How can I incorporate my existing phpBB forum and Coppermine

[Garibaldi]

I have done quite a bit of research on this topic but the answers still aren't clear. I have found the Mambo Component for phpBB that lets you integrate the two, however this solution requires a forum with no MODs installed, and I have several. What I have done for now to display my forum in Mambo is use the wrapper, although this is limiting because of its size and also because I cannot get specific urls for each topic. Is there another way to display my existing phpBB forum inside of Mambo?

Also is it possible to make it so that when I open a topic or any link on my forum in a new tab or window it will open with Mambo around it? Right now it will just open up the forum page.

As for Coppermine I have an existing install, I cannot start fresh. I found the modification that helps to integrate Coppermine and Mambo, however the link for the download was broken. It does appear okay in the wrapper, the way I have it now, but once again the problems I have are that if I open a link in a new window I loose Mambo, I cannot specify a specific page or link since this is in the wrapper (frames), and also that the size is smaller.


Does anyone have any ideas on how to solve some of these problems?

Thanks,

Garibaldi

[thecoalman]

If your refferring to the user database look in the coppermine/bridge folder for user database integration. I did it with a frsh install of Coppermine on a older install of phpbb, don't see whay it wouldn't work if both were older installs. Essentially it hands the duties for logging in over to the phpbb login screen.

[Garibaldi]

If I have read my info correctly that would wipe out my Coppermine database though wouldn't it? That would mean that I would loose all the 2000+ pictures already uploaded there. I'm not really as concerned with user base integration as getting the applications to work together, so I don't have to use frames to view them in Mambo (like you said, frames suck!)

[thecoalman]

I don't think you would lose the images, that just integrates the user database for login purposes, it also integrates the membergroups and few other things related. They may lose access to their current galleries, never done it with an existing gallery that is in use so I don't know... you could create a new gallery to test it out, just make sure you use a different prefix when you create the second coppermine databse. or head over to the coppermine page and look in the forum. I'm sure that issue has been discussed.

I'm unfamiliar with Mambo so I can't help you there, I've never used frames so I really don't know how they work. To get the links to work properly I'd imagine you would have to modify the coppermine files which can be a nightmare since there's no templates.... just try adding your own custom footer. :P

[Garibaldi]

I don't think you would lose the images, that just integrates the user database for login purposes, it also integrates the membergroups and few other things related. They may lose access to their current galleries, never done it with an existing gallery that is in use so I don't know... you could create a new gallery to test it out, just make sure you use a different prefix when you create the second coppermine databse. or head over to the coppermine page and look in the forum. I'm sure that issue has been discussed.

I'm unfamiliar with Mambo so I can't help you there, I've never used frames so I really don't know how they work. To get the links to work properly I'd imagine you would have to modify the coppermine files which can be a nightmare since there's no templates.... just try adding your own custom footer. :P

The user login isn't too big of a deal for now. Like you said I would imagine that I'm going to have to edit a ton of forum and coppermine files to make those links visible. Other than that the only other thing I can think of to display those pages in Mambo itself is to use a php include, although I doubt that would work.

The concern that I have using the wrapper (which is frames) is that search engines won't be able to index it. Do you think the best solution for this is to leave the pages in frames but also make hidden text links at the bottom of the page (which are visible to search engines) so they can view the pages?

[thecoalman]

but also make hidden text links at the bottom of the page (which are visible to search engines) so they can view the pages?

That could possibly be the worst thing you could do. :P The search engine will pick up on it that they are hidden and your site will eventually get pulled from the indexes and possibly banned. That was a early technique adopted by webmasters to gain relevance in search engines since search engines rely heavily on the anchor text.

Most likely they'll get indexed whether framed or not but what happens is it treats each frame as an individual page. If the page relies on the parent frame for navigation for the entire site they will only be able to navigate within sub frame, in this case it would be coppermine. At least that was the case years ago, perhaps search engines have become smarter in that regards, you'd have to do a little research. You could always make a sitemap with all the major links, but again if the each page relies on the parent frame they will still be stuck in no mans land. I'm sure there a scripts avaialable for detecting that the parent frmae is present in the browser but that would open another can worms.

Why not just build your own wrapper, use phpfetchall for the forum content, there's a simialr mod for coppermine too....

[Garibaldi]

but also make hidden text links at the bottom of the page (which are visible to search engines) so they can view the pages?

That could possibly be the worst thing you could do. :P The search engine will pick up on it that they are hidden and your site will eventually get pulled from the indexes and possibly banned. That was a early technique adopted by webmasters to gain relevance in search engines since search engines rely heavily on the anchor text.

Most likely they'll get indexed whether framed or not but what happens is it treats each frame as an individual page. If the page relies on the parent frame for navigation for the entire site they will only be able to navigate within sub frame, in this case it would be coppermine. At least that was the case years ago, perhaps search engines have become smarter in that regards, you'd have to do a little research. You could always make a sitemap with all the major links, but again if the each page relies on the parent frame they will still be stuck in no mans land. I'm sure there a scripts avaialable for detecting that the parent frmae is present in the browser but that would open another can worms.

Why not just build your own wrapper, use phpfetchall for the forum content, there's a simialr mod for coppermine too....

Hm.. that could be a problem. If you look on my site now on the left under all the car links you'll see that I have a text link to each page. The only way that it is hidden is that it is the same color as the background. Should I remove this because this may get me banned or unindexed?

Using phpBB Fetch All would be a good idea. Does that require me to insert some html/php code into the page that I want to display the forum on? I'm not sure that Mambo will let me insert complex html into a page, although I can try.

Would this let me display every aspect of the forum and coppermine? Do you have a link for the coppermine app or its name?

[thecoalman]

I would remove that immediately, just do a search for google and hidden text and you'll come across many articles about it.

fetch all comes witha predesigned portal page (and others), you can incoporate it as you wish. It's pretty straightforward to change it...I haven't used the one for coppermine but I do remeber seeing it.

Here's the demo board for the portal: http://www.phpbbfetchall.com/phpBB2/mods/phpbb_fetch_all/examples/portal.php

[Garibaldi]

I would remove that immediately, just do a search for google and hidden text and you'll come across many articles about it.

fetch all comes witha predesigned portal page (and others), you can incoporate it as you wish. It's pretty straightforward to change it...I haven't used the one for coppermine but I do remeber seeing it.

Here's the demo board for the portal: http://www.phpbbfetchall.com/phpBB2/mods/phpbb_fetch_all/examples/portal.php

Coalman,

I'm removing that now, thanks for the tip. Should I resubmit my site to google now?

What I was thinking of doing for the fetch is using

<?php include("fetch.php");?>

or something like that to include the fetch into an existing Mambo page. I now have the correct Mambot to do that, however here is my new problem. My Mambo install is located on a subdomain, ie http://subdomain.wiscollectorcar.com , and the coppermine and phpBB installs are located on http://www.wiscollectorcar.com . When I try to use a url include like:

<?php include("http://www.wiscollectorcar.com/cfmfetch/cftest.php");?>

It returns this error:

Warning: Unknown(): URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /xxxx/xxxxx/xxxxxx/home.wiscollectorcar.com/mambots/content/kl_php.php(65) : eval()'d code on line 1

Is there any way around this so I can displays pages on a different domain?

[thecoalman]

I'm removing that now, thanks for the tip. Should I resubmit my site to google now?

It's still listed....

What I was thinking of doing for the fetch is using

<?php include("fetch.php");?>

or something like that to include the fetch into an existing Mambo page. I now have the correct Mambot to do that, however here is my new problem. My Mambo install is located on a subdomain, ie http://subdomain.wiscollectorcar.com , and the coppermine and phpBB installs are located on http://www.wiscollectorcar.com . When I try to use a url include like:

<?php include("http://www.wiscollectorcar.com/cfmfetch/cftest.php");?>

It returns this error:

Warning: Unknown(): URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /xxxx/xxxxx/xxxxxx/home.wiscollectorcar.com/mambots/content/kl_php.php(65) : eval()'d code on line 1

Is there any way around this so I can displays pages on a different domain?

No clue, I'm sure it's possible though if it's your own domain. You probably have to change the php ini file or something like that. I'd do some resech on what your changing though, I really have no idea.

[Garibaldi]

I'm removing that now, thanks for the tip. Should I resubmit my site to google now?

It's still listed....

What I was thinking of doing for the fetch is using

<?php include("fetch.php");?>

or something like that to include the fetch into an existing Mambo page. I now have the correct Mambot to do that, however here is my new problem. My Mambo install is located on a subdomain, ie http://subdomain.wiscollectorcar.com , and the coppermine and phpBB installs are located on http://www.wiscollectorcar.com . When I try to use a url include like:

<?php include("http://www.wiscollectorcar.com/cfmfetch/cftest.php");?>

It returns this error:

Warning: Unknown(): URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /xxxx/xxxxx/xxxxxx/home.wiscollectorcar.com/mambots/content/kl_php.php(65) : eval()'d code on line 1

Is there any way around this so I can displays pages on a different domain?

No clue, I'm sure it's possible though if it's your own domain. You probably have to change the php ini file or something like that. I'd do some resech on what your changing though, I really have no idea.

I think it has something to do with my server configuration. Based on some more reading that I've been doing I don't think php Fetch all or Coppermine Fetch are able to include your entire forum in another page, are they? If not then I am going to go with the next best thing if I can get it to work - copying to the top menu into my overall_header.tpl file

[thecoalman]

I don't think php Fetch all or Coppermine Fetch are able to include your entire forum in another page, are they? If not then I am going to go with the next best thing if I can get it to work - copying to the top menu into my overall_header.tpl file

Ahhh gotcha... fetchal is for including parts of the forum in another page, I misuderstood you. Just build your own wrapper. If you install the extreme styles mod for phpbb you can use php includes in the templates....

[Garibaldi]

I don't think php Fetch all or Coppermine Fetch are able to include your entire forum in another page, are they? If not then I am going to go with the next best thing if I can get it to work - copying to the top menu into my overall_header.tpl file

Ahhh gotcha... fetchal is for including parts of the forum in another page, I misuderstood you. Just build your own wrapper. If you install the extreme styles mod for phpbb you can use php includes in the templates....

I have no idea how to build a wrapper, is it fairly easy?

What do you mean I can use the php includes in the templates? Does that mean I can include the forum index.php file in another template (like a mambo template) and it will recognize it?

[thecoalman]

What do you mean I can use the php includes in the templates? Does that mean I can include the forum index.php file in another template (like a mambo template) and it will recognize it?

If you use any php script in a phpbb template it won't work. If you install the extreme styles mod it allows you to use them in the templates. Extreme styles is a mod for you guessed it.... creating styles for phpbb. I haven't used it for that , just the for the ability to use includes.

Anyhow one of the great things about php is the include function here's how a template looks for every page I build....

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css">
<title></title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="mainformat.css" type="text/css">
<meta name="description" content=
"">
<meta name="keywords" content=
"">
</head>
<body>

<?php  
include 'header.php'; 
?> 






<?php include 'footer.html'; ?>

</div>
</body>
</html>

The header.php file contains the site navigation and any other constant content I want to have througout the site. What is great about this is any time I want to change the site navigation I only have to edit one file.

Getting it work correctly within phpbb correctly is not that hard, simply edit the overall header template and put the include where it needs to go.

Coppermine is a different story..... :P

[Garibaldi]

Ok, I'm actually using a different method to insert the code, but I'm going to try to install this as well. One question, I downloaded the install file and it has files to upload to the /admin, /includes/ and /xs_mod/ folders. However there isn't anything different in the ACP, how do I install it?

How can I go about adding some code to my coppermine install? Rather than using a php include I'll just insert the code. What file and where do I need to modify to get this done correctly?

[thecoalman]

However there isn't anything different in the ACP, how do I install it?

I don't remember exactly but I think that's a upload only...

How can I go about adding some code to my coppermine install? Rather than using a php include I'll just insert the code. What file and where do I need to modify to get this done correctly?

Same way you do for phpbb but there's only one template and it's pretty simple. You have limited choices there, modify the index.php file for more options, most of the generated code reside there.

[Garibaldi]

I've successfully modded the file and added the new header, it looks great! Now that I have coppermine and the forum done I should be pretty well set. Thanks Coalman!

[thecoalman]

Now try adding a custom footer to Coppermine above the coppermine footer without breaking the html. :P

BTW I don't see any difference in your site....

[Garibaldi]

Now try adding a custom footer to Coppermine above the coppermine footer without breaking the html. :P

BTW I don't see any difference in your site....

I think I'll leave my footer alone!

You won't see any difference for now, I'm keeping the old overall_header and template files in place until I complete the new site. Then one day the whole thing will change...

One other question I have for you. When I put this menu on my forum it makes the top part of the forum quite large. I worked with the code and actually removed the forum image and then centered the menu text (Private Messages, Log in, Register, Memberlist, ect). Is this okay? Does it harm the code or SEO at all?

[thecoalman]

I worked with the code and actually removed the forum image and then centered the menu text (Private Messages, Log in, Register, Memberlist, ect). Is this okay? Does it harm the code or SEO at all?

Why would it? sounds as if you have only removed an image to me. No big deal. You can chnage that anway you want. The only thing you have to make sure is that if you change the links around you leave the switches on their own line...

						[img]templates/subSilver/images/icon_mini_register.gif[/img]{L_REGISTER}</span>

Normally that's just used to add comments in the html code. In this case it's switch, the Begin and END comment have to be on their own line.

[Garibaldi]

All of that stuff is still intact, I simply removed the forum logo. Do you think that takes away from the site at all?