Hi,
I've written an SMF forum driver for ocPortal (http://ocportal.com).
It'll be included in our next release :). This means the portal will be able to draw off SMF for member authentication, comment topics, etc.
When is the next release scheduled?
It should be out in the next couple of days, perhaps even today. I'll post back here when it is :).
Quote from: Chris Graham on August 20, 2004, 10:47:28 AM
It should be out in the next couple of days, perhaps even today. I'll post back here when it is :).
I will be checking.
Looks pretty good, except for a small eyesore (Invision) :P.
Just kidding.
-[Unknown]
I'm looking forward to this! ;D
- Rpg Cyco
looks like an excellent portal solution...
can't wait to test the driver though
Hope the forum integrates well.
In the demo the forum is nothing but a link. I want a forum with side blocks.
Quote from: Kris on August 21, 2004, 05:00:38 AM
Hope the forum integrates well.
In the demo the forum is nothing but a link. I want a forum with side blocks.
According to this (http://forums.ocportal.com/index.php?showtopic=556) post on the ocPortal forums, he has got it working correctly.
- Rpg Cyco
The new RC with SMF support has just been released :).
As a coincidence, I did get inline forums working properly :).
Please direct feedback at our own forums, as I don't really have the time to frequent other ones, thanks.
/me will check this one out one of these days :)
Good news .. I guess this will be the *first* Portal integrated with SMF.
Good to see... hopefully more shall follow!
I'm really confused here. The main forum on the site is vBulletin, and the one on the demo site is IPB. I see absolutely nothing about integrating it with SMF, and the inline forums topic (http://forums.ocportal.com/showthread.php?t=549) says nothing about SMF.
I downloaded the sources and have SMF integrated.
It uses a bridge to combine usertables. You can store the tables of ocportal and smf in the same db or in different ones.
At the moment there is a javascript problem for the inline forums that will be solved in a patch tomorrow or so.
I will dig into the sources for the next few weeks before I decide myself to use it for a production site.
Oldiesmann, when you have somewhere a devforum set up, put the install files of ocportal ina different directory and try installing it. You will be offered to include an existing forum or not during setup.
I tried it a few days ago and it worked well together from what I tried. But it felt like SMF was just iframed into it, so didn't try much more.
I did like the quick install ability. Upload two files, fill out the setup pages and let it do the rest. If you try ocportal install smf first. Otherwise it won't install with the quick install.
well im hoping this works... you see im not on 56k... but you have to upload a 3meg file... now it would really suck if the installation process didn't work after taking the time to upload a 3 meg file.... espescially for 56 and 28kers
btw im hoping the portal can share the forums database... i dont want 2 SEPERATE databases for 1 thing.... :(
Quote from: ~Tyris~ on September 04, 2004, 02:48:29 PM
btw im hoping the portal can share the forums database... i dont want 2 SEPERATE databases for 1 thing.... :(
It can.
I have just installed ocPortal with SMF.
I have to say, I like it alot. It's going to take a fair amount of coding to get the themes completely matched.. but I assume that would be the case for any CMS/portal.
The features of ocPortal are cool and seem to merge well with SMF.
And of primary importance to me, the developers at ocPortal respond QUICKLY and efficiently to questions, even when made by people like myself who have not yet registered. (although I definately plan to)
It can be set to use the same DB...
it can also be set to provide inline links for the forums or outline, if that's what you want...
Quote from: kindred on September 09, 2004, 04:59:07 PM
I have to say, I like it alot. It's going to take a fair amount of coding to get the themes completely matched.. but I assume that would be the case for any CMS/portal.
How does ocPortal's templating system work?
-[Unknown]
From what I can tell so far, ocPortal's templates use a "block" system.
Each block is defined as a file of the name,
for example, below is one of the templates pages from the main section
<table>
<tr>
<td colspan="7" align="center">
<h3>{GROUP_NAME*}</h3>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="10%"><strong>{!NAME}</strong></td>
<td width="10%"><strong>{!DAYS_LAST_VISIT}</strong></td>
<td width="10%"><strong>{!VIEW_PROFILE}</strong></td>
<td width="10%"><strong>{!VIEW_AUTHOR}</strong></td>
<td width="10%"><strong>{!VIEW_POINTS}</strong></td>
<td width="10%"><strong>{!SEND_PM}</strong></td>
<td><strong>{!SKILLS}</strong></td>
</tr>
{ENTRIES}
</table>
Right now, it seems a little arcane, as I try to figure out which block each page currently refers to and which one I want it to point to and/or display.
There is a "template editor" within the portal, but it just displays the page code (or CSS or images) so doing it locally in your favorite text editor seems to work nearly as well.
Well, next time I have access to FTP I'll have to try it out. My dad decided to enable Windows Firewall when he upgraded to SP2, so now we've got two firewalls going and Windows Firewall is blocking all FTP connections (even though Norton Internet Security allows them - this is exactly why it's not a good idea to run two firewalls at the same time, and my dad knows a lot about computers so he should know this...)
Playing around with an ocPortal test install since a few hours. :) The install worked flawless and the portal looks really promising so far.
Not sure if these might be problems. The member database is shared fine. However so far a login (or logout) does not simultaneously login (or logout) to the portal and the forum as well. Maybe I have set some cookie definitions wrong or I should have installed the forum as subdirectory of the portal. I also still try to find out how it is possible to put SSI into a block.
Quote from: [Unknown] on September 09, 2004, 06:53:14 PM
How does ocPortal's templating system work?
Haven't figured out yet how to make it use an SMF theme but here is some excerpt from the ocPortal online admin documentation:
Quote
ocPortal Admin's Guide: Themes
» Return to Contents
Introduction
ocPortal is completely themeable, in a very advanced way. Each zone in ocPortal can have it's own default theme, but also you can set ocPortal to get the themes from the forums (more complex).
If you get the theme from the forums, the theme will be chosen according to a priority scheme as follows...
Does the logged-in user have a theme set?
Does the forum have a theme with the same name as our site? (for multi-site networks, with different themes for different sites)
Does the forum have a default theme?
Use the theme 'default'
The forum theme names are converted to ocPortal theme names, via the themes/map.ini file (contains entries mapping forum theme names to ocPortal theme names). The definition of the name of the forum theme depends on different forums; for some, it is the actual humanely readeable name, for others it is the image directory name. The map file contains default entries for all forums to give you a head start on how to set it up.
To change the theme without relying on forum integration, just edit the zone you wish to choose the theme for.
Themes consist of:
Images
Templates
CSS
Theme templates are overrided from the default theme on a per-file basis. This means that if you want to edit a template for all themes, that hasn't been overriden, editing it in the default theme will make the changes apply to all themes.
Managing Themes
This page lists all the installed themes, with options for each of them to: edit CSS, edit templates, manage images and delete the theme. There is also a link to add a new theme.
Adding a Theme
This page contains a form to add a theme for users to use.
Edit CSS
This page allows you to edit the CSS ('Cascading Style Sheet') for the specified theme. You can manually edit it through a textbox, and you can also use some special JavaScript colour selectors to choose layout colours.
CSS is mostly used to define the font and colour settings for ocPortal. Templates should be considered structural, whilst CSS is stylistic.
Edit Templates
This page allows you to edit any template in a theme.
Templates are fragments of XHTML or Comcode that allow you to define the layout of ocPortal. They are assembled together, with input, to full the final pages of the site (or full e-mails, or stored messages: anything that ocPortal needs to assemble from fragments).
There are about 600 templates, but editing 4 of them allow you to greatly change the appearance of the site:
START_TABLE
END_TABLE
TABLE_TITLED_START
TABLE_TITLED_END
These are the templates that define the look of the 'pretty table': the tables that make up ocPortal's look (they surround the blocks on the side of the site, the whole centre of the site, and many sections within the centre of the site.
You should not edit template files outside ocPortal's template editor if the template cache is enabled, or your changes won't be reflected.
Manage Theme Images
This page allows you to select a theme image to edit. It also has a link to add a new theme image.
Theme images are referenced by templates using a symbol system: it is this section of ocPortal that allows you to map those symbols to image files for each theme and language. The power of this is multi-language, multi-theme, images, but without having to duplicate each image for each theme -- you just define which images you want to change from the default themes images.
Add Theme Image
This page is a form to add a new theme image. You can upload one, or select one previously uploaded.
Edit Theme Image
This page is a form to edit the details of an already-existing theme image. You can change the actual image (upload a new one, or use a previously uploaded one) and change other such properties of the specified theme image.
Is there any way to incorporate PHP into its themes, or call upon one of its "templates" from its API?
-[Unknown]
Haven't figured out yet how to do this, neither in blocks nor in templates. Asked the question in their support forums.
Quote from: andrea on September 11, 2004, 09:38:03 AM
Haven't figured out yet how to do this, neither in blocks nor in templates. Asked the question in their support forums.
Thanks. I don't have the time myself right now (between working and etc.) to look into it, but if you can get me most of the crucial information, I can try to write up a quick integration of layout..... whether it means using an SMF theme or an ocPortal one...
-[Unknown]
My questions resp. php incorporation and double login were answered:
http://forums.ocportal.com/showthread.php?t=704
http://forums.ocportal.com/showthread.php?t=705
For the php in templates I am not sure if this is necessary. It might be sufficient if it is possible to make php blocks.
Well, that was less than helpful. Nevermind, then.
-[Unknown]
Quote from: andrea on September 11, 2004, 10:44:23 PM
http://forums.ocportal.com/showthread.php?t=705
Oh look....another set of portal developers ducking the integration issues and setting out to write their own forum. I've obviously got the wrong idea about portals...I thought their only reason for existence was to integrate third party products into a common framework ::)
i get the following error when i try to install ocportal, any ideas?
Unfortunately there was an error during installation. Please correct the problem then try again.
Unfortunately a query has failed [INSERT INTO ocp2_translate (id, source_user, broken, importance_level, text_original, text_parsed, language) VALUES (5, 0, 0, 1, 'Advertise here!', 'a:1:{i:0;a:3:{i:0;b:0;i:1;i:1;i:2;s:15:\"Advertise here!\";}}', 'en')] [Duplicate entry '5-en' for key 1]
Hello,
I'm thinking on installing a portal on my forum. Do you recommend me this one? Can anyone show me a site with this portal?
Regards,
tL0z
Wow, it's been a long while since I've come over here. I missed all those posts too.
We've recently recently released version 3, and we are maintaining the SMF support. If there are any problems, we'll respond fast to fix them so long as they're reported on our site - I do admit that I don't have time to check other sites very regularly :(.
We do have our own forum now, but that doesn't mean we will ignore integration - infact, since creating the forum we've continued to improve the integration. Our new Theme Wizard makes it really easy to change ocPortal's colour scheme, so themeing is not a problem anymore. SMF doesn't have to fit into a frame - it can run "in full", it's just then it wouldn't have ocPortal's blocks around it.
This Portal is the best that out there as far as I am concerned. With very little work the whole system is running with out any coding at all. For those that like to customise it allow anything you can do in html or php. easy to use on-line interface keeps even the unskilled happy.
Chris Graham and his team are always quick to respond to support questions and the forums are extensive.
www.randomas.com due to go live Mid October.
Good news for SMF users, Chris has written drivers for the e-commerce to work with the SMF.
Here's the thread explaining how and the files needed.
http://ocportal.com/forum/pg/topicview/misc/7971/index.php&kfs233=0
I will keep all info in that thread for all SMF users.