System for embedding Phorum in other applications (early preview)

The template is available in the "embed_phorum/templates/embed_emerald/" folder. Is this correct, or should I move it into "phorum/templates/" dir? I've updated the info.php's $name into "Phorum Emerald Template EMBEDDED".

In myconnector, there is a get method, where I tried inserting the template's location and then its name, but none of this worked.

function get_template()
    {
		//return "embed_emerald";
		return "Phorum Emerald Template EMBEDDED";
    }

It's always referencing to the original "emerald" template, found in root folder and as set in the admin section of the phorum.

I've must be missing something so I'm taking a closer look at the template files and also README and other helpfull stuff. It is indeed well documented, so I guess I just need some more time to figure it out.

I can help you with the template rightaway if you like, as I need to put the same thing together, as well - so maybe it's better to join the forces :). How far are you with the template anyway (is it a few days or more)?

The template must be moved into the main template directory or else Phorum won't see it. Additionally, the return should be "embed_emerald" (the name of the template directory). That ought to make it work.

I don't think that I would be ready in days, because of all the other things that I have to do. I guess that I won't get around it for at least two weeks. The integration project that I am doing has no priority. It should be ready "somwhere next year" (2008).

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Maurice Makaay
Phorum Development Team
my blog linkedin profile secret sauce

Thanks a lot for the hints. I did as you said and template works almost perfectly, now.

Currently I'm having a hard time placing Style Sheets and Phorum JS into the existing header section from the Master application.

I'm using [element style] for that purpose, but I can't figure out why the Style Sheets appear in the body section of the master template. Should I create the new header within the master app, specially for the Phorum and put the "header elements" into it, and then remove them from the "embedded" header template part or is there a different approach to obtain this?

I've posted the Slovenian language file we did these days, for the newest Phorum version to the Language thread and the improvements will be posted there as well.

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Regards,
Mario

We re-read the README file and manage to solve the problem with the header section. We've put the [element ...] parts into the master application template.

--
Regards,
Mario

I have embedded Phorum into my aMember site, using Phorum 5.1.25 and embed_phorum_0.0.20 module. All is working great, but I've had members ask about setting up an RSS feed.

Is this possible with the embedded Phorum? How do I accomplish this? Can you give me a nudge in the right direction?

thanks!

CaptDan
[www.cvasports.com]

There's nothing different from the standard 5.1 for RSS when running embedded. Did you enable "Show and allow RSS-links" in the general settings page?

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Maurice Makaay
Phorum Development Team
my blog linkedin profile secret sauce

I'm preparing to upgrade from Phorum 3.4 to 5.2 (yup... it's about time) and have to integrate it with an existing (custom) login/authentication system. After playing with the embed_phorum module I run into troubles with the embed_default template as it appears not to be suitable for the current version.

Any news on an embedding template for 5.2 or any hints how to go about this?

I'm working on that right now (good vacation time spending ;-) and I have some CMS systems downloaded on my laptop to test it. But not finished yet. Currently fighting a bit with Drupal and getting around to its module writing system to build a Phorum integration. I hope to finish a working setup during my flight back to the Netherlands.

If it's only for user integration and single sign on, you might also be able to take a different route. You could write a module that implements the "user_session_restore" hook, which is a really convenient hook for handling single sign on. The other thing to do would be keeping Phorum users in sync with the main system. If you search for "user_session_restore" in these forums, you'll be able to find some example implementations.

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Maurice Makaay
Phorum Development Team
my blog linkedin profile secret sauce

Thanks for your reply Maurice. I've looked into the "user_session_restore" hook and that seems fine though I would need to sync the existing users db with the table in Phorum. As I already need to keep two user tables, adding a third is not my favorite option.

I have Phorum 3 patched at a level that it doesn't use its own user table but my custom user login/profile system. Would the embed_phorum module allow a similar approach? Sorry to ask such a basic question but I haven't found much info on this module or what is exactly does.

Don't look at synchronizing users as having an extra user in there. The whole synchronization is mainly there for having a Phorum user data storage. Of course you can hack the whole code or use some smart hook implementations in user save / load code, but I would really advice to do the synchronization. Trust me on that one. When I started out with integrating Phorum 5 with my own site system, I tried really hard to build a clean solution to not have a Phorum users table, but whatever path I took, I kept running into problems with things like storing user forum preferences and private message support.

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Maurice Makaay
Phorum Development Team
my blog linkedin profile secret sauce