A forum put behind a sales page and a paid login

Visitors who weren't members had to see a sales page instead of the forum, with a login and a purchase page, and the client's own staff had to be able to edit that page.

The objective

The board was open to everyone. The client wanted people who weren't logged in to land on a sales page and to be able to reach only that page, the login page and a purchase page.

The pages themselves had to be plain enough that their staff could edit the copy and drop in their shopping cart code without coming back to a developer for a text change.

What I did

I built the three pages inside the phpBB install so they share its session and know whether someone is logged in.

I blocked forum access for anyone not authenticated and sent them to the sales page instead.

And I kept the sales and purchase pages as basic editable HTML, with no layout logic the staff would have to work around.

The result

The forum became members only, with a front door the client maintains themselves.