The Arcive of Official vBulletin Modifications Site.

Dynamic Joomla!VB wrapper · **Released**: 03-06-2008

NB: This add-on is not a single sign-on solution.

This add-on provides a means for dynamically wrapping your vbulletin in a Joomla! 1.0.15 portal implementation. This add-on does not touch the core files of either system and there is no requirement to do anything on the Joomla! side unless you've created wrappers for several templates and want to switch between those templates. At which point, you'll simply switch your Joomla! templates via in the Joomla! template manager. And finally, this add-on assumes that your forum is located directly below your joomla implementation directory and is sharing its database. The following instructions include example code snippets to (hopefully) assist in making this add-on proceed as smoothly as possible.

Before attempting to install this add-on, disable your forum and back up your database!!!. This is to ensure you have a working copy in case you run into problems.

.

If you install this PLEASE
Click Install

Preparation:

Step 1: Create a subdirectory in your current template directory (both locally and on your target site) called, vbulletin. For example, if you're using one of the default templates for Joomla! 1.0.15... say... madeyourweb, you would create your vbulletin directory as follows:

joomla-root-dir/templates/madeyourweb/vbulletin
Step 2: Create three files (head.php, header.php, & footer.php). These will contain content from your index.php file in your selected template directory. So, if you are using the default (madeyourweb), you would use the index.php file in that directory to create the three vbulletin wrapper files. These files should be formatted as follows:
head.php
This file is for your joomla template content between the <head> [...] </head> tags. This is also where you initialize theme variables and add any include statements, for example, from a Rocket Theme ...
Code:

<?
	$default_style = "style3";			//[style1... style10]
	$enable_rokzoom = "true";			  // true | false
	$template_width = "fluid";			// width in px | fluid
	$sidebar_width = "25%";					// width in px or %
	$sidebar_side = "right";				// left | right
	$menu_name = "mainmenu";				// mainmenu by default, can be any Joomla menu name
	$menu_type = "moomenu";					// moomenu | suckerfish | splitmenu | module
	$default_font = "default";      // smaller | default | larger
	$show_pathway = "true";					// true | false

	require($mosConfig_absolute_path."/templates/" . $mainframe->getTemplate() . "/rt_styleloader.php");
  $myjoomlacontent   = array();
	$myjooomlacontent[] = '<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; '._ISO.'" />';
	$myjooomlacontent[] = '<link href="'.$mosConfig_live_site.'/templates/'.$mainframe->getTemplate().'/css/template_css.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />';
	$myjooomlacontent[] = '<link href="'.$mosConfig_live_site.'/templates/'.$mainframe->getTemplate().'/css/'.$tstyle.'.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />';
  echo implode( "\n", $myjoomlacontent );
?>

header.php
This file is for your joomla template content between the <body> tag and the php mosMainbody function call.
Code:

<?
  $myjoomlacontent   = array();
  $myjoomlacontent[] = '<div id="outer-800" >';
  $myjoomlacontent[] = '<div id="pathway">';
  echo implode( "\n", $myjoomlacontent );
	mospathway();
  $myjoomlacontent   = array();
  $myjoomlacontent[] = '</div>';
  $myjoomlacontent[] = '<div id="leftcol">';
  $myjoomlacontent[] = '<a name="menu"></a>';
	if (mosCountModules( "left" )) {
	  echo implode( "\n", $myjoomlacontent );
		mosLoadModules ( 'left',-3);
	  $myjoomlacontent   = array();
	}
  $myjoomlacontent[] = '</div>';

	[...]
	  
  echo implode( "\n", $myjoomlacontent );
?>

footer.php
This file is for your joomla template content between the php mosMainbody function call and the </body> tag.
Code:

			</div>
		</div>
		<div class="clr"></div>
	</div>
</div>

Step 3: Upload your files to the new vbulletin directory that you just created

Step 4: Download the attached product-joomla-vb.xml project-addon and change:

joomla-menu-id-for-your-forum => Joomla! menu id for your forum (you can find this under Itemid in your Joomla! control panel menu manager)

your-joomla-path-goes-here => absolute path to your Joomla! installation

Installation:

Select Plugins & Products => Manage Products and click on the "Add/Import Product" link. And select the above xml from where ever you have stored it locally. This will install your product as well as your supporting plugin.
Select Plugins & Products => Plugin Manager and select Include the Joomla!VB template wrappers, then click save, to ensure the plugin refreshes.
Select vBulletin Options and scroll down to the end of the list. There should be a "Dynamic Joomla Options" in the list. Select that, and verify that your path and your joomla menu id are set correctly. If not, change them to the correct settings and click save.
Select Styles & Templates => Style Manager and create a brand new style with default (or a style you already have in place) as the parent style.

NB: The above intermediate step provides a means to play around with a test template without trashing your existing template. And, it also makes it easier to sandbox without having to restore your database.
Select Common Templates from your dropdown menu of the style you just created.

Common templates has three templates. These are header, headinclude, and footer.
- Insert $myjoomladhead at the end of the headinclude template
- Insert $myjoomladheader at the end of header template
- Insert $myjoomladfooter at the end of footer template
- Click save.
Click on your new style, which will launch your forum with the Dynamic Joomla!VB wrapper.

Demo: http://crimsonshadows.net (click on forum to see the seamless integration between the portal and vbulletin)

Notes, debugging, etcetera:

All php function calls, such as mosLoadModules should be made in the order they appear in your template. For example:
Code:
<?
  $myjoomlacontent   = array();

	[...]
  $myjoomlacontent[] = '              <div id="horiz-menu" class="'.$mtype.'">';
  echo implode( "\n", $myjoomlacontent );
  mosShowListMenu($menu_name);
  $myjoomlacontent   = array();
  $myjoomlacontent[] = '                <div class="clr"></div>';
	[...]
  
  echo implode( "\n", $myjoomlacontent );
?>
vBulletin seems to have problems parsing the raw Joomla! html w/embedded php. Hence the reason to use the $myjoomlacontent buffer variable, which you must dump ala the echo/implode when needing to make a function call that echoes the results as opposed to returning a string.

If you do not have embedded php code, you can simply include the raw code as reflected in the above footer.php example. Or, if you're a brave soul and have some time just import your raw templates and bypass the $myjoomlacontent buffer altogether. Good luck on this latter and if you figure out what the kink is, please let me know.

As far as debugging goes? Hopefully you have access to your php error log or you're displaying your php errors/warnings to the screen. This makes debuging much easier.

The most common errors you can encounter when attempting this type of implementation are leaving off ending quotes, or using a semiquote on html code that already contain a semi quote. My general rule of thumb, if the html code is using quotes, then I use semi quotes to load the string into $myjoomlacontent buffer. Likewise, if it is using semi quotes, I use quotes.

Other errors may be missing variables. I'm using the Rocket Theme templating system therefore my head.php contains the Rocket Theme includes.
As for swithching themes? You will need to create a vbulletin directory under each template directory you may wish to use. Then, create the three aforementioned files (head.php, header.php, footer.php) and upload them to their respective template directory. At which point, it is a matter of using your joomla control panel to switch between templates.

Excellent/Important user feedback/tips

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tiedgen

1.) I noticed on your site that when you go from your main page to your
vbulletin page, the navbar font is a different size and/or style. --- I
found a fix for this and the answer lies in the style manager in the VB
admincp. Edit your desired VB style and scroll down the CSS style boxes
until you come to <td>, <th>, <p>, <li>. This is where the problem lies.
Apparantly, implementing the joomla code (which includes the CSS code) is
screwing with the vb css code. The solution was simple; I just edited the
font size and font family under <td>, <th>, <p>, <li>. In my case, I
changed the font size to 9pt and re-arranged the first font style: verdana.
Once I changed these variables, the header and navbar text was identical to
the rest of the board.. No more little annoyance.. :-)

2.) And lastly, this deals more with the rockettheme template code. I
noticed that I couldn't get my board to center correctly in the main
content wrapper; it was a few pixels to the right. (I know.. petty stuff..)
To remedy this I deleted the last dozen or so lines of code from my
header.php file; the code dealing with the right or left nav section (in my
case, the right nav section) If you would like the specific code, don't
hesitate to ask. Your firenze template coding should be nearly identical to
my elemental template from rockettheme.com

Quote:

Originally Posted by cheesegrits

One fairly important change though, for anyone even vaguely concerned about server load, you should probably wrap this around the plugin code:

PHP Code:


			
if (THIS_SCRIPT != 'cron')

{

   blah blah

}

Otherwise you are loading the whole of Joomla twice on every page load, and it obviously doesn't need to happen the second time, just for the cron jobs.

Support

I will happily answer questions that are not addressed in the above instructions. Feedback is also welcomed.

Addendum

Please do not ask me to write and/or debug your php code! So far, all of the questions I have received are from people who (a) did not even bother to read the detailed instructions that I provided above, and/ or (b) haven't clue one wrt writing php code, much less debugging it.

While I have no problem supporting this product, I do not have time to teach people how to write and debug their own code. Esp considering that the errors encountered thus far could have been easily avoided by reading the instructions!

If you install this PLEASE
Click Install

Magnumutz · #2 03-07-2008, 02:55 AM

Ok, with that skin, it looks pretty nice... i wonder how it would look like in the default skin or others

Good job so far.

shadowraith · #3 03-07-2008, 05:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magnumutz

i wonder how it would look like in the default skin or others

Well, blue & purple are complimentary colors to yellow and orange, so you could squeeze by... Overall, however, I would say changing the color scheme (as opposed to the icon designs) is pertinent to an integrated look.

shadowraith · #4 03-07-2008, 03:01 PM

Btw, for anyone who is interested in seeing what the default vb skin looks like in the wrapped Joomla! I've turned on the vb style switcher. Just scroll down to the very bottom of the page and select "default" from the drop down menu. I'll add a switcher interface to the portal skin later, so you can see the wrapper skin switching as well.

goyo · #5 03-07-2008, 08:41 PM

I salute You shadowraith for this.

A little complicated for a non-programmer but if it works...

I'll try this with a Yootheme template. I think it's going to be harder compared to Rockettheme as from January they've switched to a new on-the-fly method gzip javascript files and combine (and gzip) css files in to one (more info here)...

I'll definitely coming back with my results.

Thanks again for this much needed wrapper idea/solution. :up:

iogames · #6 03-07-2008, 09:16 PM

demo not working

vau7 · #7 03-07-2008, 10:47 PM

'Hi there,

i really made a big joyjump on my desk when i saw this product. Unfortunatly i dont get it to work.

As Result of doing your steps, double-checked of course, i only get a white page.

As MenuID i gave the id to the normal wrapperlink of joomla, which i use to get the board into the rest of the site.

As absolute Path i gave

Code:

/srv/www/htdocs/web69/html/rap

is the format right so?

Thank you much for your support.

shadowraith · #8 03-08-2008, 12:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vau7

'Hi there,

i really made a big joyjump on my desk when i saw this product. Unfortunatly i dont get it to work.

As Result of doing your steps, double-checked of course, i only get a white page.

As MenuID i gave the id to the normal wrapperlink of joomla, which i use to get the board into the rest of the site.

As absolute Path i gave

Code:

/srv/www/htdocs/web69/html/rap

is the format right so?

Thank you much for your support.

Hi, the blank page is from a fatal php error. The most common error I'm seeing from others who are experiencing the white page is

parse error, unexpected '<'

This is due to the fact that they are not using the $myjoomlacontent buffer. In other words if you just cut/pasted your index into your files, you will run into probs such as you are seeing. And, as I stated above, vbulletin has a prob w/html that has imbeded php.

ERuiz · #9 03-08-2008, 06:16 AM

Is there any chance of this working on Joomla 1.5.1?

tehtide · #10 03-08-2008, 05:22 PM

I'm with ERuiz... what do we need to do to get this working with 1.5.1?

Also... any chance of having the private message box popping up on joomla when you have a PM?

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