What is the correct way to create multiple Discussions headings in Quick Launch?

Question

I am new to using SharePoint, and I am not a full SharePoint admin, I only have control over my specific sites.

In my sites I have a lot of different discussion boards used to organize comments on specific topics.

I way to create multiple parent boards with several child boards. So I thought a way to organize the boards would be to create new Quick Launch headings that uniquely identify the groupings of discussion boards, rather than one long list under the original Discussions heading. I can set this up, but I am confused as to what the URL should be for each new heading. I copied the original Discussions heading URL, that ended with (not full URL posted here):

.../viewlsts.aspx?BaseType=0&ListTemplate=108

But then, when you click on any of the Discussion headings, you get a view of all Discussion Boards, rather than just the ones under that specific heading.

Questions:

1. Is there a way to modify the URL so that only the set belonging to that heading is displayed when the heading is clicked?
2. Is there a way to assign the board to the desired discussion heading when the board is created rather than having to move it later?
3. And I guess overall, is this an acceptable way to do this, or is there a better way?

Answer 1

QuickLaunch items could be linked only to separate lists and pages, not to their groups. Heading items, which reference your Discussions "groups", are not more than simple links with some custom anchor text. So don't expect any intelligent behavour from them.

OOTB viewlsts.aspx page presents some functionality for filtering by type of list and by list definition id, so if you could create your discussion boards from different custom list definitions, you can then arrange grouping by the list definition id. But this approach will require recreation of all the discussion boards, which, I anticipate, is not acceptable.

So probably the best scenario here is to create a custom application page, and use some custom groups identifiers for the required filtering. For instance, in this case the link to a Discussions group could look like this:

/_layouts/MyDiscussionProject/MyViewLists.aspx?GroupID=FirstGroup

Or also you can simply create several static pages (wiki pages, for example), with static links to the corresponding Discussion boards. In this case you will need to update these pages each time new board is added or removed from a group.