Re: [Fwd: [Back-end-development] Integrating Phorum into Back-end]

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Joe Stewart wrote:

> phorum5 has a script for integrating into other scripts that does call all of those 
> scripts from central index file.  I think we can just capture that output using output 
> buffering.  It's been awhile since I've looked at it.

...
 
> I would suggest integrating phorum5 as a start instead of the current stable stuff.  
> It is a complete rewrite.

...

> At this point I decided to wait till phorum5 was more stable.  At the time it was 
> only in cvs and not near any kind of release.
> 
> I would like to help get phorum5 working as psl0.8 module first.  This is one of 
> the modules I want available when psl0.8 is released.
> 
> After that, maybe help. backport to BE0.7

Hi All,

After Joe's comment I started looking at the phorum5 code. And it looks 
like it's getting into a stable state. They already had some alfa releases 
and the phorum project is using the phorum5 code to power some of the 
phorums.

So I got the a CVS snapshot of phorum5 and first installed it on it's own. 
And it seems to work nicely. So after setting up a testforum I decided to 
try the integration into BE0.7.

The phorum5 code includes a "portable" directy that basicaly contains the 
code you can use to "import" phorum5 into your own code. It's wraps the 
phorum5 code in a function and provides some hooks to make sure that URL's 
are read and created correctly.

Well, I've got in working, but not completely. The import itself seems to 
be working. I can get different phorum5 pages to appear with BE, and the 
URL translation also works. The only problem I still seems to have has to 
do with the phorum5 variables/session support.
I can browse the forums ok using the phorum5 code directly, but using the 
portable code I get a permission denied.

It just looks like I still need to setup certain variables, but I'm sure 
I'll get it to work.

The result it that I can get phorum5 to work with only editing the 
templates and the portable code. And I don't need to edit any of the 
actual phorum5 code.

This ofcourse won't be true anymore if we continue for a more tighter 
integration. But the idea, I guess, would be to replace certain key files 
that link to the BE/PSL code instead of phorum5's own code. (DB, Template, 
Users/Authentication,...)

So for the moment I'll continue to work on getting phorum5 integrated into 
BE in a basic mode (without changing anything to the actual phorum5 code). 
Since I don't need further integration for the site I'm currently 
building. The only thing maybe would be dynamic language selection.

After that I'm willing to continue working in tighter integration. So we 
can start discussing what we want to have integrated and where the 
priorities are.


About phpbb or other forums/messageboards. For me their are 2 kind of 
messageboars and they serve a different audience :

The more lightweight/simple ones (like Phorum) are for sites where the 
main focus is on the content, distributing a message, serve a general 
audience.
The goal of the messageboard here is to provide another way of 
communication between the site owners and the visitors.

The big, full-featured messageboards (phpbb,...) are for sites that would 
like to create communities and the messageboard would be primary please in 
which that community would communicate.

Ok, all that intro to say this. I feel that both messageboard (phorum and 
phpbb) have a reason to exist as modules/plugins/extensions for BE/PSL. 
You would select the messageboard that fits the kind of website you are 
building, running.
For me personaly, all the websites I've build/run/... only need the 
features given by phorum. But I encourage anyone to also work on a port of 
phpbb or any other large mesageboard. Maybe we could even work together on 
certain areas.

On that note, let the comments flow ;-)

Kind regards,
Tim Verhoeven

-- 
======================================================================
Tim Verhoeven
                                     Linux & Open Source Specialist
GSM : 0479 / 88 11 83                      + e-business solutions
Email : [email protected]                     + consulting
URL : www.sin.khk.be/~dj/                  + Server consolidation
======================================================================



-------------------------------------------------------
The SF.Net email is sponsored by EclipseCon 2004
Premiere Conference on Open Tools Development and Integration
See the breadth of Eclipse activity. February 3-5 in Anaheim, CA.
http://www.eclipsecon.org/osdn