SMf Future

[Vinoth]

will SMF have an portal in future like other boards,


just out of interest to ask??

[Grudge]

If someone makes one. IIRC no major forum developer has a portal as a offering from the developers (always 3rd party)

[packman]

I'd much rather see forums integrated into third party portals/CMS.

The world's best forum developer isn't necessarily the world's best portal/CMS developer, and vice versa.

IMHO the world will be a better place when all forum developers realise that their forum is a tool that a lot of people want to integrate into a web site using someone else's code and all portal/CMS developers realise that their offering doesn't need to offer every feature known to mankind using internally written/supported code.

The SMF developers appear to have seen the light in this respect, which is which is why I'm spending so much time with the product

[Vinoth]

i was willing to see one,

SMF Portal.

[roboter88]

I still like the old MAILBOX /Bulletin Board System most eg pcBoard!


tree structure (All the way optional - toggle via admin):

Intro - > login - > main  <  Content[navigation(start,FORUM,news,guestbook,gallery,downloads and on)]

So you have 1 theme and as the "base/heart" of it the "forum" syndcated with the news then you have the option to add new "categorys" which will automaticly total lintegrated (navigation,theme).

Categorys example:
A custom guestbook script.
A mirrored website.
Everything...


Also for customizing user purpose ("Which is a main key for success cause everybody has his own special ideas, how something should look like.") a editor for altering the theme(logicly arranged like header,content,footer) as seen in  *.tpl s.

And 1 variable for each theme constant like "width, margins and such."


Just some thoughts how i would construct a bbs :p

Ohw and very importend total FLASH export compatibilities (querys). Mybe form scratch inside FLASH integration

Think of this all inside Flash ..... just a FUTURE dream or stunning?
Even macromedia would have intrests ...

[packman]

Think of this all inside Flash ..... just a FUTURE dream or stunning?

Or a nightmare? Flash might be used to create a few cool looking web sites and animations, but I object to having to download a new version of Flash every 10 minutes just because a web designer happened to use the new shade of light flashing ultra-magenta introduced in v9.1.7.4.2.8.az99.

I'd happily support an international ban on Flash

[Bobby]

You need waiting for Nebula, a great Portal from Lunabyte Team 

[roboter88]

hi pacman

well flash is the internet future - well i also like alambik.

Now the newsest iexplorer version is shipped with the flash plug in ...also the install cost u like 1 minute only and like 90% of teh browser got a flash plug-in

U only need a update like once a year

And i still work with the oldschhol FLASH MX V6
ALso i agree their still is a need for a text/html/php/java version of a website (for upcoming mobil websites)
cheers

[yardbird]

Quite honestly I'm looking at NOT integrating my forums with my Mambo site. Several reasons in my case. I see my users come to the site and use EITHER the message boards OR the portal features. Rarely do I ever see them use both in one session. If the users have the same username and password for both the portal and the forums AND if they make use of the "remember me" features of both... then it's not really an inconvenience to have them separated. Lastly... maintenance... if I integrate SMF with Mambo (again) then I have to worry about an update to SMF breaking the integration OR an update to Mambo breaking the integration.

I'm beginning to think I might enjoy letting the portal be a portal and letting the forums be the forums and learning to make use of the SSI piece of SMF to put up information ABOUT the forums in the portal area. I am more interested in lately in having a gallery component as well and I am debating the whole integration thing regarding THAT aspect. Do I want to integrate a gallery with SMF or am I better off keeping the gallery as a separate item as well?

See what I mean?

It's extemely nice to have everything working together, sharing a database for usernames, etc. However, until there's someone who is very dedicated to keeping the integration working seamlessly (I don't have the time or the skill) it might be better for me to keep them as separate items.

[roboter88]

I m in the same szenario ...i got SMF the MAINPAGE(FLASH) and the GALLERY....

I would really love to see a gallery mod or ported coppermine for SMF

[packman]

Several reasons in my case.

Some excellent reasons that I'm sure many people, including me, feel the same way about.

What I'd really, really, really like to see (and I know it's unlikely to happen in my lifetime ) is an integration standard being developed to allow loads of different applications, e.g. portals, CMS, forums, galleries, etc, to work together from the same common user data (and perhaps other data).

One reason I expect not to see it, is because many portal developers have vested interests in not seeing it happen (including some open source developers...although maybe for different reasons). If there's a standard, that removes one of the key USPs for portals, i.e. the range of portlets/components/etc that the vendor supplies. If you can get your portlet from anywhere and it plugs into any portal you've lost your user lock-in.

[roboter88]

Would that really be hard?

To code a universal website structure which could implement easy other applications(php)?

It must "sniff" the variables automaticly or entered by user then just link to the main matrix of this universal website enviromental.

Then their must be some kind of parser for all the session and cookie stuff.

I think Hacks and MOD s just pointing in this direction (implementing 3rd party).

Well and if all developers use a same standard eg. for special vars or global settings...mybe this is also somekind of security risc or why not?

The Standard must be so the Overall Website enviromental can plug in easy like a package manager
If developers use such guidlines it would be possibel....but 1st u need the standard syntax defined.

Like a php-kernel shell.-. as the website backend motor - compatibilitie and made for plug in php application which based on this standard or kernel or whtever kind of

Like a ultimate website OS for php application with a standard....

What would a standrad look like?
Database tables predefined and able to add custom for the application.
Member and Session stuff must be all same.
A really good admin area for customizing and adding all the applications.
A BASE (like the standard applications eg. forum/smf - gallery/copper and on....)
And with no work u can change the distributions

[kegobeer]

I would really love to see a gallery mod or ported coppermine for SMF

Coppemine comes with a bridge file that works with SMF.  It allows Coppermine to use your SMF users instead of the system that Coppermine uses by default.  Then it's just a matter of designing a Coppermine theme that matches your SMF theme.  Check out my site, I use SMF and Coppermine together.  The only limitation right now is the inability to use SMF's SSI.php file from within Coppermine, but the next release fixes that.

[roboter88]

neat!
and thx for this hint!

i will update this asap :-)

[yardbird]

I just took another good hard look at what I'm doing here...
My Mambo site does not require anyone to log in. It is entirely open to the public. I have no "authors" or "publishers" to think about. It's just me doing all administration. So the only reason people would have for logging in is to use the forums. So I really don't NEED to integrate my forums and portal for the sake of sharing a user database if only the forums need a user database anyways.

Now... as to integrating Coppermine and SMF...
Do they still APPEAR as 2 separate items, but share user info? I mean... do elements of Coppermine show up in your SMF forums? Do elements of SMF show up in Coppermine? Or is the ONLY advantage to this integration of CPG and SMF the ability to share a user login?
I've read about the bridge, but never really seen the 2 in action together.

[Peter Duggan]

well flash is the internet future

Huh?

[roboter88]

For website sollution who not just need transportig news or whtever data.

Some people also like a diffrent look then just the same standard all the time.

eg.
classic cms style

And with flash mx 2004 their are many new possibilities (include CSS, PDF and much more)

Of course i agree not every website needs a FLASH somewhere ...
Also hybrid sollution satisfys too.

[mediman]

i think about 50% of all people who visit a flash website decide to skip the flash intros...
i believe the future is xml/xsl and co.

mediman

[packman]

Would that really be hard?

To define a theoretical standard probably isn't difficult. Many integrators can get away with sharing just the user information. So use an LDAP base, add a few hooks to authenticate users, create new users, change passwords, set/destroy cookies, etc and you've got a good start.

To define a standard that requires minimal code changes by developers is more difficult. To get agreement from a big enough group of developers to adopt the standard without changing it slightly to suit their needs/code would be much more difficult and actually convincing enough developers to modify their code to meet the standard is probably almost impossible. Just take a look at most other standards bodies. Even with huge commercial pressure to agree on standards it still takes years to define and ratify all but the simplest!

Over the last few years I've seen numerous examples of developers saying "I write code to do X. I have no interest in integrating X with anyone else's code that does Y and can't really understand why anyone would ever want to do that, so I'm not going to do anything to help. Oh, and when I've finished writing the code to do X, I'm going to also make my code do Z which is something like Y". That kind of attitude is what makes me believe it will never happen. The most encouraging thing I've seen recently is the SMF developers stance of offering help to anyone interested in integrating SMF with other applications. We need more developers with that attitude.

[[Unknown]]

To define a theoretical standard probably isn't difficult. Many integrators can get away with sharing just the user information. So use an LDAP base, add a few hooks to authenticate users, create new users, change passwords, set/destroy cookies, etc and you've got a good start.

Problem then is that you can end up shooting about 50% or more of your general users (as forum software goes at least) in the legs.  Not everyone has access to LDAP.

-[Unknown]

[roboter88]

LDAP?
ahhh

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
http://www.openldap.org/

[kegobeer]

@Yardbird:

The only benefit is having one user base instead of two.  The bridge just allows Coppermine to use SMF's user base so your members don't have to re-register on your Coppermine site.  If you don't plan on allowing people to upload pictures/files to your Coppermine gallery, or restricting access to certain albums, then you don't really need to bridge the two together.

[packman]

Problem then is that you can end up shooting about 50% or more of your general users (as forum software goes at least) in the legs.  Not everyone has access to LDAP.

It's true that most people don't have access to LDAP today, but at least it's an existing standard that allows extensible user records to be stored/retreived in a secure way and that's a lot of what people seem to be asking for at the moment.

There are Open Source LDAP systems around and it probably wouldn't be too difficult to build a simple MySQL based LDAP-lite (if you can have a Lite Lightweight system!) for people who don't want the complexity of setting up a huge installation.

[roboter88]

I would really love to see a gallery mod or ported coppermine for SMF

Coppemine comes with a bridge file that works with SMF.  It allows Coppermine to use your SMF users instead of the system that Coppermine uses by default.  Then it's just a matter of designing a Coppermine theme that matches your SMF theme.  Check out my site, I use SMF and Coppermine together.  The only limitation right now is the inability to use SMF's SSI.php file from within Coppermine, but the next release fixes that.

How or where i get this Hack/MOD you using on your site which displayes the last gallery additions?


Found

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=13450.0

Much thanks for your work it works just fine.
btw wht is the better sollution now? SSI or without ? I use the 1st...


l8r

[kegobeer]

btw wht is the better sollution now? SSI or without ?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean.  If you are talking about the mod I made that displays the latest images, the SSI version is much better.  You might want to download the version I posted on my site - I made some changes to the original code to improve it.

[roboter88]

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=13450.15

[Anguz]

[Unknown] wrote an SMF API to facilitate integration with other scripts. You can find it in Converters and Tools section of the Downloads page.

http://www.simplemachines.org/download.php?converters

Also, I may start writting some stuff to have a blog, gallery, articles and other things using SMF, just SMF. It can't get more integrated than that. They'd be kinda basic most of the time, but could be improved with mods too. I just don't have any idea when I'll do this though, but I've worked out most of it in my head already.