news on homepage mod

firstly, sorry if this is in the wrong forum! since the version 8 hasn't been offically released i don't think i can see a mod forum...

ok onto the question, i run a website www.smang.net, and on the homepage in the top right there is a news window, which i run through a simple asp script, and separately i have the webwiz forum v8 on the site.

i was wondering if its possible to actually have this news on the homepage be part of the forum. i was thinking i could create a forum called "news", that only certain people have rights to make a new thread, but anyone can reply. then somehow making a page to display that shows the last 5 posts in this forum (chronologically) instead of the news window on the homepage.

i would imagine it would be similar to the "Active forum topics" box i have on the homepage, but showing the text of the first post as well.

if anyone has any ideas, thanks in advance!
Freddy

i had a look at that, but it didnt seem that i would be able to include a reply button with the number of replies in brackets. I was hoping to make it exactly like www.smang.net/news but tied directly into a forum.

Edited by smangerbot - 03 April 2006 at 1:07pm