Hello all,
I'm quite new to the world of Drupal and I don't have any experience with it, so I hope you guys can help me out.
Currently, I maintain a Belgian computer/internet support forum running phpBB. It has over 43000 posts and 1200 members. Recently, our team decided to migrate to SMF and to convert all the topics, posts and members. Because we need a new web site too, I have the idea of using a wiki-alike system such as Drupal. But since the forum system integrated in Drupal is extremely simple I guess it's a better idea to use SMF as the forum system next to Drupal.
But now: this situation should mean every user needs to register him/her twice, one time at Drupal and one time at SMF. Is there any way to synchronize these accounts or is it (almost) impossible to do? Or is there any way to convert phpBB to a more advanced Drupal-integrated forum system?
Thanks in advance.
Btw, if you can speak Dutch and you have some time to help us out while converting, drop me a note. :)
Comments
Nobody able to help?
Nobody able to help?
1) there is no way to integra
1) there is no way to integrate phpbb with Drupal (yu could have found out about this by searchign this site).
2) nobody I know has tried this with SMF.
--
Drupal services
My Drupal services
Pessimism...
No, there is no current fusion method that we know about. But if I were you I'd keep a bit quiet when it comes to integrating third party forums into Drupal. The people here are a bunch of pessimist who won't give up untill the web has completly reverted to using just text. It's a conspiracy, I tells ya'!
Anyways, it is quite possible to integrate SMF with Drupal. It's alot of work but still.
Why is DRUPAL forum so simple for Your purpose ...?
Hi, I am not so familiar with all the Drupal features, but for what I see, there are plenty of ways to power up the "simple" appearing forum and get it fully integrated with teh rest of the site -
with the advantage of free design - not fixed to the stiff tables and boxes of SMF or phpBB ...
But it may needs a little bit more than just 2 cents of input ;-)
Regards
Roland
Why is Drupal forum so simple?
Are you kidding? The Drupal forum is about as bare-bones as you can get. The forum users on my site would stage a revolt if I stripped my forum down to the minimum of features available in Drupal's forum. In fact, I occasionally get requests to add more features and that's why I want to upgrade my YabbSE forum to SMF.
But I also want to switch my blog site to Drupal and integrate the forum with it. And here is the main issue with that: without some kind of integration bridge, I'll have two user databases, which means commenting on a blog post will require a different login than commenting in the forum.
If I'm going to switch to Drupal, I need a way to get it to work with my existing database of members.
Because a forum is a place to talk
Forum module implements a place where people can post messages. If you need private messages, subscriptions, profiles, then install the relevant modules for this. They will integrate seamlessly with eachother, and with forum.module.
--
If you have a problem, please search before posting a question.
But the forum module doesn't have enough features
Here's an example of what's lacking about the Drupal forum (and if I'm missiing something here, please tell me)...
In order for me to know a reply was posted to my message, I had to check back to this page. In a full-featured forum, such as SMF, I can click a button that will have forum send me a message anytime a reply is posted.
There are several other features that, as best as I can tell, are missing from the Drupal forum.
And that still misses the main point... I already have a forum that has several members and I want to include them in the registration of my Drupal site so they don't have to re-register and login twice.
It would seem not many
It would seem not many Drupal users have your itch.
I think this is possible
I think this is possible with the subscription module will do this for you.
As for authentication, drupal has external authenication, so you could write a custom module to solve that. Or because the drupal is opensource you could make changes to SMF to authenticate against drupal.
--
Gordon Heydon
Heydon Consulting
--
Gordon Heydon
Subscription, authentication
gordon said:
"I think this is possible with the subscription module will do this for you."
Thank you for pointing that out. You're right. I believe that would work.
But then, That only provides one feature among many for SMF. So the best idea is to use an external authentication, as you suggest.
chrisada's comment not-withstanding, there are others who are seeking such a bridge module. PC_Freak, for one, would appear to be interested in it.
If the Drupal community wants to extend the usefulness and marketability of Drupal, it would seem its members might be a little more open to discussing this, rather than turning a cold shoulder.
I am not a coder. Though I might be able to hack my way through the code and figure it out, I'd rather pay someone to do this.
Gordon, if you are interested in this project, please contact me.
Merely pointing out you were
Merely pointing out you were looking for person(s) who
For the first point, there have always been interests in common authentication between Drupal and other web applications, like Gallery, Coppermine, or WebCalendar. There were some code, even. But none of these ever really materialized because
It's not impossible. But unless there really is a number of peoples who need it, I can't see it taking off.
I understand
Thank you for clarifying your point, chrisada. It is well-taken.
Just stating that something
Just stating that something in drupal is simplistic and don't do everything that you require is one thing, but when you don't tell us what features are missing. Drupal is a very extensible system, and their are alot of hooks that can be utilised to create the required functionality in contributed modules.
As for the authenication, it would depend on which way you want to go SMF -> Drupal or Drupal to SMF. I would recommend SMF authenticates against Drupal security. Having them both use MySql and php should make it easy to transfer code from one to the other, so that you could use drupal authentication in SMF.
Not only do you need to distributed authentication between the 2, but also being able to use what I would call distributed session information, so that you can move between web sites without having to login again when you move between the 2 sites. We would need to extend the distributed authentication to allow for this.
but I am not sure if this can be done. Maybe someone with more knowledge of the sessions and how they work may be able to help.
--
Gordon Heydon
Heydon Consulting
--
Gordon Heydon
Forum features
It was PC_Freak who called it simple. I was responding to that comment.
But if you wish, let's talk about features.
This is what SMF can do.
Or if you prefer, compare http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php with this forum.
And let me be clear on this. I'd be happy to switch to Drupal's forum and forget about SMF if two things can happen:
1. I can migrate all registered members in my existing forum database to Drupal's database.
2. I can create a forum with all or nearly all of the functionality of what can be done in SMF. I'm not that hung up on features, but I know that my current users have grown acustom to having notification, see the most recent posts, seeing who's online right now, notifying me about abusive posts, adding avatars, adding quotes from other posts with one click, etc., etc., etc.
another drupal forum?
If Drupal's forum can do more, then please share with me examples. Are there other sites using Drupal's forum that use more robust features than are used here?
I'm not a programmer, so
I'm not a programmer, so I've learned to find what parts I can get my hands on and try make them all work together. I also have IPB installed on another site, so I understand features. At first I found myself saying, ah oh.... what am I going to do? ... wedgie IPB into Drupal..... naw already working too many hours.
Ok, so lets see what I can do with the Drupal Forum. (planning stage)
- Add Subscriptions.module for email notification - I find this feature useful
- Instant Messenger ... can replace Shout - I don't use - but others ....
- Drupal can already handle private mail on/off
- If moderators are needed have ability to create differtent type of user
add to that a bit of theme work -
- I like the "new" they use here on comments - have to figure out how to get it into Marvin
- continue to use "active topics" block in column
- little bit of comestics to make it look a little more like what people are use to
- and the hard one - find a way to suppress the sub-list of "terms" until primary "term" is selected. Right now I'm seeing to much detail on the front end.
If you sit back and look, you actualy have more features not less. The thing is that, the features are intergarted into the entire system, not just in the Forum. I'm not sure if you will agree or not but if you look at most strong user base Forums, that's all they are... just a strong Forum and lacking in overall structure and features. Its fuuny I've seen Forums used as Linking Directories, Stores, News and a few other odd things.
I really feel Drupal will allow me to build and deliever a more intergrated platform with useful features across the entire site, much more than a typical strong Forum, without the look and feel of doing a wedgie.
and even though I am really hating Drupal at this moment, darn headers, I still think its the best bet in the long run.
More or less?
jwells says "If you sit back and look, you actualy have more features not less."
Hmmm. I'll admit some good points are made about how the forum is better integrated into the rest of the site. And for that, I really like the idea of using Drupal's forum.
But more features? I'm still not seeing it. But perhaps I'm not seeing it because I'm not seeing all that Drupal can do.
Take this example:
If I reply to a message in my forum, I can include a quote from another post with a click of a button. I can alter the text, add smilies, etc. all from within the text editor and I don't need to know HTML code to do it. (That's not a big deal for me, but it is huge for most of the visitors to my site.) Then, as I complete my reply, I can tell the forum to notify me when someone else posts a message in this topic. If someone thinks a post is offensive or abusive, they only have to click a link to notify me.
Can Drupal do those things? If it can, I haven't found those features.
some
Quoting - quote.module (not quotes with an s) in CVS do this. Not sure if it works with Drupal 4.5
smilies - not on top of textarea, but we have that
quicktags.module can help with non-html-aware users too, if you don't want htmlArea or the new FCKEditor
notify - not the way you have mentioned. But I have found 'tracker' to be more natural to use. (list of all posts I have participated in, one with more recent comments pushed to top of list)
Drupal have comment/node moderation. With proper permission and moderation matrix setups, I think you will find it deal with reporting abusive comments alright. Again, this is not how many forums work.
Excellent
Thank you for sharing this information. This helps a lot.
I realize that with some research, I may have been able to find some of this on my own, but I've found it is very difficult to get the "lay of the land" and find where all of the pieces are in a CMS's storehouse of features, modules, hacks, etc.
That's common of every CMS I've dealt with, BTW -- especially Mambo.
Hi jns, I think the best
Hi jns,
I think the best suggestion I can give you at this point is to setup a test site and beat it with a stick until it screams. Planning is always a good thing to do, can save hours and hours of work and a lot ... oops. But there is nothing like gettting into the pit and seeing it from inside ... looking out.
Drupal, installs very fast, you'll be up and running in a matter of minutes.
________________________________________________________________
There's always enough for everyones need, but never enough for everyones greed.
You're right
jwells said, "I think the best suggestion I can give you at this point is to setup a test site and beat it with a stick until it screams."
Doing that right now! But so far, no screaming involved. :)
Forum feature: new messages
JNS & Everyone:
I've read this thread with a high degree of interest. I'm in the early stages of moving a long-running gaming forum to a new site. We've used Discus (http://www.discusware.com) since 1997 when we opened, and in that time the technology has improved so much that I feel its time for something new.
In addition, I was hoping for a "CMS-lite" wrapper and to give certain loyal users some blogspace and so forth. Basically to start to expand the site beyond just a forum. A co-worker researched a lot of packages and decided on Drupal for our professional site (not related to my private gaming forum) and so I rode his coattails and figured if I used Drupal I could 'double up' on my experience. It'd be useful for work and for my private stuff.
Anyway... I'm in agreement with JNS that the forum module doesn't seem to be robust enough for my users, at least 'as shipped.' The one really crucial feature for my folks is a user-specific "New messages" functionality. Most forums offer what is basically 'new messages since last visit' but Discus offers a "new messages since the last time you searched for new messages" feature, if you follow me. So if someone is busy and drops by just to post a hot news item but doesn't check for new messages, the software doesn't "set" his new message pointer to that visit.
We really don't want to lose that feature, and I'm wondering if there's any kind of module or modification for Drupal that will offer it. Alternatively I'm interested in what kind of success JNS had in integrated Simple Machines with Drupal, since SM seems to do what I need it to. I have no concerns with running two systems as long as I can integrate them so my users essentially don't realize there are 2 different systems.
Thanks in advance for reading this verbose post!
From Discus to Drupal
Probably you know, Discus can export all messages and users in tab-delimited and CSV formats, that you can import into Drupal using some modules. Then you might use Drupal's Advanced Forum, an enhancement of the core forum through additional modules, etc.
By the way, in order to have the same or similar good performance and speed of Discus' static html pages, you could try Drupal performance modules like Boost (static page caching for non-logged in visitors), etc.
About new messages, we can see here on drupal.org that in every user account there is a "Track" tab with links to new posts, if any. If you wish something different, you might try asking in the issues of modules such as Advanced Forum or Views (see first the Views 2 online help).
[Edited: Oops... I just realized it was a several years late reply, sorry]
Should have some case studies in the Handbook
Chrisada, this is the kind of post that most potential new Drupal admins are looking for. The documentation here talks about each feature, but not how to put them together to get what you want like this. (I am sensitive to this because that is our customers biggest complaints about our manuals, where I work.) Something like what you just said makes a lot more sense to a reader than being told "all the modules are there for the download, just go grab them." I wish there were a few pages in the handbook laying out use cases like that.
While I'm wishing, I also wish that every single contributed module included screenshots. And I want a new car. Yeah, that sounds good.
Steve
--
http://theme.etmeli.us/ - Drupal themes
http://etmeli.us/ - photos, commentary, occasional sarcasm
where
Where can I get the forum module? I can't find it anywhere.
core module
Look in your modules directory. Forums are part of Drupal core.
http://drupal.org/handbook/modules
-sp
---------
Test site...always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Here's a thought though.
Here's a thought though. Has anyone on the development team tried to contact the developers of simplemachines? I mean, there's nothing they would love more than to be able to integrate SMF with any kind of CMS software.
From my perspective, my users would lynch me if I switched to drupal's forums. 1) they'd lose their posts. 2) there's nowhere near as many features as SMF. 3)SMF is what they're familiar with.
So far Drupal is the system I like best, but I'd like to have the best of both worlds.
No
please search on the phrase phpBB integration and read the very very very long threads that have been beat to death. I'll summiize for you here:
1. No. No current developer has shown the slightest interest in integrating Drupal with a third aprty forum in four years and several active developers have firmly stated that if people want forum enhancements, then they should work on them.
2. but, but I want it........ Then do it yourself or pay for it. So far no one who 'claimed' they were going to work on this has ever returned to cite success.
3. There are some framework stuff in bits and pieces for migrating from one or another platform, but they require some custumization depending on a lot of platform variables.
-sp
---------
Test sites and good habits: Drupal Best Practices Guide.
Randomness Back Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
I just read this entire
I just read this entire thread. It was probably the best thread about this that I can find. I'm in the same boat as most of you, using a forum but would get reemed if I switched to Drupal's forums. Therefore, I have no choice but to go with Joomla (Mambo). It has the features that my users have come to expect and they have a really nice bridge for SMF. I would strongly recommend going that route.
At any rate here's my 2 cents worth about this topic.
It seems (correct me if I'm wrong) the core developers here want to concentrate on Drupal and making it better. Not getting a ton of other software to work with Drupal. This to me is very reasonable as I too would want to concentrate my efforts on creating and supporting one product.
In knowing this if you want something with more features you are either going to have to code them yourself, pay someone to code it for you, or find a different solution.
As for myself I'm going to have to run Joomla and SMF for my site. However, in doing my research I have another project that has yet to get started that Drupal is absolutely PERFECT for! I'm really excited about it too because now I have a chance to really get to know Drupal and Joomla! :)
I think it really comes down to a couple of things. If you already have a community and what they are used to seeing and using. Or you don't have one and you can build it from the groud up. IMO once you have figured that out it should be pretty easy to figure out what direction you need to go.
Just remember in my experience there are different solutions to just about everything. No one system is better than the other. It's just that one system is usually better than the other depending on your situation. :)
Hope that helps!
ICAM.
I've discovered Drupal in looking for a CMS for a new site -- since it's new, there are no expectations for what the forum should be like. If users find that it's not like another forum they've posted at, well, this isn't another site, is it? I think that any user coming in for the first time expects that they will use the content/apps provided for them, and I'm comfortable with that, even though I know it would be IDEAL if the Drupal forum looked/behaved exactly like ones they're used to. To that end, I'll be using the module to make the forums LOOK like phpbb -- that ought to be enough.
However, I have this other site -- it's been up for about a year now, has a few hundred members and a few thousand posts -- I have to use arkepp's phpbb embedding module because these folks will not want to make the switch OR lose their posts, and I don't think it's right of me to ask it of them. In opening the site and developing the community, I've accepted a certain set of expectations and I don't expect end users to be swayed by my protestations that "no, this is better, really" when all they can see is that it isn't like it was before and they have to learn a new thing.
So to that end, the forums that come with Drupal are fine, and anyone doing a new Drupal install might well be advised to use them and stop complaining or make their own solution, but for those communities that already existed before Drupal became, through whatever serendipity, an option, it's good to know that you can make them work together.
I'm glad to know I can bring my existing as well as new communities to Drupal. I hope someone does the equivalent of arkepp's work for other forums like SMF and IPB, etc.
Lily
no choice for me - must integrate Drupal with SMF
I have an established Web site with an SMF forum that I've very heavily modified to add significant new features - post moderation, enhanced notifications (including an option to receive every post in email), and (hardest of all to write) paid subscriptions automated through PayPal's IPN facility and fully integrated with the SMF registration process. This was months of work, and it's all working beautifully.
Besides all that, I use SMF's authentication to manage access to all member content and features on the site (not just the forum), plus I use the SMF templates system to create the interface throughout my site (not just in the forum).
In short, there's no way in the world I'm moving off SMF!
I'm interested in Drupal because I think I may be able to use it to offer a LiveJournal-like feature by modifying the workspace module. I've been looking for software with this functionality for weeks, and nothing else I've found even comes even close. I can't use LiveJournal itself because it requires that you have your own server (I'm currently sharing). Also, it's written in Perl (which I don't like, and also don't know as well as PHP), and (trivial, but as long as I'm listing reasons) it's published by a company I don't like.
If I'm able to adapt Drupal to provide the functionality I'm looking for, the next thing I'll be doing is integrating with the SMF database. If I end up doing that, I'll be happy to share it here (as soon as I figure out how to do that).
I want to implement SMF in my site...Can you please share?
It's really good to see that at least someone could integrate SMF(My Favorite Open Source Forum) into Drupal. Drupal has everything I need except SMF. Where Joomla is missing some stuffs of Drupal but has SMF.
Dear permutaions, can you please tell us how to integrate it, since you already did? I am eagerly looking forward to your reply.
Best regards
- Anim
still working on it
I'm not done doing it yet - I'm still working on it.
I did one very important thing last night which was a royal PITA. There are massive name collisions between Drupal and SMF - both variables and functions. They both use a key variable called $db_prefix (appears in thousands of places in hundreds of files - SMF is a large program), and they both have a database layer that prefixes every function with db_, so many functions have the same name (e.g. db_query()).
To keep myself from getting completely confused by the generic names (on top of the bug nightmare potential), I changed all the database function names on SMF to start with smf_ rather than db_, and on Drupal I changed them all to drup_. That way I'll at least be able to keep straight which database functions go with which program.
This was very non-trivial to do, and I don't think someone who was not a strong PHP programmer could do it. I couldn't give you a set of rules that would work cleanly. I used a search and replace utility to make changes that more or less worked, and then I had to go back in and clean up a few messes. It took me hours to fix all the bugs and get everything working. I did it in the middle of the night since it brought down my site.
And it's not a one-time fix. Going forward I have to edit any modules I install to use the new function names.
Now my site is back up and Drupal is installed, with both using renamed variables and functions so they play well together, so I can look at integrating them. Drupal (I've discovered) has a very nice remote authentication function that I think probably will make the rest of the integration easy. When I know more, I'll post again.
I'm going to post a comment to the Drupal developers about the name collision problem because this is a general obstacle to integration with other programs. The lead developer of SMF is not the most cooperative guy, but maybe the Drupal developers will be receptive to using less common function and variable names.
Changing var names to
Changing var names to resolve collisions with other software packages is of no interest to that software package developers, if the software is not meant to integrate with others. Just trying to save you some time :)
I know of another person recently working on SMF-Drupal integration, if you're not partners already, contact me and I'll get you two in touch.
integration with SMF
I guess Drupal is meant to be a full solution, but SMF isn't. They work hard at making integration easy. Maybe I should go post the request over there. Definitely one of them needs to change the names!
I don't know anyone else working on Drupal-SMF integration. I know the SMF code very well because of how extensively I modified it, but I'm using Drupal for the first time. It takes some time to learn the ins and outs of a large program.
From what I've seen so far, it makes much more sense in general (not just for my special case) to incorporate Drupal into SMF than the other way. SMF is more "integration friendly" and has a template system designed to work with anything, and Drupal supports remote authentication. People always seem to want to go the other way (incorporate SMF into Drupal), but I think that would be much harder. You get the same functionality either way.
I need to read up on Drupal's remote authentication feature so I can write that module (or has your friend already written this?), and I need to read how Drupal's template system works. I'm going to want to make Drupal calls from my SMF template somehow - it will look pretty weird to have a menu system within a menu system.
Module or Bridge approach is prefereable
I highly recommend your module approach than renaming func. This will help thousands like me. You can take a look at Joomla SMF integrationcode to get some more ideas.
http://www.joomlahacks.com/component/option,com_remository/func,fileinfo...
- Anim
That looks like a Mambo-SMF
That looks like a Mambo-SMF bridge implementation. SMF is designed specifically to work with Mambo. I don't know how the Mambo bridge works - do you? I suspect there's no name collision issue with Mambo.
SMF and Drupal could co-exist on a site without changing any names if they weren't integrated - two separate interfaces, two separate logins. You could do that right now. But I need them to be tightly integrated - one login for both - because tables linked to my SMF installation reflect whether a person has paid their subscription fee.
There's an easy way to implement a single login that might work for some people, but wouldn't for me. If all of Druple were protected - only subscribers could access it - then I could protect it in the way I protect other member-only content on my site using SMF's SSI functions - just make the Drupal installation directory "members-only".
But that doesn't work for me because I'm about to open an online store, and it would be nice to use Drupal for that - there's a reasonable looking ecommerce module for it. And I might want to use it for other public content as well. If some of the Drupal content is public and some is members-only, then I need to use Drupal's own authentication.
The method that occurred to me first was to access SMF functions and variables from within Drupal to check payment status. That's instant trouble if there are name collisions. Drupal's remote authentication feature might provide a way around this. I still don't know the details of how that works.
I found a theme that's subtle enough to be wrapped without looking too weird. If I took the header off the box-grey theme, it would look fine in my SMF template.
Can you provide us a tutorial?
Ofcourse we would love better integration as you need now, but may be for the time being above method will do for many of us. Can you provide us a tutorial and modifications required?
- Anim
only a programmer could do this
I have already described in a previous message what I had to do to fix the name collision problem. As I said, you could not do this if you were not a programmer. Bugs are introduced when you make a change like this, and you have to have the skills to fix them.
Unless one or the other changes its naming scheme, only programmers will be able to integrate SMF and Drupal.
You can work together or form a team
Who is working on it and what is the progress. I also think you two should work together. You can visit SMF website where some people are willing to help. I wish I were a good php programmer.
- Anim
Drupal - Simple Machines integration
It is almost 4 months since the last posting. I have been interested in an SMF-board smoothly integrated into drupal for quite some time now. I would really like to have my site up and running within the next few months.
What is the status? I could offer some PHP programming.
Check here!
Please check this topic - http://drupal.org/node/40940
see:
see: http://drupal.org/node/112116
I migrated phpbb to SMF easy
I migrated phpbb to SMF easy go to smf site and get the converter then bridge.
Issues with SMF User Registration and Drupal
I want to go back to just the drupal registration but now the links for create new user under the User Login Block state http://www.dealfrogger.com/smfforum?action=register. I want it to be back to http://www.dealfrogger.com/user/register. Does anyone know how to get this back?
Many thanks,
Found the Fix -- simple
Clear the cache in the performance link in the admin area.
Does anyone know if the two accounts can sync between each other.. I don't want me users having to create accounts on both systems. Thanks
Several month back I wanted
Several month back I wanted to switch from SMF to a full Drupal powered site. It turned out be be a half ass attempt as I had to install a D4 site then migrate SMF to PHPBB and then import the PHPBB into D4 THEN I upgraded D4 to D5. After all that I did get all my topics and users but the passwords were not able to be converted. Anyways it was quite the conversion experience.
Wow. That looked painful.
Wow. That looked painful. Well I did get the passwords to sync. I think the date and time had to be in the same timezone. Now when I log in through drupal I can go over to the full SMF install without having to type the password again.