WordPress front end..stable or asking for trouble?

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webducknj

Active member
Hi folks,
We're considering replacing our current Simple-Press forums with XF while keeping our WordPress front page (ClassiPress theme). The front page is, more or less, a classifieds area with additional content and as such it requires that our members be signed in to post and access classifieds.
We've had a bad experience with a vBulletin/WordPress bridge utility so we're reluctant to try another software mismatch that relies on the bridge to keep it running.
Is there a history of the WP/XF bridge being stable and well supported?
Do WordPress sites generally mix well with XF?
 
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Hello @webducknj,

WordPress 4.0 broke quite a few of the bridges on here as they changed the way cookies were used for authentication.

I used to use one called XenWord, but recently moved away from WordPress as I found it time consuming maintaining both WP and Xenforo. It worked really well for me at the time though as it did avatar sync, comments sync for WP posts and a nominated XF thread and auto posting of a XF thread when a WP post was published.

In your case it sounds like you're after a bridge that only needs to do SSO (single sign on) to make it seamless to navigate from your front page to the forums. To my knowledge all the bridges available here use the Xenforo database as the master, which might be an issue depending on how many WP users you have that need to be migrated to XF.

Unfortunately it seems the bridges here haven't been updated recently since WP 4.0 came out, with the exception of XenWord but the developer has stopped selling it publicly. You may need to engage a developer to work on a bridge for you..
 
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Optic said:
Hello @webducknj,

WordPress 4.0 broke quite a few of the bridges on here as they changed the way cookies were used for authentication.

I used to use one called XenWord, but recently moved away from WordPress as I found it time consuming maintaining both WP and Xenforo. It worked really well for me at the time though as it did avatar sync, comments sync for WP posts and a nominated XF thread and auto posting of a XF thread when a WP post was published.

In your case it sounds like you're after a bridge that only needs to do SSO (single sign on) to make it seamless to navigate from your front page to the forums. To my knowledge all the bridges available here use the Xenforo database as the master, which might be an issue depending on how many WP users you have that need to be migrated to XF.

Unfortunately it seems the bridges here haven't been updated recently since WP 4.0 came out, with the exception of XenWord but the developer has stopped selling it publicly. You may need to engage a developer to work on a bridge for you..
Click to expand...
This bridge is compatible with Wordpress 4
https://xenforo.com/community/threa...o-api-consumer-paid.69592/page-13#post-835320
 
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I work with building WordPress sites in my daily life and am starting to lose faith in the product and would not trust to use a bridge to connect it with anything. The updates are too many and even though I'm sure the above bridge is workable just looking at the increasing number of unsupported WP-plugins and themes that showed up lately I'm in doubt anyone can keep up with the ever changes in the long run. I think WP are digging their own grave but hey that's just my opinion ;)
 
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yup, we're moving away from the WP/XF idea....too many unknowns and too difficult to know who you're dealing with and how much longer they'll be supporting their products.
we hate to give up our home page and theme but it just is what it is at this point.
onward and upward, XF/XF it is.
 
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We're in a similar boat--I have sites that use WP as the central content source as we use a lot of features via plugins, but XenForo is the only forum I work with these days. I also tried to use XenWord but ultimately it could not handle what I needed to do. So I've pretty much just used a WP page as a "portal" of sorts, inserting content from XF's RSS feeds and nothing more. I really need a two-way commenting system--WP using a thread in XF to store comments, so visitors can reply in either place. I will not split comments between blog comments and forum posts--it's too much for staff to follow.

I'm glad WP is updated often. And since I've been using better plugins as of late, all the old incompatible plugins I've discarded are no longer an issue. Most of the time I'm finding that a new plugin is often better than one I've been using.

I know I could probably get some custom coding, but it's not in the budget currently.
 
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webducknj said:
yup, we're moving away from the WP/XF idea....too many unknowns and too difficult to know who you're dealing with and how much longer they'll be supporting their products.
we hate to give up our home page and theme but it just is what it is at this point.
onward and upward, XF/XF it is.
Click to expand...

This reads like the best option for you. Established sites are very difficult to work with regarding bridges. For example, XenWord is best for brand new sites. Established sites need more configurations. They work in simple configurations but become more challenging as the complexity increases. For example, changing the community to a subforum requires cookie settings and more. I believe most has been worked through - but there are always configurations that catch me off guard.

Regrettably, I don't have much time these days to work individually with people. Fortunately, there are people with active developer licenses on XenWord. They help tremendously pointing out bugs before they get out to everyone. And my weekends are usually devoted to sleep then answering emails regarding the product - not terrific :(

Best of luck on your search. You might look at importing your WP articles then using Brogan's awesome add-on as a front end to your site.
 
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