I tried researching this topic here a couple of months ago and I got the impression that very few here use Joomla to build their sites. So I thought I'd explore this a bit and find out if there is a way to seamlessly integrate UBB Threads into Joomla.
Ideally, I'd like to see UBB Threads so integrated such that when users login into my home page, which is Joomla-created, that users have automatic access to the discussion board. So instead of having multiple logins, they only have one.
I'd appreciate any help in this area. Perhaps this could be a done with support credits?
Not many do use joomla, it's been in 1.5beta forever Now that it's golden it might be a good time to look at it again. There was an integration done for mambo/joomla a few years back for the threads 6.5 series, but that won't work at all now.
I remember seeing an integration (I think it's called jfusion or something) that integrates other forums, might be easier to add-on to that one.
OK. This might not be a popular question, but if I find another board that would integrate seamlessly with Joomla, a solution that uses PHP & MYSQL, would it be possible to import/export my UBB Threads into another board that's also based in PHP and MYSQL?
David, yes but I'd like to know if UBB Threads is such a type that it can export it's contents to a PHP/mysql based board. I'm not a UBB Threads expert and so I don't know it's capabilities.
Harry, leaving threads would be up to their importer; our data is kept logically in a database, all they'd have to do is convert it.
As for an integration; it is possible however you'd have to do several things: 1. install both products 2. hijack the registration routine of jamoola, have it also populate the UBB.Threads database. 3. hijack the login routine of jamoola, have it also set the UBB.Threads cookie upon login. 4. hijack the logout routine of jamoola, have it also unset the UBB.Threads cookie. 5. insert a link to your threads install within the menu system of your jamoola install.
Short update on this. I have a plugin working that allows users to log in via Joomla 1.5.2 standard login procedure and automatically get logged in to UBB.threads 7.0.2. Logging out works as well.
I'll hopefully get my license updated during the week and make sure it works with 7.3 as well. And I'll also have to code synchronization of the user tables, to make sure user data is updated in UBB.threads when updated in Joomla.
Not sure how I'll make sure user editing in UBB.threads updates the Joomla user database as well though.
Just a little update. I've now added Who's Online updates for all Joomla pages. There's also authentication in place for all Joomla pages, so the Joomla user will get automatically logged out if the threads user isn't valid. User can't log in if they, or their IP, is banned either.
Mostly though, I've just done a lot of refactoring and code cleanups so that I'll have a better overview of what's happening.
Now on to deleting users in UBB.threads when they are deleted in Joomla.
Edit: Damn, that was a lot of code for deleting a user. Don't want to replicate all that. Hmm... Need to think a bit about this.
Great work Gardener. Hopefully soon I'll be able to get an API done for many of the functions (like deleting users), that will help for things such as this.
Sounds fantastic with an API, that would make a lot of stuff so much easier.
I'm almost finished with creating a user in UBB.threads when registering in Joomla. Just need to add the user to the correct default groups. I'll either need to read the UBB.threads config file, which means I'll need to add a config for the path to UBB.threads. Or I need to add a config variable for the plugin to enter the default user groups. The later is a bit kludgy though, but easier.
I'll probably not handle user deletion at all. I'm guessing it won't happen that often, and the admin can delete from both systems by hand when needed. Maybe I'll have a reminder email sent out when a Joomla user is deleted to remind admins to delete the user in UBB.threads as well.
If anyone want to try the plugin I'll package it up and send it out.
I just got GTA4 though, and my motorcycle just got fixed and the weather is fantastic, so I will quite probably not do much coding in the next few days.
i already have a mini-api [7.3] (add new user, modify user params, del user, get user group perms) that i've used on a couple of sites, so i would just possibly augment where you haven't finished off..
Sounds great. I've emailed you the current version of the code. Just add your code in the appropriate methods in the class and it should start working directly. Please feel free to release it if you want.
How's the integration coming along? I'm currently upgrading my Mambo 4.0 to Joomla 1.5 and UBB.threads from 6.1.1 to 7.3. So I will be needing it soon.
I'll probably open the site before though, and only let users register in UBB.threads for the time being.
I would say that all registrations should be on threads anyway rather than within Joomla - that way any other scripts such as photopost all run around a central place.
The way it works is that both user tables are kept in sync. When you log in, you will be just be logged in to both systems.
Users needs to be in the Joomla tables as well. Otherwise a lot of the extensions for Joomla would probably break. And there is also a bunch of extra access control levels and stuff like that.
I am also interested in the Joomla 1.5 and UBBthreads integration/bridge. Would you mind sharing the code? I would be happy to contribute some dineros to help pay for subscription renewal to UBBthreads if need be.
I've already upgraded threads, but haven't had time or energy to upgrade Joomla yet.
I sent the code to Sirdude and haven't done anything since then. Not sure if he's done anything yet, but I can post my version on ubbdev after the weekend.
It's saved as UTF8, created on a Mac and I'm reading it on a Vista machine right now. It should already have unix newlines as well. Can't see that there should be any strange characters in it either, just plain US-ASCII.
Just unzipped on a FreeBSD machine and it works perfectly fine there as well.
I can see that there are a couple of unecessary carriage returns in it though. I've changed those, so here's a new version of the file.