Official SMF Add-On

[Daniel D.]

Please search the board here, there are hundreds of topics about it.

[Oldiesmann]

http://www.yourdomain.com/yourforum/ssi_examples.php

[Jippo]

Looks great, even though I am new to the portal thing, I am looking forward to it, sign me up if you still need testers!

[Thunderace]

I am very interested in this portal, two of my sites need portals and I'm having problems with the integration of mambo/SMF atm.

[Curbow 5]

the WYSISYG thing, is it htmlarea?

[jorgen]

the WYSISYG thing, is it htmlarea?

Looks very much like htmlarea2, like I'm using on my mambo portal.

(silently praying this is mambo integration  )

[Room11]

lodly shouting to let us test this...

[marcnyc]

I must say it has been ONE YEAR or more that I am waiting for a fully-featured CMS system that seamlessly integrates with what was YaBB SE and now is SMF. I thought once SMF comes out and Nebulas gets up to speed with SMF I would be using that, but it seems like the game just got interesting with this new player. I am looking forward to this and would love to beta test it as well as to know a little bit more about its features if possible (ie: will it be just for news or is it a real CMS portal system where we can add articles in different categories etc?).
Let us know...

[comm_id]

You have my word that the portal will be more then you are expecting. A lot more.
Did you ever use a "php-nuke" style portal? Well, it's nothing like that :p It gives you all it's flexibility and MUCH MUCH more.

The php-nuke style portals(IMO, Mambo included) are very dull. When entering a website using that portal, you know from the first glance it's "Yet Another Site Using Nuke". This won't be the case. You have the power and the opportunity to make your website unique and awsum.

Also to answer a few questions, it's fully integrated with your forum and almost any script you have or ever dream of having. As easy as it gets. The even greater part is the strong community that you'll find everywhere, on SMF.org [nofollow] specially of course.

For administrative issues, I cannot give you more but again, I will give you my word that this future add-on will rock your world. Or else, I'll bring my head on a golden plate for you

[Springer]

Will the portal setup in the same directory as the forum or can you select to have it outside?

[comm_id]

Oh come on! Are the technicalities THAT important yet?
You will have hips of options and you are almost able to do anything with it, for example, set the portal out of the forum directory(actually, this is a must. Portal cannot/should not be in forum's dir - I'll have to make sure but I almost am)

[Springer]

Seeing that I just moved my site it would be much easier to prepare my directories now. 

[marcnyc]

So I guess the next unholy question I don't know if I should dare to ask is: aproximately WHEN will our worlds be rocked?

[Springer]

One of the top posts said that there aren't any dates yet.  I'm being optimistic for and planning ahead 

[comm_id]

So I guess the next unholy question I don't know if I should dare to ask is: aproximately WHEN will our worlds be rocked?

The product itself is already in alpha testing.
As for when he will be ready for public release, it's a bit hard for me to know. I'll try to find out for you

[marcnyc]

I would loved it of you could give me a rough idea... If you're in alpha that means it's more or less written, right? How long does it usually take from alpha to beta?

[[Unknown]]

The only gripe I have is consistent use of the word "forum".  Invision treats it very differently, and this portal does not use the SMF definition at least consistently.... which will only confuse users.  In most cases it should be replaced with the word "board".

Themes are handled a little differently than SMF ones.

This is not Mambo.

Marcnyc... heh, well, I know of more than just ONE new player you may not yet know of.  I can think of three offhand.  Not counting Nebula, but counting this.  And I think there are at least two more I don't know if are really going.

Generally, it is setup in another directory (forum/) - personally, I find having everything on the root a bit ugly, but that's just me.

It is up and running on at least two domains (separate servers) that I know of.  Yes, the code is largely written. (not by me... by one Kevin.)

-[Unknown]

[Kevin_MIP]

The only gripe I have is consistent use of the word "forum".  Invision treats it very differently, and this portal does not use the SMF definition at least consistently.... which will only confuse users.  In most cases it should be replaced with the word "board".
...
-[Unknown]

Care to explain this? Where is my consistent use of the word 'forum'?
What is the SMF definition? Doesn't the F in SMF mean 'Forum'?

To All,
As you might have guessed by now, I am the owner of the portal in question here.

Some history:
I originally did the portal for Invision PowerBoard about 2 years ago because their free 'board' did not have a portal mod available that had the features I wanted. Well now that Invision seems to be going the 'pay' route, I was turned on to SMF by a friend who had the same feelings on Invision's direction.

Direction:
There have been many discussions on Portals vs. CMS. To tell you the truth, it's still very confusing to me. So with that in mind, I'm just trying to provide a way to make it flexible with the hope others can help provide CMS/Portal addons for it.

This portal is not your fullblown CMS system. Those systems have more resources and time than I do, but in time it could very well have all those features via plugins.

And the templating is a bit different but does not require extensive editing IMO. Currently, only one template in SMF needs to be edited with very little code. Once the code is in place, all layouts are handled by the portal and maintained using the portal's administration screens. The portal makes use of 'wrappers' which are used to dictate what is displayed and where it's displayed. What this means is you do not have to settle for the 'standard three column' layout found in many portals. In fact, my current homepage looks like it's not using a portal at all. This type of wrapper editing is basic HTML, no php knowledge required for these wrappers.

I'm not sure how much more I can mention in this thread but I'll try to answer any questions anyone might have.

-Kevin

[Springer]

The only gripe I have is consistent use of the word "forum".  Invision treats it very differently, and this portal does not use the SMF definition at least consistently.... which will only confuse users.  In most cases it should be replaced with the word "board".

Old habbits die hard.  (I'm an old dog now, no new tricks please  )



Thanks for the answers on the Directories and templates.

[marcnyc]

Marcnyc... heh, well, I know of more than just ONE new player you may not yet know of.  I can think of three offhand.  Not counting Nebula, but counting this.  And I think there are at least two more I don't know if are really going.

If only you guys could be a little less secretive... Are you saying there already are full blown CMS system add ons for SMF? I only know of this and Nebula that integrate with SMF using the same user table etc...