Simple Machines Community Forum

Archived Boards and Threads... => Archived Boards => Joomla Bridge Support => Topic started by: Murgen on April 07, 2008, 02:25:43 AM

Title: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Murgen on April 07, 2008, 02:25:43 AM
Many years ago I migrated from EZ-board via Ikonboard to Invision. In those marry days Invision slogan was 'why pay for a forum when php and mysql are for free?'. A year later they changed their course and started asking money. I migrated to SMF and became very fond of this little piece of software. In that time I started developing some community-sites and after Mambo I went with the flow to Joomla!

SMF-community had a very fine software-bridge (Oristo!) integrating SMF-Joomla in a very fine way. But the GNU from Joomla blocked distribution so ... end of life cycle.

I'm getting very worried. I see a lot of development for phpBB 3 with Joomla but SMF-developments are falling behind. Right now the JFusion 1.05e alfa is doing nothing good for my portals, I need dual login and I need it bad for even considering upgrading to Joomla 1.5. From my point of view my personal roadmap is the next:

1. JFusion with a proper dual login and cookie handling for SMF (mind you, right now I can't even login into the JFusion portal ... just the phpBB3 forums) and Joomla!

2. Dump Joomla! and pick up Mambo with SMF.

3. Dump Joomla! and continue with TinyPortal.

4. Migrate to phpBB3 to continue Joomla!

Right now SMF is much more important to my community then the portal is. What is your opinion about my personal roadmap. I'm running out of time since the operational Joomla software is getting too old to keep online.

Regards, Murgen
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: babjusi on April 07, 2008, 02:38:51 AM
Option 2 and 3 ;)
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: 青山 素子 on April 07, 2008, 11:44:43 AM
A lot depends on what you features you consider important.

Migration to Mambo is a possibility as Joomla! 1.0 is a fork of Mambo, so it shouldn't be difficult to complete the migration. If you don't need such a "heavy" solution, then TinyPortal is a nice alternative that is lighter.

You could always choose option 4 if you don't see a future in Mambo or SMF, but considering many plugin developers have moved to Mambo from Joomla! since their license clarification, I do think that there is a good future for Mambo. As for SMF, version 2.0 is a good preview of our future.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Murgen on April 07, 2008, 02:40:48 PM
SMF never let me down ... so far. :) Guess where my loyalty is.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: redone on April 07, 2008, 08:38:57 PM
Also look at Drupal. I have been using Drupal 6 of late and its pretty impressive so is the 5x series as well and it has plenty of established modifications for it too.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: perplexed on April 08, 2008, 07:13:07 AM
I started with Tiny Portal, went to mambo, joomla, xooops and back to Tiny Portal.  The forum is still the heart of our communities and what members are most interested in.  Mods to the forum are of more interest than any 'portal' modules to our members so it works out well.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Orstio on April 08, 2008, 08:10:47 PM
QuoteThe forum is still the heart of our communities and what members are most interested in.  Mods to the forum are of more interest than any 'portal' modules to our members so it works out well.

That's why it is most important to determine up front whether you really need a CMS or a portal.  If what you need is a site revolving around your community, chances are you need a portal, and not content management.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Murgen on April 09, 2008, 02:19:46 PM
Quote from: Orstio on April 08, 2008, 08:10:47 PM
That's why it is most important to determine up front whether you really need a CMS or a portal.  If what you need is a site revolving around your community, chances are you need a portal, and not content management.

I agree. My first portals were built with Kevin's (Yauws.com) blocks around Invision. When Kevin quit developing I looked into Mambo and followed the flow to Joomla! Our historic medieval combat guild requires a content management system to make it more easy for the trainers to add and edit content and I know Bloc is a great guy but with Kevin his Yauws down the drain I put the money for my operational sites on larger initiative's. Unless someone tells me Tiny is just as big as Mambo. :)
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: MarChelo on April 10, 2008, 06:33:33 PM
option 1 or 4.
I love smf, but I won´t leave joomla nevaaaah!
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: redone on April 11, 2008, 04:06:11 PM
I like Joomla as well I guess I would use a smaller scale forum solution or just not bother bridging the two.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: mclane on April 12, 2008, 12:30:28 AM
I too am a fan of SMF and Joomla. Man, I wish there were a solution.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: AtlasShrugging on April 13, 2008, 08:48:01 AM
In a similar sinking boat here.  >:(

We manage 60+/-sites & some of them (law libraries) have thousands of pages of content. Anyone on the outside looking in - or a visitor, would think it was a simple enough decision - that content is king. But they'd be wrong. For us, the whole reason for the content is because the community demands it. And the forum is what builds the community. ie they learn from the content - but they discuss & bond & network  & contract through the forum. So you really really have to know your needs, audience, members etc to make a solid decision. We're still wrestling with what to do.

Rotten to have to choose "content over community" so to speak. But given our particular scenario, we absolutely will not quit SMF unless something better comes along. And if there is something better, we've yet to find it.

And I don't want to run a load different CMS. So that means redoing all of them with a new one. It would be much simpler to drop SMF - but easy isn't always right. I think it would cost us way too much in the long run to take the easy way out. And quite frankly (not that I would admit this), being forced to choose doesn't sit well with me anyway, so I'm digging in my heels.

Don't know much about Tiny, & wondering if it's robust enough to handle what we need. Right now it looks like it'll be Drupal as soon as we can stomache rolling up our sleeves for the transition. Unless of course the developers over yonder get lonely & decide to rethink things.  O:)

If anyone has any Drupal/SMF or large integrated Tiny/SMF sites - I would really appreciate some links. I am so not looking forward to this ..
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: nightmarepatrol on April 13, 2008, 10:02:22 AM
I agree with AtlasShrugging (who is John Galt?), I have become fond of drupal as it provides a tremendous amount of flexibility that Joomla and others do not. It is (to me) is also much easier to administrate. But like most CMS systems the forum software lacks the out-of-the-box sophistication and functionality that SMF (and other forums) have.

Since most forums are tacked on to a CMS, but just as important as the CMS itself in many cases I would love to see a way via API's and stylesheets to combine the two and deliver a uniform looking product without massive fussing. Tinyportal is a great mod, but can't deliver the full spectrum of goodies that a CMS can.  I realize there are license issue incompatibilities with SMF and drupal, but is there a way to find a middle ground?


With the onset of SMF 2.x, and Drupal 6, having the ability to integrate SMF and all of it's capabilities with drupal's taxonomy and organic groups would provide an almost limitless possibilities for those of us that run dual package sites.

This of course would be a major undertaking bot technically, ideologically and legally I suppose.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Orstio on April 13, 2008, 10:12:04 AM
The issues I had with bridging Drupal were technical, not legal, just so that is understood.

There was an integration made that uses the smf_api.php script, but having a look at the files, it appears they are distributing SMF code without permission. :(

Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: nightmarepatrol on April 13, 2008, 10:17:00 AM
I realize the technical issues could be immense, starting with the user table (the user 0 and user 1 thing) right down to how content is stored and recalled. I would love to see drupal and SMF gleefully coexisting with one another as they are (IMHO) the two best at what they do.

I'll see if I can find the script, but again I don't want to violate any licensing either.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Orstio on April 13, 2008, 10:25:18 AM
Database table information is negligeble.  I can work around that.  What I can't work around are function name collisions, and certain variable name collisions.

You wouldn't be violating the license by using the integration as it is currently distributed.  The developer who is distributing it is violating the SMF license, which puts the future of that piece of software in a precarious position, so I would not suggest using it at this time.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: nightmarepatrol on April 13, 2008, 10:44:22 AM
How about the theming issues? Is it even possible to get the two to use a combined stylesheet? Diddling with the css is't not diffucult,  My biggest problem is that I can at best tinker with php. perl i'm good with (yes, I'm a SA) 

I guess I better start learning if I want to do this though.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Orstio on April 13, 2008, 10:59:26 AM
There are no issues with theming.  You can make your SMF theme look however you want.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: nightmarepatrol on April 13, 2008, 11:22:20 AM
I understand that, I've overhauled a few stylesheets,  but It would be possible to get SMF and drupal to use the SAME style sheet without too much screwing around?
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: steighan on April 15, 2008, 09:38:42 AM
Quote from: nightmarepatrol on April 13, 2008, 11:22:20 AM
I understand that, I've overhauled a few stylesheets,  but It would be possible to get SMF and drupal to use the SAME style sheet without too much screwing around?

yes.

make your CSS file a PHP file instead (.php) or put an "addtype" command in your .htaccess to have CSS files parse as php (or a redirect)

in any event, once you transform your static CSS files to dynamic intelligent php code, you can then put in logic to read the SMF CSS and output analagous CSS on the Drupal or Joomla or Mambo side.
remember to output the appropriate headers of course


<?php
//The headers below tell the browser to cache the file and also tell the browser it is css.
header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate");
$offset 60*60*24*60;
$ExpStr "Expires: ".gmdate("D, d M Y H:i:s",time() + $offset)." GMT";
header($ExpStr);
header('Content-Type: text/css');
?>


Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Murgen on April 20, 2008, 04:55:08 PM
I started testing SMF + TP which looks more then sufficient (and handy) then any cms + SMF. When my test-sites develop well I will switch 2 communities to SMF+TP.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: kai920 on May 15, 2008, 08:36:52 PM
I have literally been torn between Joomla and SMF since the very day I began to combine the two.

As recently as a few days ago I was determined to use J!/MyBlog/J!Tags/CB... now, after hopping back onto the TP/SMF forums I am torn once again. :(

Since my site has been rather quiet lately, I think it's the perfect time to decide once and for all which direction to go in. (I don't feel that moving to Mambo is a valid option. will reconsider moving to Mambo...)

So, my questions are:

1) If one were to convert (some) Joomla content items to SMF as posts, how would one go about it? Is there a script available somewhere that can do this... is it as simple as converting the HTML tags to BBcode?

2) Has anyone here completely ditch Joomla (or Mambo) and just stuck with SMF, perhaps with Tinyportal? If so, can you briefly describe your thought process and the conversion experience.

3) How did you handle existing links indexed by search engines? Or did you just say "to h#ll with it" and throw up a custom 404 page?
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: steighan on May 16, 2008, 04:32:46 AM
I am writing such a script for a mate of mine, if you dont mind waiting a week or so.

If in a hurry, there is CreatePost function listed here somewhere (which I am using as the core of my conversion routine)

The key thing you have to work out, is not the transfer of the content item to the posts, but rather the MAMBOT processing that takes place ..if you use {mambot} for example.

I am just giving it some thought, (as a result of writing this post) and I will approach it two ways.

1. just identify, flag and maybe remove. Some of her content items had some akoComment thing which istnt needed.

2.Modify a mod, like the BBCode mod which does processing of the post text prior to display, and use that to scan for and replace the {mambot} tags..
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: kai920 on May 16, 2008, 05:03:51 AM
Hmm good point, hadn't thought of the mambots at all.  Let me know how you get on with your script, I am not in a hurry and will take the free time I have to experiment with Tinyportal -- and perhaps even Mambo.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Murgen on May 16, 2008, 06:23:54 AM
Quote from: kai920 on May 15, 2008, 08:36:52 PM
So, my questions are:

2) Has anyone here completely ditch Joomla (or Mambo) and just stuck with SMF, perhaps with Tinyportal? If so, can you briefly describe your thought process and the conversion experience.

3) How did you handle existing links indexed by search engines? Or did you just say "to h#ll with it" and throw up a custom 404 page?

Yes, I ditched Joomla! and re-integrated my SMF-forum into Tiny Portal.

First I made a backup from the SMF records from my operational database (only data, not the structure) and installed a fresh SMF and TP 0.98 in a new directory and a new database (so that the 'old' joomla/smf site kept running for the users). Tested the new site and then restored the SMF backup into the test site.

This worked like a charm except that you will have to check/set manually all path-settings introduced by the sql-data from the restor to the new path in the SMF adminpanel (many had to be changed and updated).

Delete old templates and add new TP-templates and make sure you set all users to a new template.

That was about it. One piece of good advice: test, try, test, try, test, try before you decide to make it operational.

The tricky part is the restore ... I backupped and restored all SMF-records. I'm sure that several can be skipped in the backup-proces because they do not refer to users, posts and pm's.

3. I use a little html forward script in the root to directs users to the directory where the site is actually installed. No search-engine probs since I cover that with robot.txt. Basically you can keep the old site running, testdrive your new site and at point x swap everything to the new site by updating the forward script.

Did I mentioned the fact that some thorough testing of the database switch is advised before you go live? TP is easy but you need to get used to it. I screwed up twice during the development phase and was glad I was only playing with a test-site :D

Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: steighan on May 16, 2008, 10:15:21 AM
Quote from: Murgen on May 16, 2008, 06:23:54 AM
Quote from: kai920 on May 15, 2008, 08:36:52 PM
So, my questions are:

2) Has anyone here completely ditch Joomla (or Mambo) and just stuck with SMF, perhaps with Tinyportal? If so, can you briefly describe your thought process and the conversion experience.

3) How did you handle existing links indexed by search engines? Or did you just say "to h#ll with it" and throw up a custom 404 page?


Yes, I ditched Joomla! and re-integrated my SMF-forum into Tiny Portal.

First I made a backup from the SMF records from my operational database (only data, not the structure) and installed a fresh SMF and TP 0.98 in a new directory and a new database (so that the 'old' joomla/smf site kept running for the users). Tested the new site and then restored the SMF backup into the test site.

This worked like a charm except that you will have to check/set manually all path-settings introduced by the sql-data from the restor to the new path in the SMF adminpanel (many had to be changed and updated).

Delete old templates and add new TP-templates and make sure you set all users to a new template.

That was about it. One piece of good advice: test, try, test, try, test, try before you decide to make it operational.

The tricky part is the restore ... I backupped and restored all SMF-records. I'm sure that several can be skipped in the backup-proces because they do not refer to users, posts and pm's.

3. I use a little html forward script in the root to directs users to the directory where the site is actually installed. No search-engine probs since I cover that with robot.txt.

Basically you can keep the old site running, testdrive your new site and at point x swap everything to the new site by updating the forward script.

Did I mentioned the fact that some thorough testing of the database switch is advised before you go live? TP is easy but you need to get used to it. I screwed up twice during the development phase and was glad I was only playing with a test-site :D


It might not matter for your site, but Robots.txt or "html forward script" does NOT address "search engine issues with existing links"

to properly address same, you need an HTACCESS or PHP redirect which issues a 301 Moved Permanently header, then redericts to the new location.

excerpt:
Quote
10.3.2 301 Moved Permanently

The requested resource has been assigned a new permanent URI and any future references to this resource SHOULD use one of the returned URIs. Clients with link editing capabilities ought to automatically re-link references to the Request-URI to one or more of the new references returned by the server, where possible. This response is cacheable unless indicated otherwise.

The new permanent URI SHOULD be given by the Location field in the response. Unless the request method was HEAD, the entity of the response SHOULD contain a short hypertext note with a hyperlink to the new URI(s).

failure to do this may cause your site to appear to be delivering duplicate content which may cause penalties at the SEO and indexing level.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: kai920 on May 16, 2008, 11:05:53 PM
Quote from: Murgen on May 16, 2008, 06:23:54 AM
First I made a backup from the SMF records from my operational database (only data, not the structure) and installed a fresh SMF and TP 0.98 in a new directory and a new database (so that the 'old' joomla/smf site kept running for the users). Tested the new site and then restored the SMF backup into the test site.

Can you elaborate on how you would back up only the data, and not the db structure?
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Murgen on May 17, 2008, 12:03:09 PM
Glad to.

I installed in another directory a fresh SMF and TP in a new mysql database. So, the structure is there. When you backup the old SMF-records with the structure the restore operation in phpmyadmin will give an error since the structure is already there. So, I backed up the content. In phpadmin you can tailormake your backup.

I'm Dutch, if my answers do not answer your question then ask again, I will do my best to give you the info you need. :)
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: kai920 on May 18, 2008, 10:13:21 AM
Hi Murgen,

Thanks for your help :)

What is the advantage in backing up only the data or structure (one or the other, but not both)?  I have only been using phpmyadmin for a few years and never even noticed those check boxes in the export panel!
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Murgen on May 19, 2008, 10:15:01 AM
The thing is ... TP is something you ought to test with. That is why I installed a complete new SMF and database. Far away from the operational site.

But, nothing better to test with then a copy of the operational database. So I backupped the original database and tried to restore it into the development-database and it rejected the restore since the structure (records) were already in place.

Maybe I did something wrong, the SMF instructions in the FAQ are not 100% specific but this worked for me.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: kai920 on May 19, 2008, 10:46:04 AM
I'm testing TP 1.0.5 b1 on another server now. Once I'm happy with TP's setup, can I just restore the posts? Is that what backing up only the data will do?
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: kai920 on May 21, 2008, 11:17:11 AM
Quote from: steighan on May 16, 2008, 04:32:46 AM
I am writing such a script for a mate of mine, if you dont mind waiting a week or so.

If in a hurry, there is CreatePost function listed here somewhere (which I am using as the core of my conversion routine)

The createPost() function (http://support.simplemachines.org/function_db/index.php?action=view_function;id=323) does look rather interesting. I may look into converting some Joomla content items (that have to do with news) into my new News board inside SMF.

How's that script coming along for you?
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: steighan on May 21, 2008, 04:25:16 PM
well ..it looks like I should be able to spend some time and finish this weekend.

first pass identified some oversights -
the initial published state of the article : - what does that mean for the post that gets created from it?
I'm thinking that when conversion occurs, there should be TWO boards, Published and Unpublished, and then all I have to do is to move the topic from one to the other...

another frame of thought has me introducing some meta data to indicate the state and having the query determine which is which when extracting to display...

obviously, that impacts whether the post topic is locked or not.

I have to put the work effort in on a weekend instead of the nights home from work, as I spent a couple hair pulling minutes debugging something that was caused by not having "GLOBAL $context" something I would have caught if awake :(/lol

I'll think up some possible scenarios and PM you for some direction if its ok with you. :D
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: erlend_sh on May 21, 2008, 04:50:15 PM
Quote from: Murgen on April 07, 2008, 02:25:43 AM(...)
1. JFusion with a proper dual login and cookie handling for SMF (mind you, right now I can't even login into the JFusion portal ... just the phpBB3 forums) and Joomla!
(...)
If you'd like JFusion to improve, you could always stop by the site and make a donation (http://jfusion.org/), as the developer is hoping to be able to work pretty much full time on it it seems...
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: steighan on May 21, 2008, 06:45:07 PM
^^ is it just me, or does this barely relevant post seem much like SPAM (tm)???
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: kai920 on May 21, 2008, 10:29:43 PM
Quote from: steighan on May 21, 2008, 04:25:16 PM
I'm thinking that when conversion occurs, there should be TWO boards, Published and Unpublished, and then all I have to do is to move the topic from one to the other...
Sounds like a sensible idea.

QuoteI'll think up some possible scenarios and PM you for some direction if its ok with you. :D
Yep feel free to do so! Would be glad to assist in any way I can. :)
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: erlend_sh on May 22, 2008, 09:26:10 AM
Quote from: steighan on May 21, 2008, 06:45:07 PM
^^ is it just me, or does this barely relevant post seem much like SPAM (tm)???
I wouldn't call it spam, but I do openly admit (not that it should originally seem like I've been trying to hide it...) that I'm trying to promote the fact that JFusion needs donations in order to develop more quickly. I am by no means an active part of the development of JFusion; merely a spectator who would love to see such functionality be realised. Just figured it was worthwhile to make the SMF community aware.

Sorry about the not-so-helpful post though :)
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: baijianpeng on May 24, 2008, 02:37:37 AM
We all know that Joomla! is Open Source soft, and SMF is free soft. Why can't they work together to bring us more fun and functionlity?

So I always support the idea of a bridge between Joomla! and SMF.

Now, Toby at http://www.gmitc.biz (http://www.gmitc.biz) had developed a bridge named J2SMF for Joomla! 1.5.x and SMF 1.1.x. I had tested it, it can wrap SMF inside Joomla! 1.5.2 and works well except that can't offer dual login.

So I think if someone help him and make further development on J2SMF, maybe we can get a perfect bridge which can do user synchronization properly.

Thanks to anyone who will help him. Good luck!
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Murgen on May 24, 2008, 06:49:14 AM
Sorry for not being too communicative in this post. The reason is fair and square, I'm not an expert in this stuff. Period! But I do know that I like the SMF and TP community a lot more then the Joomla! community, no pun intended.

JFusion send out e-mails for financial support as well. But it has every sign SMF has a low priority and the Joomla! - SMF situation has been the way it is since July 2007 (http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=184559.0) and 1.13 where Joomla! started salting passwords.

Anyway ... I'm happy now.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: erlend_sh on May 24, 2008, 10:01:27 AM
Quote from: baijianpeng on May 24, 2008, 02:37:37 AM(...)Now, Toby at http://www.gmitc.biz (http://www.gmitc.biz) had developed a bridge named J2SMF for Joomla! 1.5.x and SMF 1.1.x. I had tested it, it can wrap SMF inside Joomla! 1.5.2 and works well except that can't offer dual login.

So I think if someone help him and make further development on J2SMF, maybe we can get a perfect bridge which can do user synchronization properly.
Funny you should say that. The maker of JFusion got in touch with Toby, maker of J2SMF, and he didn't have time to work on J2SMF anymore. Therefore, JFusion will be taking over the development of this bridge with full permissions given. Marius has also told me that SMF 2.0 support will be given once the software is in RC/Stable, seeing as it would be a waste to develop a bridge for it while the code is still changing.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: baijianpeng on May 24, 2008, 10:06:02 AM
Good news. If JFusion was fused with J2SMF, then we will have a new bridge which can wrap the SMF inside Joomla! and have dual login at the same time.

Ok, I will wait for this new one.

Thank you Sadr for inform us.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Hj Ahmad Rasyid Hj Ismail on June 11, 2008, 08:08:24 AM
I guess this is a good news for J + SMF users... I really hope a happy ending will come soon... While Mambo + SMF is supported, lack of 3PD support will make Mambo more and more irrelevant in the future... While I hate using JSMF for its hacking, I guess I have no other better choice but to use it until the improved Jfusion comes.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: redone on June 11, 2008, 08:46:06 AM
I think its awesome so many developers have released working bridges with SMF and Joomla that meet the relevant license requirements. When talking about CMS and SMF I have found drupal to be a very powerful development tool too.

Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: JoeP on June 11, 2008, 10:00:37 AM
Quote from: Sadr on May 24, 2008, 10:01:27 AM
Quote from: baijianpeng on May 24, 2008, 02:37:37 AM(...)Now, Toby at http://www.gmitc.biz (http://www.gmitc.biz) had developed a bridge named J2SMF for Joomla! 1.5.x and SMF 1.1.x. I had tested it, it can wrap SMF inside Joomla! 1.5.2 and works well except that can't offer dual login.

So I think if someone help him and make further development on J2SMF, maybe we can get a perfect bridge which can do user synchronization properly.
Funny you should say that. The maker of JFusion got in touch with Toby, maker of J2SMF, and he didn't have time to work on J2SMF anymore. Therefore, JFusion will be taking over the development of this bridge with full permissions given. Marius has also told me that SMF 2.0 support will be given once the software is in RC/Stable, seeing as it would be a waste to develop a bridge for it while the code is still changing.
That is totally awesome news! 
For my site, I had cobbled together modified versions of J2SMF and JFusion and had suggested to Toby and Marius that a collaboration would be something worth considering.  You can check my results at bigtreestech.com.  I've still got to do some CSS work, but it's functional.

It's a shame that Toby hasn't said anything about it over in his site.  Lots of wannabe J2SMF users are struggling and not getting any love.  I also don't recall seeing anything about J2SMF over on the JFusion site other than what I wrote.... maybe I just missed it.
Again, thanks for the very welcome good news!
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Orstio on June 11, 2008, 06:14:56 PM
Quote from: RedOne on June 11, 2008, 08:46:06 AM
I think its awesome so many developers have released working bridges with SMF and Joomla that meet the relevant license requirements.

So many?  I've seen only one integration so far that meets relevant license requirements - JFusion, and while it is a good attempt, it falls short of what a bridge could do.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: ilwoody on June 11, 2008, 06:54:20 PM
The bridge Ive been working on is not compatible but pretty much close, is gpl 2.0, does not use any smf code, but has a the malicious line of code

require(smf/index.php);


and just for that I dont meet the FSF criteria for "what static linking is in a php script".
I would need a very simple step to assolve this and  be sure to be 100% compatible with the joomla license,
just remove it :)

Then I could ask the users to write down the very same  string in the component administration panel..
require('smf/index.php')

I already ask for the absolute smf path, so it shouldnt be a problem .. what do you think about this ? is it cheating ?
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: erlend_sh on June 11, 2008, 06:56:35 PM
Keep in mind that JFusion would come along much faster if you go and become an active part of the JFusion community, maybe donate some money, or contribute directly by aiding in the development of JFusion by providing plug-ins for instance. But again, most importantly, just become a part of the community and get in touch with Marius, and from there you can figure out more easily how you can help making a fully functional Joomla!+SMF integration reality.

@ilwoody: I'm sure Marius would be very happy to work alongside you. It's better if more people can work together, rather than having 10 decent bridges for SMF+Joomla! around. Also, I've also been thinking about methods like your "workaround", which is why I find this type of license very confusing... If that method is acceptable, then this license makes absolutely no sense.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: 青山 素子 on June 11, 2008, 07:40:59 PM
Quote from: Sadr on June 11, 2008, 06:56:35 PM
Also, I've also been thinking about methods like your "workaround", which is why I find this type of license very confusing... If that method is acceptable, then this license makes absolutely no sense.

The GPL was written with compiled programs in mind, which makes it apply in strange ways to interpreted things like PHP scripts. I personally like the GPL, but I don't think it works well with web scripting.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Orstio on June 11, 2008, 07:46:09 PM
Quote from: ilwoody on June 11, 2008, 06:54:20 PM
The bridge Ive been working on is not compatible but pretty much close, is gpl 2.0, does not use any smf code, but has a the malicious line of code

require(smf/index.php);


and just for that I dont meet the FSF criteria for "what static linking is in a php script".
I would need a very simple step to assolve this and  be sure to be 100% compatible with the joomla license,
just remove it :)

Then I could ask the users to write down the very same  string in the component administration panel..
require('smf/index.php')

I already ask for the absolute smf path, so it shouldnt be a problem .. what do you think about this ? is it cheating ?

As long as you are doing the require statement within the output buffer, you can technically claim that you are merely retrieving the data from the forum output and storing that in the buffer, so the real interface is solely with the output of the forum, and not the script itself.

But, you also have the use of SMF data structures ($user_settings, $context, $smcFunc, etc) in your GPL-connected application, which was partially what stalled my attempt.

(BTW Ilwoody, you have an integrate_exit function in your bridge.php, but it is not defined in the SMF_INTEGRATION_SETTINGS array.  Intentional, or accident?)
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: mariusvr on June 12, 2008, 11:20:40 PM
JFusion started as a vbulletin specific bridge vb_auth, because of my frustrations with the lack of Joomla 1.5 bridges. However I soon realised that many people where coding similar bridges for different software's and each programmer was somewhat reinventing the wheel. JFusion was then born with the idea of making Joomla 1.5 bridges much easier, where a plugin contains only the specific software codes (SQL statements to fetch user information, etc) and JFusion would do the rest of the work.

Collaborations with different software commities is extremely important to me. JFusion is an open-source free software and many people have contributed to the code making JFusion a better product for everyone. With regards to SMF, I am working with Toby from J2SMF on creating a version of J2SMF that works with JFusion and will allow many different software's to take advantage of his brilliant piece of coding. I would be more than happy to work with ilwoody on a Joomla<-->SMF bridge, if he is interested. As we all have the same goals in the end.

JFusion has been completely rewritten in the last couple of weeks. Multiple simultaneous integrations are now possible (ie. have Joomla and SMF and magento ecommerce user integration). AJAX usersync in the Joomla administrator for large sites to prevent time-outs. Code has been optimised for minimal usage of resources (minimal SQL queries, recycling of JFusion objects with a new php factory, single quotes vs double quotes, Model-View-Controller (MVC) code structure, etc etc). I am hoping to release a JFusion 1.0.7 alpha, with Joomla<-->phpBB3 only support at the end of this weekend. This will allow feedback on the new framework and allow other developers to work on JFusion plugins. I will then focus on getting the SMF JFusion plugin upgraded with the new functionalities, work on the J2SMF type visual integration and get a discuss-bot up and running.

You can have a look at the new framework and code on:

www.jfusion.org/api

Still a lot of work left to do, but I am excited that these new functions are within reach now.

Thanks, Marius
(JFusion developer)
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: JoeP on June 13, 2008, 08:10:15 AM
BTW, it could be EXTREMELY helpful if the smf_api.php code were released under gpl as originally expected!
My implementation of an integrated J2SMF and JFusion, supporting dual login, relies on use of smf_api.php (modified a bit) which, under current conditions, is not distributable as I understand it.
joe
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: 青山 素子 on June 13, 2008, 10:58:42 AM
Quote from: JoeP on June 13, 2008, 08:10:15 AM
BTW, it could be EXTREMELY helpful if the smf_api.php code were released under gpl as originally expected!

It was never intended as GPL licensed. I believe the intent was a much less restrictive license like the BSD or MIT.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: redone on June 13, 2008, 11:04:46 AM
Quote from: Orstio on June 11, 2008, 06:14:56 PM
Quote from: RedOne on June 11, 2008, 08:46:06 AM
I think its awesome so many developers have released working bridges with SMF and Joomla that meet the relevant license requirements.

So many?  I've seen only one integration so far that meets relevant license requirements - JFusion, and while it is a good attempt, it falls short of what a bridge could do.
Your correct there is certainly a difference between an integration and bridge. I should of said there has been many new integrations come out rather than bridge. Either way its good some work has been put forth to offer some hope to users wanting to use SMF and Joomla.

Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Orstio on June 13, 2008, 05:39:06 PM
QuoteBTW, it could be EXTREMELY helpful if the smf_api.php code were released under gpl as originally expected!

smf_api.php isn't ever going to be released under a copyleft license.  The plan was to release it under a permissive license, as Motoko-chan pointed out.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: JoeP on June 14, 2008, 09:28:51 AM
Quote from: Motoko-chan on June 13, 2008, 10:58:42 AM
Quote from: JoeP on June 13, 2008, 08:10:15 AM
BTW, it could be EXTREMELY helpful if the smf_api.php code were released under gpl as originally expected!

It was never intended as GPL licensed. I believe the intent was a much less restrictive license like the BSD or MIT.

hmmm... I guess I just misunderstood this statement:
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=16572.msg196392#msg196392
I had the impression that that statement was made by the author of smf_api.php, [Unknown].
joe
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Orstio on June 14, 2008, 09:50:52 AM
Right, except as we all know, GPL does not allow connection to proprietary software, and also does not allow for dual licensing.

Permissive licenses give the freedom to the developer, not to the software, so if we went that route, you and other developers would be a lot happier.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: JoeP on June 16, 2008, 08:47:38 AM
Quote from: Orstio on June 14, 2008, 09:50:52 AM
Right, except as we all know, GPL does not allow connection to proprietary software, and also does not allow for dual licensing.

Permissive licenses give the freedom to the developer, not to the software, so if we went that route, you and other developers would be a lot happier.
Thanks Orstio,
Happiness is good.  I respect your judgment in this matter.
Any ideas as to when this alternate licensing for smf_api.php might be achieved?
I am assuming & hoping that the alternate licensing will also allow for code modification as some modifications or additions may be required.
Thanks,
joe
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: ilwoody on June 17, 2008, 11:28:41 AM
Quote from: Sadr on June 11, 2008, 06:56:35 PM
@ilwoody: I'm sure Marius would be very happy to work alongside you. It's better if more people can work together, rather than having 10 decent bridges for SMF+Joomla! around. Also, I've also been thinking about methods like your "workaround", which is why I find this type of license very confusing... If that method is acceptable, then this license makes absolutely no sense.

I wish I could .. because of the small amount of personal time I can invest either on sjsb or generally on the bridge problem, I would not be in the position to help concretely the JFusion community; also you would probably need someone who really know these minefields  :) I say a name, Orstio .. :D

Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: ilwoody on June 17, 2008, 11:32:30 AM
Quote from: Orstio on June 11, 2008, 07:46:09 PM
(BTW Ilwoody, you have an integrate_exit function in your bridge.php, but it is not defined in the SMF_INTEGRATION_SETTINGS array.  Intentional, or accident?)

Intentional, I've yet to understand if I need it or not .. atm no, but in the future I could put there the 'throw' code
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: ilwoody on June 17, 2008, 11:40:55 AM
Quote from: JoeP on June 13, 2008, 08:10:15 AM
BTW, it could be EXTREMELY helpful if the smf_api.php code were released under gpl as originally expected!
My implementation of an integrated J2SMF and JFusion, supporting dual login, relies on use of smf_api.php (modified a bit) which, under current conditions, is not distributable as I understand it.
joe

can you just ask for your user to get and install it for you ? then you would just need to provide an smf modification package to patch it. I may be wrong, but what license would you break in this scenario ?

Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: JoeP on June 17, 2008, 01:52:13 PM
Quote from: ilwoody on June 17, 2008, 11:40:55 AM
Quote from: JoeP on June 13, 2008, 08:10:15 AM
BTW, it could be EXTREMELY helpful if the smf_api.php code were released under gpl as originally expected!
My implementation of an integrated J2SMF and JFusion, supporting dual login, relies on use of smf_api.php (modified a bit) which, under current conditions, is not distributable as I understand it.
joe

can you just ask for your user to get and install it for you ? then you would just need to provide an smf modification package to patch it. I may be wrong, but what license would you break in this scenario ?

Wouldn't I still have a problem making calls to the specific functions within the api?  And don't I still have the problem when I require the api code from within my code?
joe
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: ilwoody on June 17, 2008, 02:32:13 PM
Quote from: JoeP on June 17, 2008, 01:52:13 PM
Quote from: ilwoody on June 17, 2008, 11:40:55 AM
Quote from: JoeP on June 13, 2008, 08:10:15 AM
BTW, it could be EXTREMELY helpful if the smf_api.php code were released under gpl as originally expected!
My implementation of an integrated J2SMF and JFusion, supporting dual login, relies on use of smf_api.php (modified a bit) which, under current conditions, is not distributable as I understand it.
joe

can you just ask for your user to get and install it for you ? then you would just need to provide an smf modification package to patch it. I may be wrong, but what license would you break in this scenario ?

Wouldn't I still have a problem making calls to the specific functions within the api?  And don't I still have the problem when I require the api code from within my code?
joe

yes sorry, I was referencing just about distributing the patched smf_api itself not the whole bridge problem.


Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: JoeP on June 19, 2008, 08:40:27 AM
Quote from: Motoko-chan on June 13, 2008, 10:58:42 AM
Quote from: JoeP on June 13, 2008, 08:10:15 AM
BTW, it could be EXTREMELY helpful if the smf_api.php code were released under gpl as originally expected!

It was never intended as GPL licensed. I believe the intent was a much less restrictive license like the BSD or MIT.
Ok, so when is this going to happen?
It's been almost 4 years since this tool was released and still it's only under the smf license.
joe
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: JoeP on June 26, 2008, 10:27:17 AM
Quote from: Orstio on June 14, 2008, 09:50:52 AM
Right, except as we all know, GPL does not allow connection to proprietary software, and also does not allow for dual licensing.

Permissive licenses give the freedom to the developer, not to the software, so if we went that route, you and other developers would be a lot happier.

Orstio,
At the risk of being a pest, let me ask again...
When will smf_api.php be released under a "permissive" license?
Thanks,
joe
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Orstio on June 26, 2008, 01:38:55 PM
I can't say 100%, but probably around the time of the release of SMF 2.0.

If you want permission to redistribute that file now, just contact info at simplemachines.org.  Redistribution of the smf_api itself shouldn't be a problem, but if you are copying other functions out of the SMF core to accomplish your integration, we might want some further details.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: JoeP on June 26, 2008, 08:00:34 PM
Quote from: Orstio on June 26, 2008, 01:38:55 PM
I can't say 100%, but probably around the time of the release of SMF 2.0.

If you want permission to redistribute that file now, just contact info at simplemachines.org.  Redistribution of the smf_api itself shouldn't be a problem, but if you are copying other functions out of the SMF core to accomplish your integration, we might want some further details.
Thanks for the response!  Truly appreciated.
All I want to do is redistribute a slightly modified version of smf_api.php.  The "latest" version has a little problem in the cookie setting routine.  I'd have to go back and look to see exactly which line(s) of code need to be changed, but it's basically changing an index test from 1 to 0 or 0 to 1...
Man... sure is a good thing I've forgotten what it was like to remember things  ::)
joe
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: erlend_sh on July 30, 2008, 06:14:59 PM
I'm sorry if you consider this reviving a dead thread, but seeing as the topic of JFusion popped up more than just once in here, I figured it'd be worth mentioning that JFusion is now looking for additional developers (http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=252710.0), one of which will hopefully be an adept SMF developer.

Ever since Marius was permitted to continue the development of the J2SMF bridge (http://www.gmitc.biz/products/j2smf.html), there's been on-going work to fit this in with the JFusion framework, and it can now be tested with the 1.0.7 alpha-release.
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Murgen on October 13, 2008, 04:39:25 PM
JFusion looks promising. But I moved my 2 community-sites to TP and very happy. Joomla! 1.5x is subject to to many many patches (almost monthly now which is a pain if you run many 3rd party bots, mods and components.

Tiny Portal is simpler and because of that much more robust.  ;)
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: kai920 on December 09, 2009, 11:37:56 AM
Quote from: steighan on May 16, 2008, 04:32:46 AM
If in a hurry, there is CreatePost function listed here somewhere (which I am using as the core of my conversion routine)

The key thing you have to work out, is not the transfer of the content item to the posts, but rather the MAMBOT processing that takes place ..if you use {mambot} for example.

I am just giving it some thought, (as a result of writing this post) and I will approach it two ways.

1. just identify, flag and maybe remove. Some of her content items had some akoComment thing which istnt needed.

2.Modify a mod, like the BBCode mod which does processing of the post text prior to display, and use that to scan for and replace the {mambot} tags..


I've finally decided to try my hand at writing a PHP script to convert my 400 or so content items to SMF. So far I've gotten the created post date and number of views to work. I only ever had 5 posters who posted content on Joomla so the author shouldn't be an issue.


For the {mambots} I may just do a search and replace in the .sql dump instead of trying regex or anything like that...


I haven't figured out how to do the sorting of time though, Arantor said that messages are sorted by ID so I wouldn't be able to 'insert' posts.


Wonder what else I need to address...
Title: Re: Will SMF and Joomla live happily ever after, together?
Post by: Kill Em All on March 07, 2010, 09:23:12 PM
You can always use jFusion, as far as I'm aware that has no issues. Keep in mind SMF does not support jFusion though. To be honest, unless SMF or Joomla change the licensing, I don't see it.