OK, I have my forum running under a page that is restricted to a security group that I have created called 'professionals'.
Can I have the forum use this group rather than the default 'Forum Members' group?
If not I imagine I can use the default for my Professionals and remove the 'professionals' group.

In either case can I create the signup form outside of the forum sitestructure (I need my members to apply for membership from the sites top level)

I thought I saw something about this sometime back but can't seem to locate it now.??

The group which forum members are registered to is hard coded to a group with the code - forum-members (line 449 ForumMemberProfile.php) so you won't be able to easily register the member to another group. I have made a ticket to look into this issue http://open.silverstripe.org/ticket/5684

You could always rename the Forum Members group to 'Professionals' as long as you don't change the code (viewable in the database) you'll be fine.

ok, I will try renaming the group (and removing the one I created), and test if my login still works (using this method for group based redirection: http://www.ssbits.com/custom-login-form-with-group-based-redirection/)

Now, I need to know if the registration form for the forum can be used out side of the forum page and forum holder (the only 2 page types I have listed that relate to the forum).

This would seem to be a very related issue to the hardcoded user group, since like in my case if your security restricts entry to the group unless logged in, you generally have 2 options: to login, or to register so you can login. Currently I can login, but I have no way of presenting a login form???

OK, so renaming the security group to professionals, and resetting the page security settings seems to have worked, and I added a link to the register page () to my menu and that is loading without being secured (perfect!)

Now I have an error when I try to post to the forum:

[User Error] Uncaught Exception: Object->__call(): the method 'getforumthread' does not exist on 'Forum_Controller'
GET /professionals/forums/general-discussion/show/2?start=0

Line 724 in C:\vhost\newsite\httpdocs\sapphire\core\Object.php

If I go back... I see that the post is now in the forum??

Well... seems like it was an easy fix.. I updated from SVN and fixed..
I am running the trunk (not sure why I went that route).

ADDITION: well I spoke to soon.. now the registration forum doesn't work... but I see why I went for the trunk (I am running 2.4) so I will leave this for some time.. hope for a stable 2.4 release soon.

DsX I just tested registration quick on trunk and it appears to work for me. Did you get an error message?