Using one forum for 2 site addresses

[frogbox]

Hey all,

I am wanting to find out if it is possible to use the same database linked to 2 different forums. I have 2 sites with differnet addresses on differnet servers but want to link the up to one forum using the same database but have different looks to them. Is this possible or am I shooting to far out there?

Help needed!

[Oldiesmann]

It isn't possible because even if you shared the same database, there's no way you could do that and still have them both look different, etc. Plus, most hosts won't let you get to their MySQL server from anywhere other than on their servers.

[jburnett]

Couldnt you change the template on the other site? Both would use the same template, but on one of the server you could change the template....or copy on from another directory.

Try this...

Setup your sites, using the same template. Then change the templates files on one of the servers and it should look diferent. You could probably jus copy another theme.

The database doesnt store colors and all that kind of stuff, its all handled by the Themes.

[[Unknown]]

It is actually possible to do this, but it takes more than a little monkeying around.

On separate servers, this really is not a good idea...

-[Unknown]

[Oldiesmann]

Besides what [Unknown] said, most likely you would not be able to access the database on one server from the other server. Most hosts will not allow you to access their MySQL server from any other server besides the one that your site is hosted on for obvious reasons. Plus, the site that was accessing the database on the other server would be considerably slower due to the extra time it would take to transfer the data from one server to the other.

[chipp]

I am also using looking for a solution to use different templates on different sites while sharing the database. My sites are stored at 1 server so the sharing is  not a problem and works fine.

Problem is that the template settings seem to be stored in the database ( path to templatefile) .

Can anyone tell me how to work around this thing ? using different templates would be great !

Tnx !

[[Unknown]]

Problem is that the template settings seem to be stored in the database ( path to templatefile) .

Why is that a problem?  They both should use the same default theme, and the same sources, right?

The only trick is getting them to use different themes.  Search Load.php for $modSettings['theme_guests']... you just need to change that to be something like SITE_ID_THEME, and then in Settings.php for each forum, use:

define('SITE_ID_THEME', '1');

Or similar.  And make sure to allow hotlinking between the two, just in case..

-[Unknown]

[chipp]

TnX unknown, 

now i know what to do, though it seems to be a bit of an an "expert" modification.  I was hoping it was just as simple as adding the right entry at settings.php files( theme directory =" ...") without changing the source files which is always a bad thing to do due to upgrades etc.