I would suggest starting here:  https://simple-press.com/documentation/codex/getting-started/controlling-access/

should explain it… but come on back if you have questions…

Yep, I’ve read all that. I ‘think’ I get the protection thing (I’m hoping), but how do you register members to the protected forum automatically? If all members have to register to use forums how can you automatically map them to the private forum? Is there a special link you send them?

Well I suppose the first thing to clearly establish is that registering users is not a function of SP. This happens within the WordPress core of your website. All Simple:Press does is work with those users and react to the data we are sent. 

You said at the top that you would have public forums and member only forums. This is, in fact, exactly how our website here is set up. To do this then you will need to be using some sort of membership plugin. Decent membership plugins can assign users to different WP roles and you can map Simple:Press User Groups to different roles (see the user group admin for SP – Map Users to User Groups. So it starts with the membership plugin.

The FAQ below might help you understand more. This one was written around the WishList plugin but most membership plugins are similar. The main thing to look out for is that the membership plugin does obey WP standards and fire off the standard WP action and filter hooks. The authors should be able to conform this ort tell us which you are using and we may well have encountered it in the past.

https://simple-press.com/documentation/codex/faq/how-to/how-to-configure-simple-press-with-membership-plugin/

Thanks for your reply – much appreciated.

I have Wishlist so I’ll look at installing that to give me the ability to do what I need and check back if I have further questions.

Sorry one other question – people who can’t access the forums can still view activity there right? I think that’s how you had that set up.

They can’t actually go and read private threads but at the top level they see there’s activity so gives them an incentive to buy in, right?

Up until earlier this year we used WishList Member on this site – hence the FAQ!

Yes – we allow non-members access to some public forums but they can also see the other forums and see activity. There are various ways and options in the permissions to set this up. There is also a ‘How To’ FAQ on what we call the ‘sneak peek’ option which allows them to see topic listings but no more and when they try and look at one it redirects to a url of your choice – such as a sign-up page.

Thanks again, I’ll look into it. The redirect is neat, I like that.

good luck!  holler if you have any more questions…