LeetPirate Posted October 1, 2009 Share Posted October 1, 2009 Just wanted to get some opinions on the native forums for Joomla 1.5.The more popular full function forum extensions I know of are Agora, Kunena, Joomla Bulletin Board, and Frenzy Bulletin Board. I know there are many others but I would like to hear what you guys have to say about them. If you know of any site that has a comprehensive or any comparative list of features it would be great. I just could not find a comparative list of features, or even a full list of features to manually compare. I will probably end up trying out all of them.Why I'm doing this is because I spend hours bridging a joomla site to a forum using mybb and jfusion and it works great but I have a problem now. I even changed the code of the forum so that all the "register" links for new users link back to the joomla front page. It all works fine with just 2 systems but I want to incorporate a classifieds system in there too. I was able to bridge the classifieds (noah's classifieds) system with the joomla system but the problem is when I make an account on the classifieds page it will only work on the classifieds and joomla front page but not on the forums. I am currently looking through the code of the classifieds system to see if I could redirect the register user link so that nobody would be able to register through the classifieds. If that does not work out I might as well scrap the external forum and use a joomla built in forum but for performance reasons I prefer the external one.I also see that joomlahacks has a new SMF bridge component that could potentially solve my problems. That sucks greatly if I have to switch from mybb to smf at this point, because I already made many many changes to the mybb code and css to get the thing to look and work exactly the way I want. :(So anyway, I would appreciate your opinions on any of the forums extensions listed here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HX1 Posted October 1, 2009 Share Posted October 1, 2009 Odd.. I just took a break from working on my Joomla!..I have nothing this complex.. I do have a phpBB forum but it acts as a completely different entity an isn't completely finished..on the same server.. though that could change but I will NEVER have that kind of server load...I looked into this a while back.. but never found anything free.. and a bunch that claimed to be but were not.. so I never entertained the thought of having anything like it..My site though is about to have its login even taken away and I will be the only one editing the site or doing anything on it.. no need for multi-user CMS/CMF...( I don't even have a moderator .. LOL )This is interesting and I will be learning as the thread develops however. and possibly experimenting..EDIT: My Plone has an embedded Nabble Blog and Forum both which gets to be a part of everything.. but you have to have an account on Nabble..some of the aspects are kind of nice though.. and its fast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeetPirate Posted October 1, 2009 Author Share Posted October 1, 2009 You know phpBB is the one forum software I will probably never want to use again. :rolleyes: It is very famous and there are many plugins and mods for it all over but to be honest I find implementing a mod in phpBB is one of the most difficult and time consuming tasks. Also editing the code is a headache by itself. I am a n00b at programming so maybe that is why I find it difficult but I find it much easier to modify the code of myBB and smf to get them to do what you want.If you have a Joomla and a phpBB forum it is very nice to bridge them, if only to provide a login box on the joomla site that takes you to the forums after. You would also want to have a link on the forum itself that points back to the front page, like how this forum has a link on top that takes you to the front page. I could always lend a hand with these things though I am no expert in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HX1 Posted October 2, 2009 Share Posted October 2, 2009 Yeah .. see that would be nice.. ( maybe it would look like I know what the hell I am doing for once..LOL ) I tried installing a Mod that would let you install mods easier..funny thing was it would not install..in fact I think I had to reinstall the whole forum. Being kind of what the two of us are, it is difficult and you start to get that 'my skin is crawling' feeling if it doesn't start to happen.. and I am sorry but Joomla's cache issue when trying to change things drives me nuts..having to change a few small things at a time and then clean the cache and purge and then make sure the browser I am using doesn't use its cache....I wind up with two browsers open.. so it doesn't sign me out..phpBB3's skin, was what I was doing on it last.. I reverted back to the original files but, it is going to take some time with it..for me to create something completely fresh.. The most frustrating is chasing down someone else's code.. Its much easier when you write something on your own and you know where everything is and exactly what it's going to do..plus you don't have lines of code spread out everywhere... in some file/folder structure three levels away that has to be there, to cover some area where it doesn't work.. that will disallow the change..that you don't know about ...I will most definitely let you know something when I get to that point, if I decide to... inserting a link to the main site is no problem.. the wierd thing about my structure is that the Joomla based structure I have is a part of another layer...say if I have Plone and through Plone - my Site, FTP, WebDAV, CMS, Forum, Blog, Audio/Video Broadcasting, DNLA3, resources...a complete package as a layer...then Joomla would be the beginnings of the second, should something happen to the first..There are five layers..I have created a Portal( and a Hub ) to allow me to connect to any of them.. Keeping the links right was the thing.. and thinking through each level to be able to operate separate from each but able to cross each layer to hit the resource was kind of tricky.. That is where with mine it may not be quite such a good idea to have anything dependent or even cleaned of certain elements.. because they still have to be able to function alone and as one...BUT like I said before on the same server database or w/e...it may not be such a bad idea.. getting all of this styled the same is not so easy either..especially when I get half way through and want to upgrade the style..LOL..its easier to see all this on paper as an idea..then to get it worked out.. the last time I checked I had a total of 8 repositories, and 26 resources.. and had constructed a simple PHP version for my USB drive...with a Domain name separate from the original that I could update to the main host.. to be completely portable...and still usable to most aspects.. one of the reason that the Nabble solution was an excellent decision..can be shared between systems.. and embedded/matched to a page..should the whole thing go down, I have sources running from other networks and systems..that will keep the main services up and running..I still have some work ahead of me to get it all right.. its complicated enough.. that sometimes I even forget exactly why.. I did something.. or didn't connect two things together..( I just keep in mind how difficult it is sometimes for just one layer .. for some.. LOL ) That and the fact that all of this is just for me.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeetPirate Posted October 2, 2009 Author Share Posted October 2, 2009 Ironically I don't have much issues with caching in Joomla. If there is a problem you can click refresh 3 times I think and it will reload the site fresh. One of the reasons I stick with Joomla over the rest of CMS is the vast number of extensions, features, and support. It just works really well and the soon to be released version 1.6 will make it even easier to use. See once I use joomla as the portal to a site I could do any number of features, for example I load php firewall and security software on joomla to protect from sql injection attacks and I could also ban entire countries or ip ranges with the click of a button instead of having to modify any code. Since joomla is so popular, there are lots of commercial security addons for it as well that make it a good choice overall. Of course we all have our preference. If you are interested in social engineering site then you could use something like JomSocial or Joomunity. I think the Joomunity one is free and kinda looks like facebook but is better.Good news is I finally found the file with the code I wanted to change on my classifieds. So now I have successfully created a threesome bridge with joomla, noah's classifieds, and mybb forum. Joomla is the master database in this case so if a user clicks the register button on the forum or on the classifieds it takes them to the Joomla registration page thus solving all my problems. Only minor thing is I still can't seem to be able to pull their avatars from the forum to display it on the joomla portal page but atleast the usernames I can get so that will work for me.The last dilemma is that the version of noah's classifieds is the free one with no RSS capabilities which ruins things for me because I cannot feed the recent ads listings to Joomla now. I could solve that problem by using iki classifieds which has rss, but sadly I cannot create a bridge for it. Solving one problem will create another in this case. What I need to do now is find the code to get rid of the advertisement footer in noah's classifieds. I also will try to see if it is at all possible to bridge iki classifieds with joomla.My next hobby project will be launching a Job advertising site, lol. Should be fun, I plan to hide it inside a Joomla installation too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HX1 Posted October 2, 2009 Share Posted October 2, 2009 Yeah sounds like you got it.. :thumbsup: for a second :unsure: :thumbsup: LOLSo are just using the same database or merging them or what?Well see with my Joomla..it has its own cache.. I never configured it or anything that I remember.. but I have to disable my Cache in FF3.. and delete the cache.. then purge expired ... r else I just reload and reload until the cows come home.. or I have to wait until the cache expires..The reason you mentioned for using Joomla is one of the reason I saw it as attractive and is still one of the reasons I use it..To be honest I think th only problem we face is not being in college for eight years.. writing code .. and creating our own.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeetPirate Posted October 2, 2009 Author Share Posted October 2, 2009 So are just using the same database or merging them or what?To be honest I think th only problem we face is not being in college for eight years.. writing code .. and creating our own..Once the user registers at the joomla page, the changes are pushed to the other 2 databases, so they can then go to any of the 3 systems and log in from whichever one they want.I am not a big fan of programming, that's why I did software engineering, lol. People often get confused and ask me why I did software eng if I hate programming, but the role of a software eng is not the same as that of a programmer. Besides, with code it never makes sense to reinvent the wheel as they say, there is nothing wrong with reusing code that works. The real problem lies when the programmer of that code did not put proper documentation or useful comments. The good folks at joomla and others saved us from having to waste that 8 years of our lives.:lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HX1 Posted October 2, 2009 Share Posted October 2, 2009 Yeah thats very true... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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