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[jtdc]

hi, i'm thankful to have found this forum. sorry if this message is already discussed before, i'm not that familiar yet with the way htaccess and rewrite works so i don't know what to search for.

i have a website like let's say [foobar.net....] i have a phpbb discussion board in it, via

[foobar.net...]

in the main html folder (parent of forums) there's an index.html which has the startup page, which loads a flash file (swf). this animation has a clickable "Check out the forums here" which sends the user to [foobar.net...]

i was hoping that all the users directly bookmarked or directly typed in "http://foobar.net/forum" will be sent or redirected first to the parent directory before they could enter the forum using the clickable link there.

if this wouldn't work on swf files (because its a known fact that the <object> tag which flash files load from doesn't submit a referer when requesting the swf as mentioned in securemedia, preventing hotlinking of SWF files)... i'm willing to place an HTML based clickable forum link on the main page also.

i hope there's an htaccess solution or something similar to make this happen. i'm thinking to have this also placed on the "downloads" and "images" folder, so the visitors will have to go to the main page first instead of directly in the subdirectories, since the main page has all these links. coming from the main page, from there only should they be allowed into the subdirectories.

thank you for any assistance.

[wheel]

Besides feeling the need to remind you about the blatant disregard you are showing your visitors by attempting to make them sit through a flash page every time they visit :)...

I have thought about this for one of my sites (everyone jumps to the forum and misses my job postings and news articles) and I don't believe there is a way to do this. To track this you need something session specific like cookies or url's, and there are almost certainly times when one or the other of these won't work. A user gets a clobbered cookie and all of a sudden get past your entry screen for example. Baaaaaad.

Instead, do what I've done. Smack whatever you're trying to emphasize on the main page right at the top of the forum. So I put a link to my job postings at the top of the forum (in a red link btw).

[jtdc]

thanks for your insight. i asked the same problem to another webmaster, and i "roughly" got the same response. this swayed my thinking to definitely rid of this procedure, besides the impossibility of the implementation, the problems it could cause, and the frustration of the visitor.

actually, my site isn't launched yet, and i count on knowing this as a vaulable learning experience which i learned so i can avoid future problems.

anyways, a solution for this concern would also help, just for the sake of information.

thanks!