Show Forum search results to guests without permission?

[mcsg]

We have guests and paid members on our system.
When guests view the forums, we show them the post titles, but do not allow them to see the post bodies. This is from the setting:

Forums > Edit Forum > Permissions > Users without read permission can open forum?

This way we "entice" the guests to see the many topic posts, but they need to join in order to view the topics themselves.

Is there a way to provide this behavior with search results? IOW, when a Guest searches for information, we can show them the Forum Topic Titles that are in the results, but trying to open those results presents them with the error/sign-on window saying they must be a member to view the content of those results.

Similar to a newspaper site where you can search for relevant articles, but only read the articles if you are a subscriber to the publication.

[PPlanet]

I think that, in addition to the setting you mentioned, in the specific forums/subforums permissions if you tick "See Forum" but you don't tick "Read Topics" for the Guests group, you get what you want. I'm not sure because my permission settings are different to that, but I suspect that will do the trick.

[PPlanet]

Apart from what you want to do, there are a series of plugins that give guests (or some groups too) a sample of what's available, by letting access the content x times in a given period of time. Or only allowing to access some part of the content, etc.

Here are some (apologies if I've overlooked others)

 

[mcsg]

@PPlanetThank you!! These are great place to start and explore for the features we want.
May I ask, did you already know of these plugins/apps for limiting/exploring viewable guest content, or was there a particular search term(s) you used for finding them.
I was having trouble narrowing down the focus to find items like these.

Thank you!

[PPlanet]

8 hours ago, mcsg said:

@PPlanetThank you!! These are great place to start and explore for the features we want.
May I ask, did you already know of these plugins/apps for limiting/exploring viewable guest content, or was there a particular search term(s) you used for finding them.
I was having trouble narrowing down the focus to find items like these.

Thank you!

 

No worries, I knew about most of the plugins, but I went searching for them to list them here too. From the search at the top, I selected to look in "Downloads" (which basically is the Marketplace here) and with the keyword "Guests". You'll find them all that way.

[mcsg]

17 hours ago, PPlanet said:

I think that, in addition to the setting you mentioned, in the specific forums/subforums permissions if you tick "See Forum" but you don't tick "Read Topics" for the Guests group, you get what you want.

I do have that permissions set like that and unfortunately, it does not work to provide the topics in Search for the guests.

[PPlanet]

Okay, I wasn't sure if that was going to work. In that case, maybe one of the plugins can come in handy. Not to do exactly what you wanted here, but in some similar way.

[mcsg]

Thanks @PPlanet.

Everyone, know of a plugin/app that will allow Guests to view Topic titles in search, but not see the titles?
I like the idea of showing only X number of articles to Guests, but for our site that doesn't work.

I think what I need to understand is whether Search will adheres to the forum permissions for View but not Read.