Forum Display Question

[husf]

Here's my situation. I have a message board that deals with a certain topic. This topic right now is geographically specific (California). I have forums that deal directly with the topic and I have forums that deal with general information that that isn't area specific.

I want to expand my board to other locations (Oregon and Washington) but I don't want the California, Oregon, and Washington specific forums to be visible at the same time unless someone wants to view the entire board.

What I'd like is to be able to have URLs like www.---.com/forum/California, www.----.com/forum/Oregon, and www.---.com/forum/Washington and have only the specific area topics visible on it's designated URL. In other words, I want the general topics to be displayed with all specific topics since users from all areas can benefit from the general topics, but not have all specific topics displayed at the same time on these URLs.

Is there something available that would allow me to do this? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I apologize if my explanation isn't clear. Thanks in advance!

[kall]

You should be able to achieve this using htaccess mod_rewrite functions...but how to actually do it correctly is beyond me.

*edit* Basically- create the individual forums then add the info to htaccess so that when someone types/forums/california, they are redirected to forumdisplay.php?f=23 or whatever the forum id is.

[Andreas]

Hmm ... I don't think this will work well.
Of course you could use mod_rewrite to have /forums/California only display the California category. But a user just have to click "Forum Home" for example to see all categories.

My approach would be to create those directories as symlinks, then check in init.php which URL is being used to view the board and then dynamically make the user a member of the group who has got access to a specific category.

BUT this would only work for registered members and I am not sure if it is OK with the vBulletin license (I tend to think that it would not be allowed with a single license)

[kall]

Originally Posted by KirbyDE

Hmm ... I don't think this will work well.
Of course you could use mod_rewrite to have /forums/California only display the California category. But a user just have to click "Forum Home" for example to see all categories.

My approach would be to create those directories as symlinks, then check in init.php which URL is being used to view the board and then dynamically make the user a member of the group who has got access to a specific category.

BUT this would only work for registered members and I am not sure if it is OK with the vBulletin license (I tend to think that it would not be allowed with a single license)

You see why I said it was beyond me?

Another way would be to have them join a Public Usergroup based ont heir location..have the permissions set so that the specific groups are the only ones with access to see the forum in question?

[husf]

Originally Posted by KirbyDE

Hmm ... I don't think this will work well.
Of course you could use mod_rewrite to have /forums/California only display the California category. But a user just have to click "Forum Home" for example to see all categories.

My approach would be to create those directories as symlinks, then check in init.php which URL is being used to view the board and then dynamically make the user a member of the group who has got access to a specific category.

BUT this would only work for registered members and I am not sure if it is OK with the vBulletin license (I tend to think that it would not be allowed with a single license)

I didn't realize this might not be allowed with a single license. Why do you think it would unacceptable?