[drives fast]

Here is what you do to do it good. First off...why would you want to attach files...that slows down the database considerably if you have a lot of files and file sizes are big.

anyway.

Step 1

download your default style

Step 2

re-upload it as a new style and re-name it "Files"

Step 3

Now that you have a whole new set of templates, open up the "forum_display" template in the "Files" set and edit all the stuff out and put in html for a files page. Save it.

Step 4

create a new forum in your list of forums called "Files" and apply it (make it visible)

Step 5

go to the new forum link on your main forum page and right click on the link to that forum and save it to notepad or something.

Step 6

Now go back into "Forums and Moderators" and click "Modify" and edit the new forum "Files"....make it not appear now and be sure to edit permissions for the forum to allow or disallow whatever usergroup you feel right. You can even make it a private forum. Make the style be "Files" and make it "Overide users custom settings" and "Not user selectable"

Step 7

Make a link to the forum "Files" somewhere on your site. and now you have an integrated files page on your forum that utilizes the login process if you choose.

Now that you have integrated a files page in your forum you now need to get a file called "downloader.cgi" and it is an anti-leech script that stops any linking to files from anywhere that you do not specify. It is very easy to set up and works great and even promotes you to organize your files in a good manner.

you put the code on every link to a file and the script decides whether or not you have come from the right plcae and you can make it re-direct to a custom page if they have not.

Done.

This works very good for me but like it has already been said.....nothing will stop them from posting anything elsewhere....this only preserves you bandwidth and allows you do either make it private and decide who gets in and who doesn't or can be set just for members only.....all in how you set the permissions.

I am very new to php and this is an okay solution to integration issues until I get better and can make a custom php page that has all the "requires" and "else's" to be able to integrate without a whole nother set of templates.

anyway...this works great and can be used to integrate many other kinds of things into your forum.

Have fun