Joomla 1.5 Integration Questions
 

I am really impressed with what vbulletin offers from a forum, blog, projects and downloads capability but I want the front end of Joomla 1.5

I have done some searching to find out how do I integrate these two and haven't found too much for Joomla 1.5

Its very important to me to ensure that the contents of the forum are searchable from the Joomla search engine (usually done with a plugin of sorts).

So if a user enters keywords in the Joomla search box, it would not only search all the Joomla articles as well as the photos on the site but also the vbulletin content.

Can anyone confirm this is possible today?

I would like to have vbulletin be my user registration/management but sync with the Joomla site.

Is vbulletin capable of such magic or am I looking up the wrong tree?

I haven't used joomla in a very long time, but one that I know of is:

http://www.bbpixel.com/

It can be done. Actually, there is a newer Open Source bridge that works with a number of CMS called jFusion. Here are the links: jFusion on Joomla.org, jFusion.org

Dude, shouldn't you include the following in your suggestion re: JFusion?

From the JFusion.org home page as of this post:
--------------- Added [DATE]1229208970[/DATE] at [TIME]1229208970[/TIME] ---------------

Believe me, I AM looking for a VIABLE and RELIABLE alternative to bbpixel!

I sure wish JFusion was ready for primetime.

Does anybody ELSE know of anything?

I'm developing the vBulletin plugin for jFusion.

The beta release is set for December 25th. Believe me, if you can wait till the 25th, this is the way to go. User sync/dual login works like a charm.

As far as the search plugin, it's not there yet and doesn't exist that I know of. But the jFusion team is actively developing and this very well may be an option in the near future.

Thanks!
Alan

Hey Alan, thanks VERY much for your timely post!

I was hoping someone would make an encouraging post like yours!

The bbpixel chap made a great run at the challenge, but I'm sorry to say that there are too many loose ends still.

Namely as to browser compatibility in particular with Safari and Firefox. At least in the testing I've been able to do on it thus far.

RE: Search capability... I'm not concerned about that, as long as the plugins for SEO of Joomla really deliver as promised, and for Site Search, Google can't be beat, imho, so why reinvent the wheel? I hope JFusion will direct its resources not to redoing what somebody else (e.g. Google) is doing EXTREMELY well imho, but rather delivering a completely functional vB to Joomla bridge.

I can hardly wait. C'Mon Santa Clause!

All the best,
Jack:up:

--------------- Added [DATE]1229224100[/DATE] at [TIME]1229224100[/TIME] ---------------

This may be a hard one to answer, and of course I'm just asking for an estimate, nothing binding... But what's your sense of how long the product will stay in beta before full release?

I have a site that sorely needs this connection.

Somehow my hunch is I'm not the only one.

I'd actually like to see somebody start a poll on vBulletin.org about how many people are interested in a bridge between vBulletin and Joomla.

Has that poll been done yet?

I'm a noob around here so I defer someone else to do one if it hasn't been done, but I'd sure be happy to cast my vote!

HJ

I've been looking for something like that since vbb went out of 2.x(I think). There was some software released back in the day that integrated vbb and Joomla rather well. I guess sales weren't good enough to keep everything updated.

I really can't say because I just recently joined the team. But I can say that I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the stability of the beta when it gets released.

I hear ya about Google. However, I did go ahead and create a jfusion search plugin so that searching forums can be integrated into Joomla itself :-) It won't be released until after the beta as it is dependent on the new code in the beta version of jfusion. It will also need to go through some testing as I have only tested it with vbulletin and not the other forum softwares jfusion supports.

Thanks!
Alan

Thanks Alan...

After DE-installing bbpixel today (sadly), I am counting the daze until the JFusion vB bridge is available.

I hope the beta-birds swoop on all of the bugs and gobble them up quickly!

oh i can't wait for this... doing a site redesign and we're going with Joomla... wooooooooooooo!

Tested the two solutions for integration with joomla.

My results:

jvbplugin -> Works (paid)

jfusion -> Don´t work (free)

Jfusion f* up my joomla and vB installations to point that I was forced to do a database restore to be able to login again and recover my admin account. They are working to fix these ploblems, but I do not recommend using jfusion for now.

Jvbplugin works. No problems so far.

One of our Team Members wrote our own Bridge for Dutchjoomla.org. the vB Forum

When a user logs in on one of the Joomla! Pages he/she is also login on the forum and backward. When you check “What's Going On?” then you see also the sessions of all our pages also the Wiki en top sites. You can see what article the user is watching on the Joomla! front page and so on.

The user is synced real time. When the database of the forum is not ready to responded then it goes to the Joomla Database. We also can give user right through he admin panel of vB. For example admin rights for our download section and so on.

We have tested Jfusion but it is to basic and did not for see us in our needs. There for our own Bridge. ;)

At time of Speak we still working on new features. At this moment we are not thinking to make this an public release. Sorry for this. The Bridge is custom made and when distributing it we violate the GNU/GPL licence of Joomla!

Kind regards,
Daan

What version of jFusion are you using? If it is the 1.0.8 release, that was before I joined the team and revamped the plugin. Marius has also made a lot of improvements to the sync process. I have not had any issues with the new beta about to be released on Dec 25. I have synced users from vBulletin to Joomla and from Joomla to vBulletin. New users are created in the appropriate category (registered, waiting on email confirmation, etc) when either registering or added by the admin. Existing users get updated. They get activated when Joomla's user gets activated. If blocked in Joomla, they are blocked in vBulletin. Dual log in just works because it now uses vB datamanager to create sessions. The only pitfall right now is that if there is a user conflict during the mass user sync process, jFusion will display them but not resolve them. Marius is working on that.

This of course is all from Joomla to vBulletin. I've made a separate Joomla plugin that receives info sent by vB's hook system that will allow dual login from vBulletin to Joomla. It has minor sync capabilities that will update a user's information in Joomla but it cannot create a user or update the password because vB will only pass a hashed version of the password to the server so a new account cannot be created or they will not be able to log in.

As with all betas, it is not *officially* advised to be used on live sites...BUT it will be on mine :-)

Oh and as added perks, I'm 95% done with frameless integration for vBulletin into Joomla ;-) Discussion bot and search plugins are also complete but need to be tested. But these WILL NOT be in the beta but a later release (or SVN ;-))

Thanks!
Alan

--------------- Added [DATE]1229617102[/DATE] at [TIME]1229617102[/TIME] ---------------

Hi Daan!

I'm curious for development purposes, what features kept you from using jFusion (besides the bugs in 1.0.8 or earlier :-))

Thanks!
Alan

I tested Jfusion and other bridges on an basic install and works like a charm

These are some of the futures we want for our Bridge ;)

The Bridge has to work on all our Joomla! sites.

When the member is login he or she logs in on all pages. We also want to see on the forums “What's Going On?” where the members are. Not only on the forums but also on our sub domains. Joomla! and non Joomla! sites

We made also an user group sync. We have some additional groups in vB that have specific rights on some Joomla! sites. This is also synced so we can now give Team Members the rights within vB. Example we can give admin rights, manager rights for Joomla! within vB.

Please do not use vB.org to discuss development of jFusion (or other). Please use the development website for that product to do this.

Mmmm. Never tested this. It may be that jFusion doesn't support it. Obviously you have your own deal now, but I'll look into this for others.

Yes, with the 1.0.8 version of jFusion, the statistics in vB were not updated because jFusion directly manipulated the database. But now, jFusion uses vB datamanagers for such things which keeps all of vB's statistics up to date.

Can you expand on the sub domain thing? Do you have multiple vB installations? Or are you referring to multiple Joomla installations? Or something else?

Joomla's ACL in 1.5.8 is weak (a big complaint on Joomla). This is promised to be greatly improved in the 1.6 version. The jFusion team has decided not to add a user group sync because of this (other than registered users, waiting on email activation users, and banned users). Once, the release of J1.6 with an improved ACL structure, we will be adding this as a feature. This will add the feature to where an admin can match up any Joomla user groups to the software user groups, in this case vBulletin.

Thanks for your quick feedback!
Alan

--------------- Added [DATE]1229622422[/DATE] at [TIME]1229622422[/TIME] ---------------

Sorry I didn't see this post before posting the last one!!

Marco or anyone else what is the URL of this other site, please?

Thanks
JJ

I don't know, but a few URL's have already been posted in this thread.

Hey Harty, where do you recommend we go to be able to continue this discussion coherently?

Thanks!
Jack

Mmmm...well I thought I had posted a link but it seems it was deleted. I'm honestly confused as to what the big deal is since it seems that this would promote vbulletin giving it options to be integrated with Joomla, a widely desired feature. Unless of course vBulletin has something up their sleeves to do this on their own which I would support whole heartedly. ;-)

Anyway, am I allowed to say google us? You'll find us and use our forum there. I'll be looking for you ;-)

Thanks!
Alan

(PS, dear mod, I'm not saying this in any way to be smart, disrespectful, or to cause a stink. I'm just trying to answer questions! Thanks!)

oh well still no reply yeah, i could have contacted support, but I guess they dont even check out the pre-sales questions.

Thanks to the others that offered help,

It can be a little complicated, but I've been able to integrate all of the following:

vbulletin 3.7.2
Wordpress 2.6.1
Joomla 1.5.8

All with LDAP.

How? Any help would greatly be appreciated :)

"How" is not a Pre-Sales question, please use the appropriate forum.

Hydraulic and harty,

Please post the link where this discussion can continue.

I use bbpixel - it works but the support is horendous

Tricky tricky!

I would reply with touche as "How?" certainly is a pre-sales question (imo) where as "How does that work?" is not. ( :P Sorry I'm bored. )

I first thought "how" much do I want to spend on a license?
Which then lead to "how" well would this integrate with what I'm already running?
"How" well would it integrate with other commonly used software?
"How" much key time will I have to invest to pull it off? (BIG!)
"How" reliable is it and "how" quick can it be picked up and learned by fellow staff members? I could go on but I talk too much as it is.

Long story short, google and I are BFFz for life and one thing lead to another. If I can figure out how to say five words in the place of ten and actually get some people to respond to a few of my posts then maybe I'd be inclined (and become capable) of sharing without annoying anyone away from the tutorial I would try to write on it.

On a serious note though...

An authentication bridge is possible through LDAP, read up on it. The more you actually understand about it the better you can apply it to your setup. That's important, its authentication.

As others have noted JFusion is an option, which I have also tried, and despite the Alpha stage I think its promising but its still a dice roll at this point. Come Beta I think a lot of people will see improvement and then there's always the paid option that some one mentioned as well, but as a noob tard I could be completely wrong. If you have enough for a vbb lease/owners license then whats a few extra bucks if a bridge is really that crucial to your intended structure?

Last thing I want to add is there is no magic integration tool(I doubt I missed it, but I could be wrong). Even with LDAP and what I've seen of JFusion you'll still have to put in the key time to make things like User Group restrictions function outside vbb like the normally would on your boards.

Hello, so you're saying that jFusion is compatible with 1.5.10? I'm looking forward to create a guild/fansite for PWorld and I'd like to make a bridge with vBulletin + Joomla 1.5.10.

Sorry for being so newbish ^^'.

It is but as the Mod has requested, please don't discuss JFusion here. Search for us and you will find us.

Thanks,
Alan

Hello all,

I wonder: is it possible to use JFusion to allow for frameless display of vB within Joomla, without applying user integration?

I have a web site where users register for the forum, but not with Joomla (as there is no content on the non-forum portion of the site that requires/benefits from being logged in), so I really don't need or want user integration.

However, I am looking for a reliable way to framelessly integrate vB into Joomla templates/pages (i.e. without using an iFrame). I know that the new release of JFusion can do this as part-and-parcel of a full integration; can it do it on its own?

Many thanks.

The Pre-Sales forum is not the place to ask these questions and expect a detailed answer. Please post your question in the appropriate forum.

perhaps its best if you ask at jFusion site.. they are the developers of that particular software , and its most likely to get an accurate answer to your question