portals .. do I need one

[Robomcd]

I am now slowly making our forum a bit nicer and friendlier. Just installed Gallery Pro and in figuring out how things work, I several times came across how wonderful this or that "PORTAL" was.

Can somebody please explain me what a PORTAL exactly is and why you should need  one ... or not?

Now it seems to me that as stand-alone object, the SMF forum is working quite ok, and integration with SMF Gallery Pro seems ok also.

My main websites are all php-css hard coded sites, not even jave scripts active. Nothing flashy, but they are working ok and convey the message. No need to update the pages every five minutes, maybe our activities pages a few times per year, that's it. No CMS used anywhere. 

Our target groups are mostly not-pc-savvy audience, mostly also internet-lazy (not much active on forums etc).

Do I need a portal or can it help me with something?

[Gluz]

The main purpose of a Portal, for those who install the forum on the root directory of their websites, to have a land page with some info an not to go directly to the board index of the forum.

If you have a main website page and the forum in a subdirectory or subdomain, most likely you don't need a portal, as your main website act as a land page with info and the links needed to do stuff on your site.

Can it help you? That depend on what are you trying to do in your site, it can replace your main website page with info and data from your forum to show without coding it yourself but instead using the already done blocks from the portal itself.

[Robomcd]

Would this "adding blocks" work with a website that is hard-coded to begin with?

In our other sites (see a nice Easter example), the trio of index page file - htaccess file - css file work together so that each website page has its individual meta description, key words, title etc. The index page includes the navigation bar, inserts the header, and handles the coding. The navigation bar and header stay the same; each link to the next page only calls up the text of that page to the right of the navigation area and below the header.

Those content pages do not have ANY coding in them (apart maybe from a local color change), only text and images. The .htaccess file uses rewrite rules to change the "nice URL" links into the basic ../?act=## URL, the index file with all php coding grabs the ##, links it with a specific content page file and adds ALL the necessary data for that specific page like metakeys, titles, etc, etc. No java scripts active anywhere.

To be honest, I am very bad at creating something completely new and innovative out of nothing. No good fingers for creating the "wow" impression. However, once a basic thing is there, I am not bad at extending it and inserting new things. Fifteen odd years ago, before CMS' became commonplace, an IT professional made our original non-profit website with basic coding. I later removed the flashy (and irritating) parts and build it out, then used it to build several other websites along similar lines and saved our non-profits a lot of money.   

[Kindred]

You would basically replace all of your fixed html files into the portal as pages...


for example
http://www.askawitchcommunity.org/index.php

I have an "articles" mod added to that
http://www.askawitchcommunity.org/index.php?action=articles;cat=3
and an FAQ, Glossary, Gallery, recipes

and then some basic, fixed pages, like this

yes... the site needs some updating... but it gives you a basic idea of how the portal lets your forum become the site manager.
http://www.askawitchcommunity.org/index.php?action=ezportal;sa=page;p=1