Need Help with an Old Problem - Private Forums/UserGroups/Registration Information

[biggjoe]

Hello Everyone;

I am trying to figure out the best way to manage permissions for my forum, but I'm not sure how to go about this exactly. I'm a newbie to vB and just installed vB 3.5.

Basically, our comany has different categories of customers that purchase our products. Some of these customers are in competition with each other.

We wanted to setup private forums for each different category of customer, but have them only see their own forums/sub-forums.

Here is my forum structure:

Customer Category 1
-- Forum 1
- Sub Forums
-- Forum 2
- Sub Forums
-- Forum 3
- Sub Forums

Customer Category 2
-- Forum 1
- Sub Forums
-- Forum 2
- Sub Forums
-- Forum 3
- Sub Forums

From what I've read on the vB 3.5 manual and on threads on vB related sites, it looks like the best way to do is by Forum Permissions/User Groups. This part is pretty simple.

However, here's where I'm not exactly sure how to go about this;

When a customer first visits our forums site: www.domain.com/forums...

- What will they see?

- How do I control extactly what they see?

- Can I also hide the 'categories' as well?

- Maybe have a 'Welcome' text block that tells them that they must register, then when they sign-in they'll see the forums available?

- How can I capture specific information in the registration form, so they are manually added to the correct UserGroup that has ONLY access to the Forum I want them to have?

Thanks in advance!

Joe