Forum permissions

I want to move some of my forums so that they are visible to all visitors (whether signed in or not), but where the contents of the forum can only be viewed by registered users. I also need the workflow of the process of trying to access the forum to encourage people to sign-up. In fact the sole aim of this exercise is to encourage sign-ups.

So I looked in the docs to see what each of the permissions meant, and didn't find anything that helps (it said the view permission lets you view, and the read permission read, but view/read what?). So I took a guess. My sense is that View means you can view the forum, so it is visible and can be opened up to list topics, but you can't read any of the posts. I also figured that Read means I can actually read the posts in the forum.

But on turning off the Read permission, users get presented with an unfriendly "access denied" message (what are they meant to do? why do they not have access?). So I turned that back on, and turned off the View permission. I kinda expected this to let me view the forum, but not read any posts. But on trying it, I find that a) the forum vanishes from the list, and b) when going to the forum URL, users are asked to sign in.

So I now see what Read and View do - Read lets the user view the thread list and the contents of posts, and View specifies whether the forum is visible in the forums list or not, but I'm left in a situation where having make my forum accessible only to registered users it's slamming the door in their face with "Access denied" rather than directing them to register, or explaining what they have to do to get acess.

So what's the easiest way to change that message? Really I need different messages, depending on what they're trying to access. e.g.:

The forum you're trying to access is available to registered users. Registration is quick and FREE. click here to join

or

The forum you're trying to access is available to subscribers. To upgrade your account and gain immediate access, click here

I imagine the "access denied" message is a single text resource and I'll have to create a generic message, though it's going to be hard to communicate why they're being denied access.

Any ideas?

Ollie

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