Hi Glenn,

The answer is "yes" you can do this with MetaMod. It's also most likely you you might need MetaMod Pro as well, because you are dealing with left and right columns. This is because templates will often check to see if there are any published modules in the left or right column, and if there are, then they will reserve space for the column (if not, then they won't reserve space, and the main content can expand to full width). What happens with MetaMod, unless you are using MetaMod Pro, is that because you publish a MetaMod into the left or right column, your template always thinks that there's a published module in there (the MetaMod), so it always reserves space, even if the MetaMod doesn't include any of the other modules and displays as an empty space. MetaMod Pro prevents that from happening.

Anyway, that aside, here's how I would do what you're asking for:

1 - edit all of the modules that were in the right column, and change their module position to "right-metamod" instead of "right". You can type this in directly instead of using the drop-down, when editing each module.

2 - do the same for "left" column modules - chance the module position to "left-metamod".

3 - create a MetaMod and put it into the "right" module position (NOT "right-metamod"). Give it a title but turn the title off. In this one, use the following rule:

if ( $option != "com_kunena" and $option != "com_seminar" ) return "right-metamod";

4 - do the same for the left column - make a new MetaMod and use the following rule:

if ( $option != "com_kunena" and $option != "com_seminar" ) return "left-metamod";

[Note: in both of these I am assuming that the module name of the "seminar" component you mentioned is "com_seminar". That's just a guess - you'll need to find out the right name and use it in the rule.]

Now what should happen is that the Metamod, which is assigned to ALL pages, will always check first to see if the current component is Kunena, Seminar, or something else. If it's neither Kunena nor Seminar, then it will pull in all the modules from the "right-metamod" or "left-metamod" module positions, and add them to "right" or "left" as appropriate.

If you want to add more modules to the left or right columns, just add them to "left-metamod" or "right-metamod" as appropriate, so that the MetaMods will include them correctly.

Hope that helps,
Stephen