pure SSI Portal?

[incubusnb]

ok, i've been looking for a Portal will have all the features and functionality i need, for a while i settled with MKPortal, but the fact that it requires me to keep track of 2 different templating systems along with alot of (sorry if the MKPortal Devs are reading this) sloppy coding and a glitchy interface makes it difficult to maintain.

i've been toying with an idea in my head of using the SSI functionality to build a portal system completely dependant on SMF, and i think it could work, all the requirements are already in place, and the blocks could be coded to use the SMF template system quite easily.

but i can't quite figure out how to begin, i've never worked on a project larger than a simple chat script, so here are the questions i'm asking. 

How would i go about starting something like this?
What kind of Directory structure would be suitable something like this?
How would i go about integrating Portal Management into the SMF Admin Panel?

i plan on designing this in such a way that i can release it as a Mod for other SMFers to use.  being that i'm designing it for a game news/reviews site, i'd like to set it up in a similar fashion to IGN or Gamespot

and if you think this may be above my current PHP Skill level, just let me know.

[Aquilo]

it's not hard to do it with SSI, I made a portal site using only SSI and it turned out pretty nice, it don't look like much now becouse it's set up under another domain but here it is. http://63.247.85.74/~aquilo1/

if you do want or are looking for a fully intergrated portal and havent checked this out, give http://www.lunabyte.com/ a glance (topic), when I get home tomarrow I'll be working on finishing a resource/review module that should be done or I should say available when Enigma 2 is, I just needed to compleate some admin interface/features.

any way sorry, it's quite easy to use SSI to intergrate SMF with a site!

[Ben_S]

If your only after a simple site it's easy, www.redandwhitekop.com is entirely powered by SSI.php, with just a couple of additions, the grab single message and archive mod.

[[Unknown]]

Also this site is completely powered by SSI.php, but it's pretty simple too.

-[Unknown]

[Kirby]

http://www.zfgc.com/forum/PortalM.php
Pure SSI.

[OvermindDL1]

There are also two fully integrated, as in actually part of the forum, templates and all, portals in creation, one by me in my spare time.

[Christian A. Herrnboeck]

I'm also making one: http://chhe.freeprohost.com/

[OvermindDL1]

Mine is a bit more integrated then SSI would allow, mine is embedding itself, becoming part of the forum software.  I've worked on it a bit more, working on some new techs for it, finished the module system client side (and one last page to work on in the admincp), and completely integrated.  Even new modules will have a place in the membergroup's permissions on the actual permission's page.  It is using a default theme only, everything you see, any other theme you load is just setting css things for it, and it works well.  Although a real theme for it in Helios would look far better then the css is allowing (*hint* *hint*).  The template is a single file and supports overriding default module themes inside it to allow someone to create a theme that even changes any known module, whether they load it or not, without interference.   If you want to see the latest demo it is located at my site here.  It is not at root, mkportal is currently installed there, but will probobly be uninstalling it quite soon, its admincp is so limiting compared to SMF's.  Nice thing about my portal, it is completely integrated into the forum, you could load it by doing a specific action, or using an external wrapper I made (as demonstrated by the link above).  Its coming out well, and as allways, comments, suggestions, whatever, are welcome on my forum.