Automated two way Integration between Xenforo and Wordpress

kenjw

New member
I hope you can help. I have just signed up for a License and found that XenForo is currently sadly lagging behind on production quality integration with Wordpress. The current XF plugins from XF members that I have seen so far do not provide a full WP integration solution and the one from XenScripts which shows promise does not currently work at all.


I have built a Wordpress [WP] site with plugins “Members” and “PaidMembershipsPro”(PMP). These plugins allow me to have complete and total control over new member signups, their assignment to Bronze, Silver, or Gold membership rights and the ability to use Stripe, 2CO, and PayPal membership payment facilities. I use the WP “Member” plugin to create the “roles” of bronzemember, silvermember, and goldmember and have these members use PMP to pay me through Stripe, 2CO, or PayPal as I may choose.


Before discovering and purchasing XenForo I have been testing the Simple:Press Forum (OpenSource). IMHO XenForo as a Forum is superior compared to Simple:Press, but the lack of full WP integration locks XF out of the millions using WP as our prime site builder for production quality websites.


The Admin screens and .php code of Simple:Press allow me to create matching WP “roles” in SimplePress and hook up to Membership and Payment WP plugins.

http://codex.simple-press.com/codex/faq/how-to/how-to-configure-simple-press-with-membership-plugin/ (I use PMP rather than Wishlist but no changes were needed for me to use PMP). After setting up the WP integration I can use SimplePress to decide what “Forum rights” each of these “roles” may have within the SimplePress Forum. The Admin Panel of SimplePress uses pretty much the same methods as the XF Admin Panel to configure permissions and roles in the backend.


The end result is that by using the automation tools these WP plugins provide, my Customers can signup within my WP site as bronzemember, silvermember, and goldmember “roles” and then login using the WP Standard Login Screen and be automatically logged in to SimplePress with the “role” ( bronzemember, silvermember, or goldmember) to which they have signed up for in WP, OR they can login to SimplePress (again from within my WP site) and be automatically logged in to WP in the same “role” ( bronzemember, silvermember, or goldmember). The same goes for the Customer logout experience. They can logout from either WP or SimplePress and be totally logged out of both. i.e there is total SSO integration using the uname/password for the “role” they have setup in WP ( bronzemember, silvermember, or goldmember) and the “Members” plugin.


It is critical to my Business Plan that WP remain in control of Membership so that my Customers can fully administer their accounts using WP, PMP, and Stripe or 2CO for making recurring payments from within WP.


At this time from within WP my WP “Members” ( bronzemember, silvermember, or goldmember) can call the XF page:

http://localhost/sociallinks/index.php

from the my WP “Page”

http://localhost/wp-admin/post.php?post=317&action=edit (i.e My WP Page points to localhost/sociallinks where my XF is installed). Both WP and XF are installed in the same “localhost” directory.


But using XF, I cannot pass the credentials (WP uname/password) of my bronzemember, silvermember, or goldmember “Members” through to XF directly so that they do not have to again login to XF. However my “Members” can also use the “Home” tab in XF to get back to their “Home” tab in WP, but they loose their login connection into XF.


I have been studying the work that’s been done by XF Members MATT777 and Katomi particularly.

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/how-do-i-create-a-new-user-directly-from-php-code.58397/

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/get-user-information-custom-field-in-kotomi-script.35003/


What these XF members, XenScripts, and Waindigo have been doing is getting very close to providing most of what is needed to achieve using XenForo so that XF acts as far as possible like SimplePress i.e FULLY two way integrated with WP. It seems to me that to achieve this, we need three things:

(a) An automated way to create new XF users from WP “Members”. The MATT777 .php code basically would achieve this if it was “hooked” into WP

(b) A way for the WP “Page” to call into XF from WP and bypass the Admin Login Screen so as to be automatically logged into XF from WP. The code from Katomi, Waindigo and XenScripts seems to go a long way towards this.

(c) Consolidate all this work into a production quality addon (possibly paid).


This would provide a way to pass the credentials (uname/password) of my bronzemember, silvermember, or goldmember “members” through to XF so that the “Admin Panel php code” sitting behind XF recognizes their credentials and gives them access to the XF Forum with those “Roles”. Of course as “SuperAdministrator” in XF I will need to create the matching “roles” within XF to make this possible.


Based on what I have seen MATT777, Katomi, Waindigo, and XenScripts achieve so far, I believe that XenForo may be able to deliver production quality Worpress two way integration with just a little more work. The code that achieves this kind of production quality for SimplePress is “OpenSource” and could be easily “discovered” by a skilled PHP developer which I am not. But it would of course need to be specialized for XF. The critical part is to integrate the WP “roles” management in WP however created, so that WP “users” login credentials can be passed directly through to XF and back to WP like SimplePress have achieved.


If we all could work together to achieve this, then XenForo would have something very valuable competitively that it lacks today. i.e a complete and sophisticated automated two way integration with Wordpress suitable for production Customers and which would open XF up to multiple fantastic WP plugins like PMP and “Members” and the whole WP community. This would also open up considerable License revenue for the owners of the XF software, as it should.


I would like to collaborate with any XF members with the PHP skills to achieve this. I for one would also contribute some $/£ to make this a reality for all XF paying members.


Looking forward to some ideas and feedback from my fellow members. Maybe there are other ways to solve this?


Best Regards

kenjw
 
I am piggy backing on your goal to bridge XF and WP, but unfortunately I have tried Simple Press, Buddy Press and a few other paid forum plugins before deciding on XF more than 2 years ago. For as long as XF is as awesome as it is on the forum side of things, I will not switch.

I do, however, use Wishlist Member, which is my bread and butter of my digital courses and can't do without it and wouldn't consider anything else. The learning curve was steep and the protection and customer service is stellar.

My problem is similar. I have membership levels that I had to duplicate in Wishlist Member as well as Xenforo. But people are not getting content to both unless they have signed up for 2 accounts. And if they want to access both content, they have to login in both places. Totally annoying and confusing for them (especially my type of client who is not super technical).

I will contact Wishlist Member to see if they are willing to create a bridge and will also post a new thread under "custom add-ons." If anyone is willing to pitch in, let us know.
 
Apparently you both missed my post regarding XenWord. It is currently in alpha.

But I should note that having XF membership is my preference. There are many reasons why this is the case.

PS. XenScripts works as expected but is not upload, activate, done.
 
Apparently you both missed my post regarding XenWord. It is currently in alpha.

But I should note that having XF membership is my preference. There are many reasons why this is the case.

PS. XenScripts works as expected but is not upload, activate, done.

Will this allow us to have members to sign up through a membership plugin (which creates a wordpress user account) and allow them to get access to the forum with that wordpress user account.

Meaning that everyone else who isn't a WP user doesn't get access to the forum?

I've got my wordpress membership site locked way behind a membership plugin and want to give them access to my XP forum and make sure the public can't access it.

Dean
 
No. I decided to use the XenForo account and login information. Support for Custom roles code on XenWord is incomplete and adds a layer of complexity to site maintenance that I'm not ready to support.

You should check xfrocks API and bridge. Also look into the XenForo SDK resource.

Best of luck.
 
Will this allow us to have members to sign up through a membership plugin (which creates a wordpress user account) and allow them to get access to the forum with that wordpress user account.

Meaning that everyone else who isn't a WP user doesn't get access to the forum?

I've got my wordpress membership site locked way behind a membership plugin and want to give them access to my XP forum and make sure the public can't access it.

Dean

Hey Dean, do you by chance use Wishlist? My WP site is locked behind WL and then I have XF as a tag-along. Have been trying for a couple of years to merge the two somehow.
 
Top Bottom