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CI Forum Plugin or Integration
#1

[eluser]Thripshaw[/eluser]
I know this is a well-posted topic but please bare with me...

I've been searching the CI forums and elsewhere to find a simple to integrate basic Forum for my CI website. So far I've had little success locating a solution which fits my requirements.

The website I've already developed in CI has a user registration, login, commenting, rating and feedback system, as well as an admin panel for simple user management. Ideally I do not want to have to change the front end too much as a few hundred users have already signed up and use the current login system.

My site already uses a couple of postgreSQL databases so would like the forum to use the same. Would also like the forums to appear within a view, rather than launching independently post-login.


I've messed with phpBB and got it talking to CI but the system itself is too complex (from a users perspective) for my website, and it launches outside of my CI scope.

Vanilla Forums seems to have been integrated successfully by some users but it uses mySQL and has the same issues as phpBB.

Also read about Dove (which looks awesome, but is yet unfinished).


Can anyone point me in the right direction of any other Forums that they have used successfully?

Thanks in advance!
#2

[eluser]Eric Barnes[/eluser]
Here is one developed for PyroCMS which may suit your needs. I am sure it would require some modifications to run inside your script but maybe a good starting point. http://pyrocms.com/store/details/forums
#3

[eluser]Thripshaw[/eluser]
PyroCMS looks nice. I may use it for another project, but for this one it would require a major redesign. Thanks for the heads up.

Any other suggestions?
#4

[eluser]Otemu[/eluser]
Quote:I've been searching the CI forums and elsewhere to find a simple to integrate basic Forum

I am sure you probably looked at it already but if your looking for a basic forum, can you not modify myforum to suit your needs?

Quote:The website I've already developed in CI has a user registration, login, commenting, rating and feedback system, as well as an admin panel for simple user management....

...Would also like the forums to appear within a view, rather than launching independently post-login.

Seems you already built quite a few features already that a forum uses anyway, could you not build on your already existing features to create a very simple forum for your site?
#5

[eluser]Nick_MyShuitings[/eluser]
@Otemu - I agree

That is what I would say as well... a forum is nothing more then a different display for the article->comment paradigm. If you already were able to create registtration, commenting, rating etc... then why are you even considering bringing in bloat to your project?

What would be benefit that the forum would bring you? how many hours will you waste integrating it, rather then creating a pair of views and models to facilitate your needs?
#6

[eluser]Thripshaw[/eluser]
The main reason I wanted to integrate an existing forum was for all the extra little features that would take a long time to code myself. For example all admin panel features, statistics and forum specific user management. However, in the end I finally decided that most of that stuff is unnecessary right away and coded my own.

I was able to code up all the basic forum features in a couple of days, and it probably took a week total to integrate fully with my existing system, finish the css and some basic admin and statistic features. I'm happy that I ended up taking the effort and the site is much more attractive for it.

Thanks for the suggestions guys and if anyone has any questions on the topic feel free to ask.
#7

[eluser]Nick_MyShuitings[/eluser]
When you have a link to show I'd like to check out the finished product.
#8

[eluser]Phil Sturgeon[/eluser]
It's really not as easy to do as you would think. Back in 2000ish I was on the PNphpBB team which worked on integrating phpBB into Postnuke (ha!) and all the time we spent re-writing and integrating that crap could have easily be spent on making a native forum module that worked much better.

The issue here is that no two CodeIgniter applications have identical views/templates, user systems, permissions, admin setups, etc so its just not possible to offer a "module" as a ready to go download.

In the 5 years I have been active in the CodeIgniter community I have seen at least 10 projects start doing this and all wane into non-existence or inactivity within a few months. Undecided




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