Hi, folks...
I was thinking of using a teaser forum of the kind Josh has described for the purpose of letting people who AREN'T registered know a bit about what's available, but letting only registered users see the ordinary forums, and THEY wouldn't see the teaser forum, unless they're not logged in. So I would set it up the usual way, where only "guests" see the teaser forum, and they don't see anything else! OK?
(One problem with this is that the guests can't even see what CATEGORIES are available, except the one containing the teaser forum...probably no simple way around that.)
However, I would strongly prefer a teaser forum or equivalent that has, for example, the last post in some of the ordinary forums...or at least the title and part of the post. Dave L suggested an "easier alternative would be an IIP box or IIP Sidebar box. The IIP news box pal could be used as a starting point."
I haven't gone in the direction of using the IIP boxes because we have a simple, small board and because, from what I see, the boxes take a fixed portion of the browser width, and this would conflict with the way I have the main index page laid out (which shows the category descriptions, so things work beter if I alter the table widths, as seen in my
test board).
But is there a way to use a IIP box so it only shows up for "guests"? And, secondly (because I'm not familiar with how they work), could I set one up so it would show selected posts, preferably across the entire screen, in much the way that the search results page here shows the subject and then the first part of the post, for posts that the search turns up?
I notice that Dave l mentioned a "news box pal", and the IIP description starts off with a "news display". From what the desriiption says, it appears this can be displayed in different ways. What are the chances of setting it up so guests see it, so it's across the page, and then doing something to display last posts from selected fourms, or something like that...OR so it shows the subjects and excerpts (like the search results page) without attribution to author, but preferably so the forum name is displayed...
I'm sorry I don't know much about IIP...
Any suggestions or comments would be welcome.
Thanks much - Tony
