Joomla and Phorum integration

Hi,

Does anybody have a step by step guide to getting Phorum working with Joomla.

I know there is an embedded module for this but i can't seem to get it working. I followed the "simple" intsructions on the Joomla forum - [forum.joomla.org] - but I'm not a coder and it seems that I have to change some .php files but I'm not sure which ones. Is there a simple solution to this or does one have to get his hands dirty with some php.

So far i have:

Installed Phorum independently - success
installed embedded module and activated it - success

Not sure what to do next

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I think this would be perfect for my site as i'm currently running fireboard which is just too big for my purposes. my site is www.scottmason.co.uk.SEFG - although i am trying to install the Phorum on my testing server first.

Thanks

Scott

I haven't done too much with is myself (other than getting it to work once and hoping that I had implemented the code correctly ;-). But I can try to give some additional help.

You have to install the component for Joomla through the Joomla admin interface. So you have to upload the zip file that is in the embed_phorum/connectors/mambo directory of the embedding package. Once that component is installed, you can add a link for it to the menu structures. The component itself does not have a Joomla admin component at all. All Phorum administration is done directly through the Phorum admin.php script.

If you have Joomla installed in the document root of your website and Phorum inside a folder named /phorum, directly under that document root, then there's nothing you would have to change to make the setup work. Only if you have Phorum installed in a different place or in a different directory, then you would have to update the component's code to point to the correct Phorum dir (this should really be a Joomla admin screen for the component, but I really don't know much about the internals of the Joomla system, so I never created such admin screen. If the Joomla community could take away that remaining burden, it would be great =)

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Maurice Makaay
Phorum Development Team
my blog linkedin profile secret sauce

Hi Maurice,

Many thanks for your swift reply.

I have the phorum installed inside a folder called called Phorum which is inside the main website directory for instance site name is SEFG. the Phorum is SEFG/phorum. Is this correct or should it be moved back one directory?

I installed the com_phorum.zip into the components in Joomla, added a link to the component. but when i click on the link in the site i just a a blank page.

any suggestion?

Cheers

Scott

Did you phorum install folder call "Phorum" or "phorum"?

Note the case there!

It should be consistent otherwise Joomla and phorum does not know where to find your phorum.

[opensourceCMS.com]
[ongetc.com]
Chanh Ong

hi

It's called phorum, all lower case.

Move Phorum one level up. The phorum.php script in the zip file uses the path "../phorum" by default, so now it cannot find the files for Phorum I think.

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Maurice Makaay
Phorum Development Team
my blog linkedin profile secret sauce

Ok,

rather than move the whole forum, i changed the phorum.php file from "../phorum" to "phorum"

it worked in that it now finds the phorum but it doesn't place it inside the content area of the site, it puts it above the the header, ie on top of the site. getting there.

what could be causing this?

thanks for all your help, i appreciate it.

Scott

Hmm... difficult one, because I'm really not accustomed with Joomla's displaying system. As far as I know, the content that is printed from the component should appear in the body of the page.

If you look at the site source, does the code really look shook up with the Phorum code on top or is that just the way things are rendered, with the Phorum code in the middle of the page?

Anyone familiar with Mambo / Joomla who could comment on this?

When I was as the convention, I did setup a Joomla/Phorum installation, mainly because the Joomla guys were next to our booth ;-) Then I did not encounter this specific problem.

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Maurice Makaay
Phorum Development Team
my blog linkedin profile secret sauce

Hi Maurice,

I'll install it on the live server so you can see what i mean.

www.scottmason.co.uk/SEFG

click on the "phorum" link in the top menu on the right

Cheers

Scott

That looks like Joomla does not catch the data that is printed from the connector as the body data. In my setup that did work, but maybe the Joomla people changed things a bit. At the conference they already warned us that the component mechanics could change.

So for your site, it looks like the connector needs a bit of work, to send the Phorum body to the Joomla framework correctly.

Joomla people, HELP!!! :-)

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Maurice Makaay
Phorum Development Team
my blog linkedin profile secret sauce