Best Way To SMF + Other Content?

[TeresaMiller]

I have a paid membership that so far has only been a forum. The way I've handled it so far is after the customer pays, they are taken to the registration page for the forum and I have to manually approve their registration. I'd like to tie it to a Wordpress site, because there will be other content that I'd like to have for members that would be better served on pages instead of inside a forum.

I actually have a membership plugin that works very well with my payment processor, so is there any way to have the forum access behind the Wordpress login? The plugin "protects" any pages inside of Wordpress that I mark as protected content. I'd like to have a tab on the navigation bar going to the forum, but have it protected by the membership plugin. Is that possible?

I already have the forum active, so I don't want to lose everything. Currently Wordpress and SMF have separate databases. The Wordpress one is in the root of the domain, and the SMF one is at /forum.

On the other hand, I've seen people mention something about using something other than Wordpress to deliver other content. Portals? Can someone tell me if that would be a better option, and if so, which one.

[Kindred]

there is a wordpress bridge...   however, I would argue that - anything you can do in wordpress, you can do in SMF at this point.

SMF has articles, media galleries, links list, affiliates lists, and evem blogs all of which can be simply controlled through the smf membergroups and smf security ---  and you can even use smf's subscriber system to handle paypal payments

[TeresaMiller]

Well, I can't do direct Paypal payments, because I use JVZoo and have affiliates. Can you tell me how to actually do some of those things you are talking about? Also, If I'm not going to put the SMF forum behind Wordpress, that means that I have to continue to manually approve new members. I'm ok with doing that, but is there a way to have the system notify me when someone is waiting to be approved? I have it notify me when anyone posts, but I haven't been able to figure out how to get it to notify me when someone is waiting for approval.

Also, can you point me to the Wordpress bridge and how to use it, in case I do go with that? In non-technical terms preferably. 

[Kindred]

each of the things that I listed is available as a mod.

PortaMX has articles and a blog add-on (PMXBlog)
Aeva gallery is probably the best one, but there are several options.
for the rest, you can search the mod site....

yes, the system can notify you when a new user registers.
http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Registration

not sure where the actual wordpress bridge is...   I know it's been linked to a few times.

[TeresaMiller]

Thanks for the help. I'm thinking that I may skip the Wordpress thing. I seems like just too much trouble for what little I need to do with it, especially if I can find other options that work. I do wish I could integrate my payment processor, but since it can't, I'll just deal with it.

[TeresaMiller]

There are so many mods out there, is there any way to know which are the preferred mods in a given category? Is there a rating system of any kind?

[Kindred]

not currently...

Specifically what mods are you looking for/at? I have tested many of them on my test site and use many on live sites.

[joeyjojoshabadoo]

teresa i have a wordpress site with an SMF forum built into the wordpress folder. Im not a techie, but i might be able to help you. Wordpress is great, you can do alot on it that you cant on SMF, search engines love it too.

Check out our site at dropkickrugby.com

its wordpress, and the forum is on the sidebar with some css on the bns-smf plugin. to go straight to the forum, add /forum to the domain name

[Arantor]

Wordpress is great, you can do alot on it that you cant on SMF, search engines love it too.

Like what, exactly? Everything WP can do, SMF can be expanded to do - and do it faster.

[joeyjojoshabadoo]

im a BIG SMF fan Arantor, dont get me wrong.

I just feel like worpress is FAR easier to modify visually and looks better than SMF for a site like I need. Personal opinion is all. Also, far less specific MODS/plugins for SMF, community bigger so more people building ****** for it.

Again, I love em both, but I think( from my humble, limited knowledge) that if you want a forum, SMF is your man, wordpress for a blog/site.

Personal opinion

[Arantor]

Far easier to modify visually? Yes... except don't expect updates to actually work properly afterwards.

Considering the size of userbase WP has, the fact it only has 10x the plugins (of which there are many many many duplicates of things) is not really a compelling factor. Especially when you realise just how crappy the code for WP actually is.

If you want a site, why not run ONE system that everything properly connects to? i.e. SMF plus a portal, which can then feed the contents of a board through as a blog, then everything's unified and it doesn't look or feel like the forum's a cruddy bolt-on to the blog.

[Kindred]

Exactly...

I have an SMF site running a portal, articles, blogs, gallery, links list, glossary, affiliates list and many visual modifications...  It runs faster than Wordpress and can handle 200+ users at once... Wich will kill a Wordpress site dead.

[joeyjojoshabadoo]

Far easier to modify visually? Yes... except don't expect updates to actually work properly afterwards.

Considering the size of userbase WP has, the fact it only has 10x the plugins (of which there are many many many duplicates of things) is not really a compelling factor. Especially when you realise just how crappy the code for WP actually is.

If you want a site, why not run ONE system that everything properly connects to? i.e. SMF plus a portal, which can then feed the contents of a board through as a blog, then everything's unified and it doesn't look or feel like the forum's a cruddy bolt-on to the blog.

i get what youre saying Arantor, i really do.

Ps- do you think my forum looks like a cruddy bolt on to the blog?  Genuine question here actually.

Kindred, do you have  a link to your site? I'd love to see it.

i disagree that 200 visitors will kill a wordpress site dead - imdb and amazon both run on wordpress as far as i know

[Arantor]

Ps- do you think my forum looks like a cruddy bolt on to the blog?

In a word, yes. You have a busy looking white theme with blue accents as the main site and a dark theme with grey and orange accents as the forum. Nothing screams 'can't be bothered' more than not even bothering to get the themes vaguely in tune. I wouldn't mind so much if they weren't exact - getting the two to be exact is something of an art, but you couldn't be more opposite - assuming we're talking about http://www.dropkickrugby.com/ vs http://www.dropkickrugby.com/forum/

To be brief, it looks amateurish, compared to having something with it all tied together in a single cohesive layout and design.

i disagree that 200 visitors will kill a wordpress site dead - imdb and amazon both run on wordpress as far as i know

Actually, it will unless heavily modified. It takes 20 database queries, just to load the front page. (SMF typically doesn't even hit 20 until you have a modified forum with a ton of stuff on it.)

I'd be very surprised if either IMDb or Amazon run anything on WordPress, too. Just because it looks like it might be doesn't suggest for a moment that it is.

The other difference, they're not running on $4.99/month shared hosting. Amazon runs its own *data centres*. Not so sure about IMDb, but it's likely running what Amazon normally runs its other services off (Amazon owns IMDb). Note that neither server appears to be running PHP (and if it is, it's a specially modified version of PHP that doesn't behave the same way as normal PHP, but it's pretty unlikely)

And if they're running a custom version of PHP, it's a fair bet they can implement something like WP but an order of magnitude faster. Heck, SMF with a ton of modifications is an order of magnitude faster than a WP out of the box is.

You have to specifically add several modifications (each with serious security implications) to be able to scale it up at all.

[Kindred]

my old company runs their sites on wordpress... but they have multiple dedicated servers with load balancing...   and it is mostly non-interactive/brochure-ware... and the site STILL slows down when they run a contest page and get an influx of hits

[joeyjojoshabadoo]

Ps- do you think my forum looks like a cruddy bolt on to the blog?

In a word, yes. You have a busy looking white theme with blue accents as the main site and a dark theme with grey and orange accents as the forum. Nothing screams 'can't be bothered' more than not even bothering to get the themes vaguely in tune. I wouldn't mind so much if they weren't exact - getting the two to be exact is something of an art, but you couldn't be more opposite - assuming we're talking about http://www.dropkickrugby.com/ vs http://www.dropkickrugby.com/forum/

To be brief, it looks amateurish, compared to having something with it all tied together in a single cohesive layout and design.

i disagree that 200 visitors will kill a wordpress site dead - imdb and amazon both run on wordpress as far as i know

Actually, it will unless heavily modified. It takes 20 database queries, just to load the front page. (SMF typically doesn't even hit 20 until you have a modified forum with a ton of stuff on it.)

I'd be very surprised if either IMDb or Amazon run anything on WordPress, too. Just because it looks like it might be doesn't suggest for a moment that it is.

The other difference, they're not running on $4.99/month shared hosting. Amazon runs its own *data centres*. Not so sure about IMDb, but it's likely running what Amazon normally runs its other services off (Amazon owns IMDb). Note that neither server appears to be running PHP (and if it is, it's a specially modified version of PHP that doesn't behave the same way as normal PHP, but it's pretty unlikely)

And if they're running a custom version of PHP, it's a fair bet they can implement something like WP but an order of magnitude faster. Heck, SMF with a ton of modifications is an order of magnitude faster than a WP out of the box is.

You have to specifically add several modifications (each with serious security implications) to be able to scale it up at all.

thanks for the opinions Arantor- genuinely appreciate it. And all the info on speed etc.

So what do you recommend- make the forum bright like the worpdress site? ( i dont want to make the wordpress site dark as the length of articles will make people's eyes strain on a dark background). If I were to switch theme, is is an easy process? Can i just add a theme and then switch all users over to it and everything would go smoothly?

Thanks man

[joeyjojoshabadoo]

my old company runs their sites on wordpress... but they have multiple dedicated servers with load balancing...   and it is mostly non-interactive/brochure-ware... and the site STILL slows down when they run a contest page and get an influx of hits

Kindred, can you link to the SMF site than you mentioned in your post above ( the one before last?)

thanks

[Arantor]

So what do you recommend- make the forum bright like the worpdress site? ( i dont want to make the wordpress site dark as the length of articles will make people's eyes strain on a dark background). If I were to switch theme, is is an easy process? Can i just add a theme and then switch all users over to it and everything would go smoothly?

You've pretty much explained it - make the forum theme light.

As for adding themes, that mostly depends on how many modifications you've added that change the themes... I didn't really look. But for the most part, yes, it should just be a case of adding the new theme and most things will work.

[joeyjojoshabadoo]

Do you have any recommendations yourself for the best suitable free theme out there Arantor? for 2.02/3?

[Arantor]

Nope. I don't really know that many themes, and I tend to stick to the paid themes from DzinerStudio personally. You could try looking through the theme site.

Though this is why I don't bother trying to have WP + SMF, I just have SMF (or other!) and just have everything in one site, with one login and one coherent look between them.