I'm not sure what approach to take so I was hoping someone with more experience might be able to point me at a solution.

I would like to have the following:
1 - A general theme that applies to all users

2 - A set of blocks (containing lists of links mostly)that show for some groups but not others

3 - A set of bloacks that are custom and only show for a single group.

4 - A main content area that is a collection of html pages that only show based on group. So group A has a set and group B has their set but they can't see each others. Also, this content should show by default when they log in.

5 - One assertion is if you are in group A you will not be in group B. That is other than registered user, all users will be in exactly one group unless they are an admin or some type of user that I'm not imposing the above constraints on.

oh, and one note: there are potentially thousands of groups

I was thinking that maybe the approach is to build a theme and then a set of blocks that are shared between groups. Then I could build custom blocks for the custom set of content per group.

However some elements on the pages are shared between groups, such as some of the heading info so I was then thinking rather than groups, I may want to add a field to the user profiel to make content decisions. Problem is I don't know how and I don't know if that is a good approach.

Any ideas??

You would administer all of this from within the admin groups section.

By default all block content is shown to registered users, so when you make a group specific block you would have to:

1. remove the access rights to the registered user group.
2. create a group with specific rights for the desired blocks or modules.
3. add the desired users to the custom group.

By keeping the all users in the registered users group, you are able to show content common to all. So keep them registered, remove group specific access to the regitered user group, add group specific access to the custom group you create.

HTH.

The problem is the number of blocks and groups I would have is overwhelming to manage. The interface does not lend itself to large sets of blocks and groups that are going to need constant attention.

I've decided the best idea is to build my own module and add my own group concept within the module. That way I can use just a few groups at the XOOPS level and keep all my content managed in my module with a better UI for large numbers of groups and content options.

I'm open to other suggestions but with 1000 groups and potentially hundreds or thousands of blocks of static content this seems more logical.