Xenforo & Wordpress Bridge

[Deepmartini]

Everyone knows the crap forum called BBpress is like the ugly stepchild of Wordpress, left alone and abandoned. SimplePressForum (a Wordpress Plugin) is a good start but doesn't have the "wow" factor but integrates perfectly with Wordpress.

If Xenforo could release a Wordpress plugin that has full integration with Wordpress including all user information and a single login, it would be a POWERHOUSE. Do you know how many Wordpress sites want to add a forum to their site but can't?

Any mods like this coming?

 

[Blandt]

Understandably. Not too excited about 50 bugs being fixed for 4.0.7? Jeez... eh

When they fix 50 bugs they create 75 new ones in the process it's like a bedbug problem mentioned in another thread. move out of the house hahaha

 

[HydraulicJack]

LOL well said!

 

[Jerry]

This is great in essence but you need more than just account integration. You need global search, blog/forum thread linking and comment/forum reply linking for proper integration. I would imagine setting that up would be quite complex.

I'm also against having 2 admincp's.

Agreed.

Big complex things are just made up of lots of small elegant simple things though, so it's all good

 

[Mr_Bob]

I don't really mind 2 admincps (one for WP and one for XF) so long as my accounts works in both. That is the single biggest neccesity of integration, your XF account can work in Wordpress with permissions properly mapped.

I hate to use this as an example, they don't even do forum integration anymore sadly, but Subdreamer, IMO, had the best forum integration of any software I've ever used, period. You could map usergroups to specific usergroups in Subdreamer, avatars were used in comments (and updated on the spot when the forum avatar was updated), the system made 100% use of the VB / IPB database, you could wrap your forum in your site skin, the CMS and forum did not have to be in the same database, you could even see if you have new PMs in the SD login box.

For as messed up of a product SD was back in the 2.0 era, I give the developer major props for forum integration. I'm actually still using it on my site until XF and a wordpress bridge are released (was planning on replacing it with VB 4.0...didn't go very well )

 

[HydraulicJack]

The level of integration you describe in tired ol' SD would be really sweet to have in the XF bridge with WP.
I hope the whoever takes on XF-WP integration project will set that standard as a goal: seamless.

 

[projectego]

A WordPress bridge would be brilliant idea, I have many WordPress sites that I would love to place this forum script onto.

Same here. Each and every single website I own is powered by WordPress and it is a superb piece of kit when used as a CMS. It's just a shame that both BuddyPress and bbPress feel so, well...separate from WordPress; and they've never relly been ideal for me. If XenForo could in some way incorporate the register/login system of WordPress then that would be absolutely perfect. Actually, now that I think about it, I'd probably much prefer that WordPress use XenForo's registration and login system rather than WordPress'.

 

[HydraulicJack]

+1!

 

[Allen]

I have little practical experience with WP (bought a book, though ). My major concerns with it are the limited ACL and I can't seem to find a good event calendar app.
I much prefer to use Joomla... I know, limited ACL too, but v1.6 takes care of that plus the limited Section->Category->File system.

As far as bridges go, if a 3rd party wants to develop and make one available, I think that's great, but I hope Kier and Mike don't spend time doing one. I think it would be far more profitable (for them as well as their customers) to produce add-on products in-house.

 

[bambua]

I use an external DB plugin for WordPress, as long as you know the code that's used to generate the password hash and where that password is stored in a database you can use this to make ANY software package WordPress' master database. I currently use it on my WP/vb4 site to give single sign on to the blogs and to the forums. Works real well for us. You can set the default privileges for all users coming over from the forums, and then modify individual users from there after they have logged in to WordPress.

 

[Mr_Bob]

I use an external DB plugin for WordPress, as long as you know the code that's used to generate the password hash and where that password is stored in a database you can use this to make ANY software package WordPress' master database. I currently use it on my WP/vb4 site to give single sign on to the blogs and to the forums. Works real well for us. You can set the default privileges for all users coming over from the forums, and then modify individual users from there after they have logged in to WordPress.

That's actually really neat, but I don't think it would work in XFs case if you're going to run it on a board ported from another software. XF keeps the password structure from old, imported users, so they don't need to reset their password (and intelligently detects which method is used). It doesn't look like you can change authentication methods per-user.

I think a separate plugin would need to be developed, basically for that reason. Nevertheless that's a neat plugin; maybe I'll move my site into WP sooner .

 

[Peter]

I'm interested in XF + WP bridge along with XF being used as the comment system. Basically, WP as the cms and when visitors comment on the WP post, it uses/synch with XF.

 

[Gravity]

I'm interested in XF + WP bridge along with XF being used as the comment system. Basically, WP as the cms and when visitors comment on the WP post, it uses/synch with XF.

That'd be a high degree of awesomeness.

 

[zaz! Interactive]

I really need a bridge between a forum and wordpress as well. I use Wordpress MS for my blogs. I wouldn't mind paying for a plugin like this.

 

[Tigratrus]

Everyone chiming in... Make sure you remember to like the OP .

 

[rthrash]

I founded and run an Open Source PHP content managment platform which we've been developing for the last 7 years or so. We made MODx originally because creating pure HTML-CSS driven sites with zero creative limitations or making assumptions about how your content should be structured just wasn't available. If you know HTML/CSS (and JS if you want it), you can create a template for MODx ... at any rate, we're about to publicly launch a company we've formed and it's time to update our forums (currently in SMF with 27,700+ registered members and 310K+ posts ... not huge, but not small either).

At any rate, if we transition to XF, we'll create a bridge and make it freely available to anyone that wants it. That way you could have a blog, and an ecommerce store and a marketing website and much more along side a great forum. We need to see the code first and to understand the templating/theming engine, moderation/board administration and authentication APIs before we decide. I've been following this project and the lead devs certainly know what they're doing, so I'm definitely optimistic! We're trying to decide between XF, sticking with SMF even though it's impossible to tell when 2.0 will ever come out of RC (*grumbles*) or IPB.

As an aside, things to be very careful about with bridges is the licensing with other Open Source projects. I think that pretty much anything that interacts with some of the projects mentioned in this are required to be licensed under the GPL. We take a different approach at MODx, because frankly we don't view interaction with a public API as something that should "infect" another project with a viral GPL license. I guess we're a bit of an anomoly in the traditional Open Source world because we really are very pro-business when it comes to licensing (see http://www.thrash.me/tech-and-modx/open-source-vs-open-core.html).

 

[Jerry]

I've been looking at the integrated search to see how it can be done.

 

[feldon30]

As an aside, things to be very careful about with bridges is the licensing with other Open Source projects. I think that pretty much anything that interacts with some of the projects mentioned in this are required to be licensed under the GPL. We take a different approach at MODx, because frankly we don't view interaction with a public API as something that should "infect" another project with a viral GPL license. I guess we're a bit of an anomoly in the traditional Open Source world because we really are very pro-business when it comes to licensing (see http://www.thrash.me/tech-and-modx/open-source-vs-open-core.html).

At the risk of taking this thread horribly off-topic, if you wanted a business-friendly license, you should not have chosen GPL.

The practicality of law is, it's not what is legal or illegal, but what can and will be prosecuted. If the GPL is the law, then the Free Software Foundation is the enforcer, and the FSF has been doing a lot of saber-rattling and reinterpreting of the GPL lately. In the last few years, they've gobbled up virtual real estate by claiming that not only plugins and bridges, but also styles and CSS files fall under GPL viral license. They've turned third-party commercial development for Wordpress, MediaWiki, Joomla, etc. into a potential legal minefield.

When Joomla announced that they were adopting the FSF's most stringent, anti-business interpretation of GPL, they scared the hell out of the business and third-party add-on communities. It didn't help that you had a few nutjobs speaking on behalf of Joomla who think open source software is right up there as a cause célèbre with world peace and global warming. There were hundreds of angry threads on the Joomla forums for almost a year from professional developers who had built a business on developing for Joomla. As a result, dozens of serious third-party developers departed Joomla. It almost killed the project. I think Joomla realized how much damage they did because they haven't broached the subject of licensing since.

GPL has the potential to tie the hands of your customers, and limit the options of third-party integrators. If I want someone telling me what software I can and cannot do with my software, and how I may or may not integrate it, I can just get that from Microsoft or Apple, and usually get a more mature product with better tech support.

There were so many licenses to choose from. If you wanted to demonstrate you are pro-business, you really ought not have picked GPL.

I can pass a law saying "Red cars are illegal" and then say I won't enforce it, how many businesses will take the fiscally unnecessary risk of ordering a fleet of cars painted red?

 

[rthrash]

There's nothing inherently wrong with the GPL, but you're dead on with how Joomla and Wordpress choose to enforce it. We absolutely and specifically from day one have take a very opposite view of the GPL, and I can assure you the FSF does not have the right to enforce our IP rights as the copyright and trademark owners at MODx. We've been entirely consistent in public statements and behavior for ~7 years now. We should create a FLOSS exception formally stating that though just to make it "official" (or whatever licensing clarification is needed). The reason we chose GPL for the core is that it has fostered a huge community and adoption for MODx, and ensures that the core will always remain free.

The same type of argument can be made about proprietarily licensed software run by relatively small teams. What happens if they get bored, horrible infighting happens or key developers become otherwise employed and the project dies or stagnates? You don't have the legal ability to continue to improve, fork or to distribute the code base most of the time. With GPL software you can. FUD runs both ways.

 

[feldon30]

Thanks for your comments and good to hear you're aware of the issues of GPL.

Surely there are licenses similar to GPL which do not dictate terms to addon developers and integrators.

 

[Dean]

The practicality of law is, it's not what is legal or illegal, but what can and will be prosecuted. If the GPL is the law, then the Free Software Foundation is the enforcer, and the FSF has been doing a lot of saber-rattling and reinterpreting of the GPL lately. In the last few years, they've gobbled up virtual real estate by claiming that not only plugins and bridges, but also styles and CSS files fall under GPL viral license. They've turned third-party commercial development for Wordpress, MediaWiki, Joomla, etc. into a potential legal minefield.

There are bridges that now exist between WP & paid products put out by 3rd parties. In your opinion, who would the FSF go after and what could be the results?