Serendipity Forums

Is there already a plugin that makes S9Y interact with a phpBB installation? I know that the topic is not trivial, there is some interaction with the forum database needed for a smooth integration.

*thinking*

Such a plugin would need to know the database data like name, login, password, table prefixes etc., it would need to know which forum user it should use for posts.

When a new blog post is made, the plugin would need to create a new thread in a certain subforum of the board. It would be also nice if the plugin could keep blog post and forum post synchronized, so that a modification in the blog also shows up in the forum.

It would need to provide "Comment in forum (# comments)" link to the connected forum post, and to show the number of "comments" it would also need to count the replies in the thread.

*thinking complete*

Hmm, maybe that is a little much effort - but it would be a cool plugin nonetheless.

Hi!

There is an importer plugin that imports threads and topics frmo phpBB into the serendipity database, but I guess that's not what you need?

When a new blog post is made, the plugin would need to create a new thread in a certain subforum of the board. It would be also nice if the plugin could keep blog post and forum post synchronized, so that a modification in the blog also shows up in the forum.

If one knows the phpBB tables, you can easily create a serendipity event plugin for that. Just hook into the 'backend_publish' and 'backend_save' hooks to perform cross-posting. A comment-link can be emitted using the 'entries_display' hook and setting the $entry.display_dat variables to contain that link...

So, care to get your hands dirty?

Personally I wouldn't really have that much use, and I think the comment features from serendpity already quite sophisticated - thus I sadly can't offer to do this voluntarily/for free.

Best regards,
Garvin

I care, when I understand the structure a little better I might have a try.

I think providing two places to comment (forum and blog) may cause a break in the information flow - although nowadays it is better to think decentralized.

Comments on YouTube, comments on Flickr, comments in the forum, comments in the blog, the more, the better.

It would be nice to not have the users sign up twice on your site (once for commenting on your blog and once for the forums), that way if they're a forum member/blog commenter they could post in either/or.

Did I make any sense just now? XD

Hi!

That makes sense, but neither Serendipity nor phpBB have a pluggable authentication concept, so you would need to proxy account data, which a.) sucks and b.) is still a lot of work to do.

Best regards,
Garvin

Garvin, didn't somebody make us an LDAP plugin for external authentication?

Hi!

I did, yes. But that uses the 'bad' proxying method I was talking about

Best regards,
Garvin

Maybe it's time to loot at OpenID again? I know there has been some discussion about it earlier on this forum. There seem to be some implementations and libraries in PHP around [1], [2], [3]. Not that I'm too familiar with OpenID, neither do I use it as of now; but the concept seems to be interesting, and I know quite a number of people who are advocating it.

Hi!

The problem is, that also OpenID would only be a proxy solution. Serendipity REQUIRES users in its serendipity_authors table. Without it, many SQL joins can't work. So the dynamic SQL queries actually leave no other way without completely rewriting central s9y parts than to use a proxying solution.

However, I'm not that experienced with pluggable user authentication. Anyone giving a hand on this would be much appreciated

Regards,
Garvin

garvinhicking wrote:Hi!

There is an importer plugin that imports threads and topics frmo phpBB into the serendipity database, but I guess that's not what you need?

When a new blog post is made, the plugin would need to create a new thread in a certain subforum of the board. It would be also nice if the plugin could keep blog post and forum post synchronized, so that a modification in the blog also shows up in the forum.

If one knows the phpBB tables, you can easily create a serendipity event plugin for that. Just hook into the 'backend_publish' and 'backend_save' hooks to perform cross-posting. A comment-link can be emitted using the 'entries_display' hook and setting the $entry.display_dat variables to contain that link...

So, care to get your hands dirty?

Personally I wouldn't really have that much use, and I think the comment features from serendpity already quite sophisticated - thus I sadly can't offer to do this voluntarily/for free.

Best regards,
Garvin

I am willing to get my hands dirty, how would I go about creating a serendipity event plugin?

Also, I noticed you said you can't offer to do this for free. Would you be willing do it for a fee? (Poetic rhyming was unintentional)

Hi!

I am willing to get my hands dirty, how would I go about creating a serendipity event plugin?

You would easiest take any event plugin as a foundation for your new one and have a look at http://www.s9y.org/43.html

Also, I noticed you said you can't offer to do this for free. Would you be willing do it for a fee? (Poetic rhyming was unintentional)

Yes, I could do it for a donation.

Best regards,
Garvin

Very coincidentally, I'm brand new to the forums, though I have been setting up a Serendipity blog on my site for awhile, and just came in here to search for this exact thing... I'd be very interested to hear about any developments, and might be persuaded to assist in donation if it's reasonable. =) (I can at least promise a tip if the plugin is made and I can get it working. )

Hi!

Thanks to offthatops offer to donate to me, I'll be doing work on this plugin next week. Since some of his ideas are more complex than I initially thought it will be some amount of work, so extra donations won't be rejected.

I'll report here once you can have a look at the new plugin.

Best regards,
Garvin

Aehm, this will be a plugin which allows registered users on a phpbb forum to comment on a serendipity blog?

Hi ostfriese!

No, this will be a plugin that allows visitors to a blog to post to a phpbb forum as anonymous users (with the user namees they entered, of course). There is no credential/login sharing, that is too complicated.

Best regards,
Garvin