In the “Private category” discussion, testingsoftware is seeking a solution to make certain categories visible to all users while restricting their content. Currently, categories can either be invisible to unauthorized users or readable by everyone.
pfaffman suggests making the group visible and indicating that access to the category requires group membership. HAWK confirms that there is no built-in way to achieve the desired functionality, and this suggestion is the best alternative.
Other users, including david and schungx, propose potential workarounds, such as using a plugin or creating a parent category with a pinned notice and subcategories set to proper security restrictions.
testingsoftware ultimately implements schungx’s suggestion by creating a parent category called “Private Sections” with a pinned topic listing the subcategories and a link to request access. They note that this is the only viable solution found so far and express a desire for a feature to add a title without creating a category.
All our categories will be open to all to see and post but there will be a few categories that will be accessible only to users who request access to them.
I have created a user group “private1” (as we’ll have about 3 private categories). In the category to be private, lets say “private1 Cat”, if I remove the “everyone” group, they won’t see the category at all, if I give them , “see” rights, they will be able to see its content. What we need is that people can see the category but not see its content. This way they can know it is there and then request access to it.
So far I have only managed to make categories invisible to everyone who is not allowed to see them. or that everyone can read the content and this is no good for us.
I tried Jay’s suggestion and it works.
I have added an open category with a note in description with the title of the private areas and a link to the groups so user can request membership.
Taylor, thanks for the suggestion but so far I want to see what the software can do without plugins.
I have set category Private Sections and subcategories subCat1, subCat2, etc.
In the Private Sections category I have pinned a topic with all the categories one can find and a link to the groups page so users can request access.
It is the suggestion that @schungx mentioned earlier and the only solution I have found .
Actually, it would be nice to be able to add a title without it having to be a category, for example, we have a section for Anniversaries and a list of months. A title with Anniversaries and then categories for each month would be good instead of having to have a category for Anniversaries which is not really necessary.