[Design] Has Anyone Seamlessly Integrated XF, WP

taylor_smith

taylor_smith

Well-known member
Developing a working WPMU-XF-MediaWiki bridge, but I've had better luck hiring developers than designers. This has relegated me the task of imagining a framework that seamlessly integrates at least the XP and WPMU facets. Been trolling the Internet for inspiration, but I haven't found anyone who has accomplished this.

XenDynamic seemed promising, but the demo site is down and his new site shadowed soul doesn't seem to be very responsive--looks kind of awkward at 1366 x 768 resolution, with elements overlapping. Also, the new WPMU tool bar, which for unknown reasons is now being forced on even logged out users, would cover up the XF "Login" tab. I've followed some sig links of folks who've posted in the thread, but nobody else seems to be using XenDynamic any longer, with this possible exception. XenPorta is a nice solution to the design problem, but it isn't a full-blown CMS by any means.

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. Any examples of this being done?

On a mildly related note, the notion of merging a robust CMS and forum software is hardly novel. Is it kind of baffling that nobody has developed a commercial solution to this? IPS comes closest, I suppose, but administrating IPB is a pain and it doesn't have the multisite functionality. VB4's CMS was just terrible. BbPress is a perversion that should be burned with fire. I dunno, I'm probably underestimating the challenges. And anyway, I like XF too much to switch.
 
The answer is no. The developers on here are too forum focused and don't see the potential of an integrated CMS and forum solution. People have been looking for a good bridge for over 2 years now but no one wants to make one. What you could do is use a solution like http://www.amember.com which is a membership plugin for wordpress and has a built in bridge for linking to Xenforo. Amember takes over the login function for wordpress and when a user logs into it, they are automatically logged into Xenforo. The problem now being that the comments on Wordpress are a separate system and there is no user avatar integration, so you have two profiles, etc. which is a mess. Why developers can't see the $$$$ potential here is beyond me. They don't see the forest through the trees.
 
Unless XF comes out with a CMS soon, this would be the best selling add on in the XF community. I REALLY want to bring back WP to my site like I had it when I ran SMF but don't want to do it unless its integrated. :(
 
For the past year, I have been tying "a few" domains to one WP multisite installation and one XF forum installation. All the logins for WP are done through XF. The add-on is XenScripts. Next, there is a Mediawiki bridge which is installed. This means, someone logs into XF and is logged into the current WP blog and can also edit MW.

The hiccup is not having a SSO solution. I've proposed one on XenScripts forums, which Jamie says is possible but would be unique to each multisite setup.

http://xenscripts.com/community/thr...entication-enhancing-xs-for-wp-multisite.574/
 
I've been looking for someone to help us integrate wordpress with Xenforo - beyond just logins. I'd want - alerts, inbox, sidebar mini-profile on WordPress and also count the comments as post counts.

Wouldn't it be nice if someone could develop a wordpress theme that mimics the xenforo post look? :)
 
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TheBigK said:
I've been looking for someone to help us integrate wordpress with Xenforo - beyond just logins. I'd want - alerts, inbox, sidebar mini-profile on WordPress and also count the comments as post counts.
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This is on my "to-do" list. It was pushed back after I started working with CodeIgniter. Long story - but - WP and CI just don't do well because of the site_url naming ... which took up most of my past weekend.

[Update]: Just went and saw that I started working on that in October (double ugh!)

I've read from several devs saying alerts on the WP side shouldn't be difficult. But no one follows up with a suggested method.

Someday :cry:

Wouldn't it be nice if someone could develop a wordpress theme that mimics the xenforo post look? :)
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Miner stated in an email that he is considering releasing a corresponding WP theme with his XF themes. Hopefully he is still considering it.

EDIT: NINJA'D !
 
For a proper SSO project (where our servers provide the SSO), I was quoted 4-6k euro. Hope I can do that eventually, but for now, I'm just aiming for shared user db and login/logout synchronization between the three software (w/ social network authentication supported).
 
Miner said:
We are planning on this and within a month we should have our XF themes coded for WP, yes your idea seems good we will have our wp post look like XF(y)
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Will your theme be completely integrated with the alerts, inbox and login as well? That'd be a KILLER! (y)
 
TheBigK said:
Will your theme be completely integrated with the alerts, inbox and login as well? That'd be a KILLER! (y)
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Not sure about the integrations, as i need to check with my tech team, but will convert our XF themes for WP for sure.
 
Hi Folks, as a developer I can say this. It is far more easier to build an articles system inside Xenforo rather than build and maintain a bridge between wordpress and XF. No matter how well the bridge is done, something will always be missing because people would want all sorts of functionality of one system into another. It really is not a viable project unless you were being paid several thousand dollars.

Guiltar already made a CMS system with xenforo. It was a pity he could not release it. Working on having proper routes and an article like display while using the underlying xf threads, if done properly would accomplish what 80% of people want. Jaxel attempted something similar with his XenPorta but did not do take it far enough. In my opinion, it will eventually be done once we have more developers here and XF takes off after the lawsuit.
 
sadikb said:
Hi Folks, as a developer I can say this. It is far more easier to build an articles system inside Xenforo rather than build and maintain a bridge between wordpress and XF.
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While I understand and appreciate your perspective, it completely misses that there are features in WP which will never be in XF or an XF CMS: (1) domain mapping and multi-domain support, (2) many people have thousands of articles in WP posts with comments, and (3) add-ons and plugins not available in XF.

A bridge to WP is already complete. People are asking for profile, alerts, inbox information on the WP side. In this thread, there is an additional discussion for SSO.

While this should not be core considerations, this is an interest and developers can certainly help the community with suggestions on how to pull that information onto the WP side. Of course, this take time, experience, talent, and skill. All of which I lack, however, it's needed. Maybe someone, someday will step forward and share how to get it done.
 
Bambua had built a WP theme for me with the alerts and all - but he just vanished and was never seen since them. I really hoped he could complete it. Consider me as a customer if someone can do the integration job well.
 
sadikb said:
Hi Folks, as a developer I can say this. It is far more easier to build an articles system inside Xenforo rather than build and maintain a bridge between wordpress and XF. No matter how well the bridge is done, something will always be missing because people would want all sorts of functionality of one system into another. It really is not a viable project unless you were being paid several thousand dollars.

Guiltar already made a CMS system with xenforo. It was a pity he could not release it. Working on having proper routes and an article like display while using the underlying xf threads, if done properly would accomplish what 80% of people want. Jaxel attempted something similar with his XenPorta but did not do take it far enough. In my opinion, it will eventually be done once we have more developers here and XF takes off after the lawsuit.
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+1000

Jamie, the developer of XenScripts, already told this a thousand of times, there are as many Wordpress Configuration as there are Wordpress Users. Maintaining a bridge is something really hard to do and as Sadikb perfectly said, a XenForo native solution would be the best thing. I really invite everybody to open a Wordpress "template" file and to compare with XenForo... I don't say that the Wordpress platform is not good, it's simply not as clean as XenForo is. It would be a shame that XenForo only stays a forum (I know some developers think the opposite). If it does, it will force me in a few years to test again Drupal... I've tried a few years ago but I'm feeling like in high school when I opened for the first time an asm book... which I never opened since.
 
login synchronization is important.
if you visit WP you should be logged into XF.
if you visit XF you should be logged into WP.
 
For a project I may tackle soon, all I think I would need is login sync, which I assume this add-on already does. In this case, the project is 90% forum and 10% articles by myself and perhaps a few others. The articles are static, so all that needs to integrate into XF is that folks would be logged in if they wanted to comment.

All the other stuff (alerts, etc.) is icing on the cake, but I will be integrating all the menus and navigation, so if someone wants to read an article, they will read an article....if they want the forums or the showcase, etc, they will navigate there. Google custom search should be able to so the site-wide searching.

I think it might be different (harder) for folks who want to use many features in WP and have them integrate.

Of course, I would buy a native XF CMS....even a basic one....in a heartbeat.
 
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