group forum members only

I want to make make groups and forums for members only.

No matter how I set the memberships, public visitors can read any group and forum items. I would like to make that available to members only. The site is not in free mode. Non-members have no permissions right now but have access to read forums and groups.

Anyone have any ideas.

I just when through this, set the groups to "private" but have an open "anyone can join" registration.  Then change your permissons so that non-members do not have permission to view "private orca forums" but your member's do.  See if this gets you closer to what you want.

You can make menu items invisible for non members. In admin area >> builders >> navigation menu builder

Regards

Artur A

Thank you for your response. But I do not see any option in orca admin to change the permissions in Orca to change to "private orca forums".  The only place is in membership rules and there non-members already have no permission but can still read and access them. Hiding the "Forum" or "Group" to non-members is not the solution, because we do want them to know it is there, and create a desire to join because there are subjects or groups that interest them.

In groups: There is no "private" option only a "Hidden Group" option, which will require regular members to be invited to join. I want non-members to be able to see group names but not the contents of the groups.

Any suggestions?

Your group settings seem correct for what you want to do.
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In Orca, you can set each "Orca Group" (but not folder) to public or private.  If you do not want visitors to see the content of these Orca Groups, set this to "private" (they will still be able to see that the group exists).
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If you want visitors to see the actual posts, but not be able to post, then set this to "public".
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This is the way I did the membership levels: 
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In membership levels setting for non members, do not give them permissions to "use Orca forums".  The will be able to see the group names but not the posts (the will be able to see the "Orca Spy" posts, however.
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The setting for "standard" I allowed the to "use Orca forums" (you can limit the allowed actions if you want).
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The setting for "professional" (a mem level name I use) I have set to "use Orca private forums".
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You can't do everything with these security levels, but play with this and see if you get any closer. 
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Good luck
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Rob

Thank you again for taking the time to answer my questions. You're super. I will play with it some more, Dolphin appears to have some limitations with public and member only viewing of groups and forums.

orca/xml/design.inc.php   

find:
if ( !( $logged['member'] = member_auth( 0, false ) ) )
replace with:
if ( !( $logged['member'] = member_auth( 0 ) ) )

This will lock out nonmems

have fun