[JohnBee]

At this time my own requirements do not call for group access
but simply allow or deny access based on membership confirmation.

The problem I am getting is that using an .htaccess approach
the popup login is still very much there on the advent of incorrect
information submital the .htaccess popup will show its ugly head
hense ruining the clean form login approach I was looking for.

Another issue is that user login and password data depending on
the version of windows and SP you are using may appear in plain
text as well as passed down from the form to the authentication
via plain text, unless SSL / https is used.

There is always a PHP based approach, but it would seem that
PHP alone cannot effectively secure dirs and data as would .htaccess.

There is one program that claims to do this though called "NeedLock"
I have emailed the company with questions regarding my application
to see if it could provide what im looking for.

Perhaps there would be a way to intergrate NeedLock with vBB 3
and we would have a happy couple with a nice clean form login
page instead of that plain htaccess popup.

Unless someone here knows code to PHP a security script that can
protect DIRS and CONTENT and not just individual files