secondly, when someone clicks on the Registration link, the first thing it does is display the User Agreement narrative.  I have edited the User Agreement text to make it pertinent to the forum's legal jurisdictions and other non-public information is also included in the agreement.  While I could edit these things out of the User Agreement, I would prefer not to as there is not a mechanism to obtain consent at a later time.  My preference would really be for the SMF User Agreement to be presented to the user at time of first login (after I have reviewed and approved the forum sign-up as Admin.  If there is an easy way to request user consent of the Agreement at first login, I would be grateful to know how.  Thanks again for your help.

[SaltedWeb]

[/quote]

While I could edit these things out of the User Agreement, I would prefer not to as there is not a mechanism to obtain consent at a later time.  My preference would really be for the SMF User Agreement to be presented to the user at time of first login (after I have reviewed and approved the forum sign-up as Admin.  If there is an easy way to request user consent of the Agreement at first login, I would be grateful to know how.  Thanks again for your help.
[/quote]

I may be wrong but I thought there was a read post first Mod. I did a search didn't find one. But might be something to look for.

You should be able to just put forward the agreement right to the registration Page. Maybe someone else can chime on that first post.

I may be mistaken as I ran a Xenforo forum for about 5 years and might have been there were I saw it.( which is not SMF related).
If I find that mod I'll post a link here.

[Tonyvic]

I may be wrong but I thought there was a read post first Mod. I did a search didn't find one. But might be something to look for.

I would imagine Force Topic Read On Login is the one @SaltedWeb is referring to.

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

I am confused...   if you don't want users to see the forum until they login/register, then just turn off guest access.

All done.

Thank you for replying Kindred.
I have removed/disabled Guest logins as far as I can tell: there seems to be several settings in a number of places; hopefully I haven't missed one somewhere. 

Admin -> Configuration -> Features and Options -> General, the first checkbox: Allow guests to browse the forum

Regarding using the default SMF Home page: the home page header area is displaying "News" by default, which means it is viewable by anyone landing on the site.  Secondly, when someone clicks on the Registration link, the first thing it does is display the User Agreement narrative.  I have edited the User Agreement text to make it pertinent to the forum's legal jurisdictions and other non-public information is also included in the agreement.  While I could edit these things out of the User Agreement, I would prefer not to as there is not a mechanism to obtain consent at a later time.  My preference would really be for the SMF User Agreement to be presented to the user at time of first login (after I have reviewed and approved the forum sign-up as Admin.  If there is an easy way to request user consent of the Agreement at first login, I would be grateful to know how.  Thanks again for your help.

Admin -> Main - >News and Newsletters -> News, will allow to edit the news in the header.

Admin -> Configuration -> Themes and Layout -> Theme Settings -> ( Select a theme )
-> Enable random news line in the forum header, will allow to turn on or off the header news
-> Show news fader on board index, will allow to turn on or off the news fader on index

Admin -> Members -> Registration -> Registration Agreement, will allow you to edit the registration agreement.

I may be wrong but I thought there was a read post first Mod. I did a search didn't find one. But might be something to look for.

I would imagine Force Topic Read On Login is the one @SaltedWeb is referring to.

This would work to force a user to see a certain topic after logging in.

[eric-mendes]

I think he's looking for something like this (see attached).

Actually, I am too. Can somebody help me?

Thanks in advance!

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Yes, this will show a login screen to every visitor.

I am confused...   if you don't want users to see the forum until they login/register, then just turn off guest access.

All done.

Thank you for replying Kindred.
I have removed/disabled Guest logins as far as I can tell: there seems to be several settings in a number of places; hopefully I haven't missed one somewhere. 

Admin -> Configuration -> Features and Options -> General, the first checkbox: Allow guests to browse the forum.

[eric-mendes]

Yes, this will show a login screen to every visitor.

I am confused...   if you don't want users to see the forum until they login/register, then just turn off guest access.

All done.

Thank you for replying Kindred.
I have removed/disabled Guest logins as far as I can tell: there seems to be several settings in a number of places; hopefully I haven't missed one somewhere. 

Admin -> Configuration -> Features and Options -> General, the first checkbox: Allow guests to browse the forum.

Thanks for you super fast reply, Lex!

I've already done that. However, I would like to "clean" the page... no header, no footer, etc. I want only the login or register options.

Thanks again!

[Kindred]

There is nothing currently that does that.

You could build your own page using ssi_login() in the directory above the forum....   but even then, anyone who accessed the forum directly would still see it as it is.

[xTyler]

You could run a check to see if they are logged in before displaying the header and footer