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

cheesegrits · #32 04-13-2008, 08:08 PM

@shadowraith

Nice idea, and thanks for contributing this.

Total time it took me to get it working on two Joomla templates was about 30 minutes - 10 mins reading the notes and installing the XML, and about 10 minutes each chomping up the index.php.

Just FYI, with the two templates I've tried (Rhuk, and JoomlArt's Xenia), the raw chopped up index.php code works just fine as-is without having to use the $myjoomlacontent[] technique. What version of PHP are you running?

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.

The issue I'm working on at the moment is to see if I can get rid of the re-draws of things like CSS styled menus that use re-styling of UL elements, etc. It's particularly noticeable on the JA Xenia template, where the 'top' (main) menu draws three times - once as a plain UL, once with the text styling applied, and finally as the horizontal menu. I noticed something similar on your demo site.

Not sure if it'll be possible without some template-specific surgery though.

@nonamer69

Quote:

Originally Posted by nonamer69

anyone tested this with 3.7?

Seems to work OK on 3.7 Beta 5. I've only been testing it for an hour or so though.

-- hugh

cheesegrits · #33 04-15-2008, 08:44 PM

Also need to add this to the plugin:

PHP Code:


			
    if ($mosConfig_lang=='') {

        $mosConfig_lang = 'english';

    }

    include_once( $mosConfig_absolute_path .'/language/' . $mosConfig_lang . '.php' );

... otherwise Joomla's language file isn't loaded.

FYI, I tracked that CSS menu styling redraw thing to a template specific bug. Nothing to do with this mod.

-- hugh

cheesegrits · #34 04-16-2008, 04:05 PM

An obvious drawback with embedding vB within J! is that you will very probably run into CSS conflicts. We have two radically different systems trying to share the same sandbox, and they end up stomping on each others CSS toes. I thought I'd document how I resolved these issues on my J! template (JA Xenia), but the same techniques will apply to most styles.

The main issue is obviously that vB's main stylesheet is overriding J! styling, and vice versa. It occurred to me that the first problem (vB stomping on J!) could be solved if all of vB's style selectors were specified as 'descendents' of the J! container wrapper div. In my case, using JA Xenia, this has the ID #ja-containerwrap. By the nature of the way this mod works, all of vB is contained within that div. The ID will vary depending on the J! template you are using, but there should be a 'wrapper' div which obviously surrounds vB.

So, I made a small code mod (much as I hate code mods, but there is no hook available in that location, I've requested one but am not holding my breath!) to vB, in ./includes/adminfunctions_template.php. At the end of the construct_css(), just before the 'return', I added this code:

PHP Code:


			
/*
    cheesegrits - joomlawrap CSS hack.  For use with shadowraith's Joomla!vB
    wrapper hack:
    
    https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=172308
    
    Place this code immediately before the 'return' at the end of
    the construct_css() function in includes/adminfunctions_template.php
    
    Set $jstyles to the vB style ID's you want to modify, and the CSS ID of the
    div in the coresponding J! template which 'wraps' the main body content.
    
    Go to Style Manager, edit and save the vB style(s) you want to modify.
*/
    $jstyles = array(
        2 => '#ja-containerwrap',
        7 => '#wrapper-inner'
    );
    // test to see if this is one of our J! integration styles
    if ($jstyles[$styleid])
    {
        // grab the wrapper DIV ID
        $jcontainer = $jstyles[$styleid];
        // loop through vB's $cssarray
        foreach ($cssarray as $key => $val)
        {
            // extract the selectors, i.e. everying before the opening {
            if (preg_match('#(.*)\s*\{#',$val,$matches))
            {
                $oldval = $matches[1];
                $newval = '';
                if (preg_match('#^body#',$oldval))
                {
                    // if this is vB's 'body', change it to just the wrapper ID
                    $newval = "$jcontainer ";
                }
                else
                {
                    // if it's anything but 'body', bust it up ...
                    foreach (explode(',',$oldval) as $thisval)
                    {
                        // ... and prepend the container ID to each selector
                        $newval .= "$jcontainer $thisval, ";
                    }
                }
                // chop any extranous trailing comma/space
                $newval = rtrim($newval,', ');
                // replace the original selector list with ours
                $cssarray[$key] = str_replace($oldval,$newval,$val);
            }
        }
    }

After making this mod and saving the style(s), the main vB CSS on your wrapped vB will now look like this:

Code:

#ja-containerwrap .page
{
   background: #FFFFFF;
   color: #000000;
}
#ja-containerwrap td, #ja-containerwrap th, #ja-containerwrap p, #ja-containerwrap li
{
   font: 10pt verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
}
... etc etc ..

NOTE that this only takes care of the standard vB defined style tags. If you have "extra CSS" defined in your style, you may need to manually prepend the wrapper div ID to the custom CSS definitions.

This goes most of the way to solving the "vB stomping on J!" issue..

This has already gotten rather long, so I'll follow up in another post with the other stuff I had to do to get everything playing nicely together.

-- hugh

cheesegrits · #35 04-17-2008, 12:35 AM

Another quickie ... need to add ...

PHP Code:


			
    $my = $mainframe->getUser();

... right after the call to mosMainFrame() in the plugin. Lots of J! widgets need $my defined, it's like J!'s version of vB's $userinfo. Took me a while to work out why several of my J! modules on my vB page were behaving rather strangely!

-- hugh

Sunsetdriver · #36 05-15-2008, 08:31 PM

Has anyone tested it with vb 3.7.0?

Thanks.

Sunsetdriver · #37 05-16-2008, 10:37 AM

I'm testing the hack wit RT's populus template. It works BUT there's an error displayed at the top of the page:

Code:

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in C:\xampp\htdocs\Joomla\templates\rt_populus\rt_styleloader.php on line 11

Then if I click on forums titles or reply to a topic, another error appears:

Code:

Warning: in_array() [function.in-array]: Wrong datatype for second argument in C:\xampp\htdocs\Joomla\templates\rt_populus\rt_styleloader.php on line 28

Btw, I've moved $myjoomladhead at the beginning of the headinclude template.

See attachment.

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.

Where do I have to put that code? In xml file? And Do I have to oaste only

Code:


	PHP Code:
	
		
			
if (THIS_SCRIPT != 'cron'){   blah blah}

?

Thanks

cheesegrits · #38 05-17-2008, 07:10 PM

I'd have to see the three 'chunks' of template to work out why you are getting those errors.

For the 'cron' thing, edit the global_start plugin, and just wrap that if statement around all the code, so it's ...

if (THIS_SCRIPT != 'cron')
{
... original code ...
}

-- hugh

Sunsetdriver · #39 05-18-2008, 12:37 PM

I've fixed it!

Rockettheme slightly modified their templates' index.php since firenzie, so some code was left out of the <head></head> section.

NOW...I still have some questions:
1) if I change the default style in Joomla's backend (same template but different style), it doesn't change in forum page. Of course it happens 'cause I have to manually change parameters in /vbulletin/head.php. Is there a way to let head.php read parameters directly from template's index.php?
2) How can I display correctly modules in forum page? I tried it but they didn't got displayed well;
3) There's a bug with vb's dropdown menus. As I click on them, they got displayed away from menu (see pic).

Sorry for too many questions

. Btw, any chance for an updated version with you CSS tips included? (to have Joomla and vbulletin working with own CSS styles).

Sunsetdriver · #40 05-18-2008, 01:01 PM

Could someone also explain this?

Code:

# 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.

I think that's why nothing got displayed in modules enabled in VB page

.

Thanks.

Sunsetdriver · #41 05-18-2008, 02:14 PM

Ugh...I've just tried to install the product on my live website and the forum doesn't load.
I've got this error message displayed:

Quote:

Restricted access
Warning: Unknown: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in [path]/global.php(384) : eval()'d code on line 232

Fatal error: Unknown: Failed opening required '/includes/frontend.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/*******/public_html/forum/global.php(384) : eval()'d code on line 232

my config:

Joomla --> www.mydomain.com
vbulletin --> www.mydomain.com/vbulletin

My plugin's settings:
Enter the full path to your joomla directory: www.mydomain.com

Same error with 'www.mydomain.com/'

But if I type '../' a blank page loads.

Any hint? :erm:

How should I type the url of my joomla installation?
Thanks.

X vBulletin 3.8.12 by vBS Debug Information
Page Generation 0.04776 seconds Memory Usage 2,381KB Queries Executed 25 (?)
More Information
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