I run a small forum, with 1000 members. I have been asked to remove a layer of login/password access.

1. They need a login/password to get to the member's section. (This one needs to stay in place)
2. They need a login/password to get to the member's forum after they are in the member's section.
3. I need to keep specific control of who uses the forum, making sure that their name details ARE shown if they post. They don't like logging in twice, and want only one.

I guess the question is can Website Access Manager be used to "auto fill" the login information (from the first login or in any other way) into the Forum login screen?

Can this be done?
Thanks for any suggestions, I"m STUCK..

Yes, website access manager will do this for you, but it may not do it the way you want. WAM will set your directories to passwords, which means when a person hits the directory, a box will prompt them to enter password and username. However, on whatever landing page you create there will not be a little username and password box where someone can just enter in that way (for this you would need CC's other program). With that program though you dont have the privileged of protecting an entire directory.

With WAM you can protect as many directories as you would like to and as deeply as you would like to into your folder system.

I hope this was clear, let me know if you have any other questions or need clarification.

I don't believe what you ask is possible with WAM. WAM mainly manages the .htaccess file that can be present in various directories on your typical web server. That file is hidden and contains (among other things) access directives for that directory. It does't have facility for extending its influence beyond the .htaccess file, nor does the .htaccess system of control provide what you're looking for.

It sounds like you're looking for some sort of scripted interface that can accept and store information, perhaps coded in something like PHP. That's well outside the scope of what WAM does, methinks.

Did I just completely misunderstand the question or what?

Mayhap. It sounded as though he wants you to enter the login credentials as asked for by the .htaccess file (created by WAM), and subsequently have that info auto-entered into login fields for forum software.

I see.

I'm stumped as to the problem here actually. What forums are you using? Almost every forum that I've ever setup has complete control over who goes where and sees what. You most likely have all this possibility right at your fingertips already with groups and access levels etc. that are usually part of the forum itself.

Which forum are you using, maybe I can help you figure out what to do within your forum itself to get the results you need. The main thing is to setup groups. Once you setup groups you are able to setup a group for specific people that you can alter their access to be able to access specific forums. This gives you control over the whole thing so you can actually have different people having access to different areas of the forums. This also gives you complete access over the newcomers so that you are able to create a landing area basically that they can post in as a guest or as a registered member asking for access etc. It's quite a versatile system built within most forums.

For an example of how a landing forum area could look to a newcomer you can create just a couple forums that everyone sees no matter what level (this would be the landing area) and that is all a newcomer would see. See this example of a forum setup with PHPbb for a gaming guild that I setup a while ago.

http://dungeontoys.lbpages.com/forums

The only forum visible to a newcomer that hasn't registered or isn't part of the groups yet is the Guild Recruit forum, but in reality there are about a dozen forums on this board that are not visible to the newcomer. This is group control.

You are correct, this is what I need. I need absolute control over what is posted to the forum, as I am replacing a wild and wooly blog with controlled posting in a forum. As far as I know, the only way to make absolutely certain that the poster can be identified, is to have them login.

Therefore, if I can find a way for the login details used to get into the secured folder, named "Members" to be used to auto login to the forum, then the posters will be identified, based on ther login details.
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For the kind person offering assistance with the forum, thank you very much, I sincerly appreciate it. I may take you up on that offer regardless, as I am new to this. The forum software I am using is SMF 1.1.11

Once the user accesses the member's section via login, I would like to have that login information be used to "login" to the forum. The forum accounts will match the members' section login details.

After their first login, they can set the forum to "remember" them, and that's fine, I just need to make sure that if they post, their name details show up exactly as set up, with no anonymous posting allowed. (another setting I found in the forum setup.)

I again thank you for your offer of assistance, and I hope that you can help me figure out a way to fix this.

Hiya Mike,

I'll download it and see if I can take a look at it. Mayhaps I can find the settings or let you know if this system is capable of the settings you need. I have to admit though that I think you're making it a lot more difficult than it needs to be, or maybe I'm misunderstanding what you need.

When most forums are setup for groups, what you do then is give each group (or individual if you choose to go that way) the rights or access to specific areas of your forums. This way there is only 1 login for them rather than 2, and they will automatically have the access granted them upon logging in to whichever forums you've given them access to. If you're thinking something different, I guess I'd need a little more information as to what you are getting at for needing 2 separate logins.

An example for the game forums that I mentioned earlier is like so:

Admins: have admin access to all admin functions and all forums
Sub Admins: have access to some of the Admin functions but not all, and all the of the forums.
Guild Members: have access to all the guild member forums, all Alliance forums, and all Guest area forums (such as the Guild Recruit section.
Guild Alliance Members: have access to a specific set of Alliance forums only.
Non Members: All the rest that want to post, all posting must be done by registered members of the forums as no Guest posting is allowed (keeps out spammers). These people only see the Guild Recruit forum and nothing else.

This would be a prime example of how the groups in forums actually can work for you and keep your groups functioning at the minimum of setup and work for you.

You can also set them up for Moderators in the same degrees where you can create specific mod groups and have a Head moderator with access to moderate all, and regular Moderators that you assign to specific forums to moderate that don't have access to moderate the rest, etc, etc.

Hi Jo Ann,
I think this is a case of me not being able to explain what I need. I'm fairly sure this has nothing to do with groups in a forum.

I enter a website. I want to go into a part of the website that is controled by WAM (let's call this "access to members.htm"), allowing me to enter only if I have login/password access. That is part one, where I must enter a specific login and password.

Next, once I enter that part of the website, there is a link available on members.htm to a "members only forum" (the SMF forum software program). In order to get into the forum, I have to enter a forum login and password, which has nothing to do with the login and password I used (as described above), to access that part of the website.

That represents two sets of logins/passwords that must be used by the time I get to the forum. One to get into members.htm, and one to enter or access the forum software package.

I wanted to know is if WAM would be able to use the login and password that were entered when entering the protected part of the website, and auto fill in the login and password required to access the forum software.

I hope that makes more sense.