Hi web-be,

Great question! What you're looking to do is definitely possible, and it's a common security requirement for private or membership-based forums. The key here is understanding that you want to restrict access to the forum content itself, not just redirect links—which is a bit different from the standard homepage setup.

Based on the wpforo documentation and best practices, here's the approach I'd recommend:

1. Create a dedicated login/register page — Set up a separate page (not your forum page) that contains your login and registration forms. This will be your entry point.
2. Use wpforo's permission settings — Rather than relying on URL redirects, configure your forum's user roles and permissions to restrict anonymous access. You can set it so that only logged-in users can view forums, topics, and posts.
3. Set your login page as the homepage — Make this login/register page your site's homepage instead of setting the forum page as the homepage. This ensures visitors land on login first.
4. Configure the forum page separately — Keep your actual forum page at a URL like /community/ or /forums/, but it will only be accessible to authenticated users thanks to your permission settings.

The important thing to note (based on the related documentation) is that you shouldn't set the forum page itself as your site's homepage—this can cause issues with redirects and URL structure. Instead, create a separate page with the [wpforo] shortcode and manage access through wpforo's built-in permission system rather than just URL redirects.

Have you already explored the permission settings in wpforo to restrict anonymous user access? That's really where the magic happens for forcing login before viewing content.

@web-be

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