This has been a much discussed topic without any real solid solutions. It is my suggestion and feature request that (somehow) the Simple Access module have additional functionality to control access to forums - thus providing Drupal users the ability to create public and private forums on a single web site.

Comments

jjeff’s picture

jjeff commented

I agree that this would be very handy.

However, forum containers are actually taxonomy terms. And Drupal doesn't have any system for managing access to taxonomy terms (which are the forums and containers) nor nodes tagged with a particular taxonomy term (a.k.a. a forum topic node).

But Simple Access can manage access to each forum topic node (if it is created by a node administrator), but not to an entire forum or container - meaning that other users would still be able to see the listing of these forum topics, but they would get Access Denied when they tried to view them.

That being said, I think I could extend Simple Access so that it would automatically set access permissions for forum nodes with a given term (a.k.a in a given forum).

But it would take a patch to either the taxonomy module or the forum module to control what forums get displayed to which users. I don't think that this can be controlled through an external module.

If anyone wants to sponsor this feature or help to raise a bounty, I'd be happy to code it. Unfortunately, I'm really busy right now and I've got to put the paying work first. This would be a *really* cool feature though. And a great asset for Drupal.

-Jeff

Geary’s picture

Geary commented

The Taxonomy Access Control module lets you set up private forums right out of the box. Check it out.

shane birley’s picture

shane birley commented

Hmmm. One of the things I am wanting to avoid is to patch any of the core modules - it just doesn't seem like a smart thing to do. Perhaps there needs to be a core change. But, you have pointed out this might not be a possibility to control the access without patches.

This might require more thought.

(Ah, funny you should mention a bounty. I have already been discussing this with a couple of other people about rounding up some bounty money.)

gordon’s picture

gordon commented
Status: Active » Closed (won't fix)

This is a function which is included in the node arbitrator module.

simple_access is going to have full support for the node arbitrator module in the next release.