TP n00b questions

[PipeRain]

I read the FAQ, and browsed the forum, but I'm not sure how to form a query for the search to get the answers I am looking for, so I'll post my questions here.  If someone has some direction for me to find them on my own, I'll happily do so.  Additionally, as I am new here, this may be the wrong board.  If so, I apologize, mods, please move to the proper board.

On to my "Issues"...

I am new to the whole CMS thing, but am moderately experienced with SMF, I have used it since 1.0.5 or so and have installed/modded/Admined several forums.  I am looking to build  a self-defense related site with tight access control (invitation only).  I had looked at Joomla, and while I liked the way some sites looked and were laid out, when it came to get SMF going in it, I hit the "GPL Wall".  I tried a 3rd party integrator, and after tearing my hair out for a bit decided I was gonna either have to dump SMF and go with phpBB3, or dump Joomla.  I much prefer to dump Joomla as it just seems pretty counter-intuitive, and is really probably more than I need.  Additionally, phpBB gives me a rash.  So, after glancing at TinyPortal in the mods list over a SMF.org a few times I decided I should give it a whirl.

I've looked at some TP based sites, and havent seen any real examples of what I want to do, but essentially I want to be able to "Publish Articles" to the front end of the site that are visible to whoever drops by, but strictly control access to the forum.  I'd prefer to be able to put info up on the front-end that is either not replicated in the forum, or cannot be used as a "Backdoor" to view controlled access information.  Make any kinda sense?  Can TP allow me to do this?

Secondly, can access be controlled at various levels on the front end?  IOW, if Joe User browses by the main page, he sees a sub-set of published articles, once he logs in he sees more, and further access grants him access to the forums where the forum membership levels kick in?

Thirdly, I see in a sticky post from G6 that TP only works with SMF 1.1.4, but I see that this forum is 1.1.5.  Does this mean that TP does in fact work with 1.1.5, or does it mean that some of the TP gurus got TP going with 1.1.5?

Thanks for your help with my n00b questions!

[G6Cad]

Hej and welcome to TP.

First off i want to say thank you for starting out by reading our site, also for the great explaining in your first post.

For your questions, they are all yes as the article system is based on permissions for your diffrent groups.
If you set your frontpage to show articles, you have the articles visible on the frontpage.

If you then divide your articles by permission, you can set so so articles shows for all, or any memberfroup ( Guests, regular etc etc ) as they are permission set for every single article.

To best explore what you can do with SMF and TP is to create a test site, install SMF, and then install TP through the package manager. Check the administration regarding TP ( also wraped inside the SMF administration) and see what diffrent options you can use regarding the article system.

And yes, TP will work with all SMF versions except SMF 2.0

Hope this is some guide for you to start with.

[PipeRain]

Thanks for the quick answer G6!

...And in true n00b fashion, I just found The Docs Section which had many of my answers right there.   

Doh!