Set a usergroup to read-write, but regular to read-only

[Mareid]

I want to allow one user group to have full permissions in a particular forum but allow all other users (Regular Members, no particular user group) to read but not post or reply.  I have set it so that guests cannot browse.  I apologize if the answer is obvious but I'm very confused by the layers of permissions.

(edited for all other users = Regular Members)

[Kindred]

Yes. Possible by using board permission profiles.
Read the faq

[Mareid]

I do not want to limit posting by post count.  I want to limit it by group membership. SMF 1.1 allowed this in a very simply way.

I understand that you experts are annoyed by westions that you feel we should be able to find the answer to but I did search the forum here and help on my own board, and I did read the manual and the FAQ and I'm still confused.  If you don't feel my question is worthy of your knowledge, then I apologize

[Kindred]

I said nothing about past count groups.

I said board permission profiles.
It does exactly what you said. It's how we limit access to boards here...


It's in the faq.

[Arantor]

Pointing people at the FAQ is rarely helpful because it doesn't really relate to what people want.

So, to explain, in the board permissions area, you can set up profiles. This is essentially a list of 'in boards that use this profile, group x has these permissions, groups y and z have those permissions'. Normally all boards start out with the 'Default' profile, but can use things like 'Read only'. In fact what you want sounds like you want to start by making a copy of the "Read only" profile in the permissions area and adding the powers to post only to the groups that you want. Once you've done that, set the board or boards you want to have this list of permissions to use this new profile in the board's own configuration.

[Kindred]

When I post from my phone, I tend to point people to the FAQ because it involves way less typing... and the answers are there... 

[Arantor]

My apologies to the OP to derail this a bit, but frankly this is NOT HELPFUL.

You say it's in the FAQ. I see the following three topics that look to a non-expert like they might be relevant:
* https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Membergroups_-_How_do_I_create_a_board_for_certain_membergroups_only
* https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Permissions_-_How_do_I_set_up_post_count_based_membergroup_permissions
* https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Permission_profiles_-_an_overview

The last looks most relevant to me as an SMF veteran except it doesn't answer the question and diverges off into post count groups, because it's a re-tread of https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Board_Permissions_-_Limit_posting_location_for_newbies

And, surprise surprise, there is no FAQ entry that actually answers the OP's problem. So, no, the answers are not there.

[Mareid]

I have to say I was a bit frustrated, but I figured I wasn't going to get useful help so I did a lot of experimenting, logging in and logging out of my forum and I finally figured it out for myself.  So in the end I really learned something. 

I do think the levels of abstraction make it confusing and non-intuitive and the manual, faq and community forums (which I did search) were not very helpful.  Some of the information is circular...create a permission profile and set permissions - well duh!.  I got confused with "general permissions".  Unless you dig into Forum Permissions, you don't see Permission Profiles, and I'm still confused as to what "general permissions" does.

SMF is extremely powerful; more powerful than what I need for my tiny closed group, so maybe my issue isn't useful in the general population of administrators.  What I did, and I hope this will be useful for other inexperienced users is this:

I created a member group called Board of Directors and put all board members into that group
I found permission profiles, and created a profile called BoardOnly and set the permissions for each of the member groups as I wanted them.  e.g. Board has R/W and everyone else has R/O
and finally I went to the forum and selected BoardOnly as the only group that could access the forum. 

I think this is correct, and in any case it works.

[Mareid]

Thanks for marking the topic solved.  I forgot, sorry

[Kindred]

yes, that is correct...

the difference between general permissions and board specific permissions is just that....   board specific permissions only trigger when you are inside a board that as a profile defined. In all other cases, general permissions are in effect.

[Mareid]

So when I set this up, I did not inherit permissions for my user group (BoD), I used unique permissions for the group, which automatically created a General Permissions group also called BoD. In order for BoD user group to have different permissions from Regular Users, Bod group must have unique permissions, or am I missing something. 

[Kindred]

You can set the bod to duplicate the normal member group permissions.

I'm not sure what happens to inherited permissions groups in the case of profiles

[efk]

@Mareid

Board has R/W and everyone else has R/O
and finally I went to the forum and selected BoardOnly as the only group that could access the forum.

I think this is correct, and in any case it works.

To add 1 more thing about board accessibility, Admin/Members/Membergroups.../ Visible Boards: > here you can set per membergroup which boards will be available for members. Also you can make board + child-board and there you can make board to not be accessible to most of members except forum crew, and child-board to be visible to everyone including guests. That way you can make things like attachments visible to everyone if you upload them to that specific child-board and use attachment link anywhere in public as img, or to give to some random user direct link to hidden board.