Wordpress + SMF + what I did

[~kev~]

Personally, the way I see it - if you have a forum there is no reason to allow comments on articles that are posted on your website. 

Wordpress has a comment system built in, this is default and I do not know of a way to fully remove it.  All you can really do it turn it off.  But if comments are turned off then at the bottom of every article there is a message "comments have been disabled".  If you are using Wordpress as a website, or a landing page, the "comments have been disabled" message just looks tacky.

So what I did, I edited the wordpress page templates and removed the code for the comments.  The part that says "comments have been disabled" was also removed.  Even if comments were enabled, nothing would show up on the page, because all references were removed from the templates.  This also stops those pesky wordpress spam bots dead in their tracks.

Write up an article for your website (or landing page) and publish it.  Go to the forums and start a thread.  I usually provide a link to the article in the thread and state that "this thread is for the discussion of article ABC."  Copy the address to the thread.

Go back to the article and edit it.  On the very last line, put a comment and a link.  Most of the time I will say something like - "If you wish to comment on this article, then visit this thread in the forums."  So the thread and the article are linked together.

Edit the wordpress and smf themes so they look as close alike as possible.  But a lot of times they will not look exact.

Example:

Wordpress webpage - team fortress home page
SMF forum -  team fortress forums


In my opinion, using SMF for your commenting system is a lot better then using the wordpress commenting system.  People can post images and  videos a lot easier in SMF, as compared to the wordpress comments.  There is a rather large webmaster site that does this same exact thing.  Perhaps some of you have heard of Sitepoint.com  They have an articles section, but the discussion on the articles is done in their forums.  At the bottom of the article is a link to the thread, just like what I am doing.  Well, to be honest, I got the idea partially from sitepoint, but was already playing around with the idea before I saw what they had done.

Members only need one log in since SMF and Wordpress are not bridged.  Because there is no way for members to comment on the articles directly, there is no reason for them to log into wordpress.  Bridges can sometimes break things when you upgrade one side or the other, so not having a bridge fixes that problem as well.  I have had some bad experiences with bridges and am trying to stay away from them

SMF and Wordpress share the same database, so backing up is a one touch operation. 

SMF is installed as a /forum folder under wordpress.  So when I back up the whole site, I just download the entire HTML directory.

Wordpress also has some excellent built in Search Engine Optimization features.  When these are tweaked, wordpress sites can get some good rankings in google results pages. 

Wordpress does not take up a lot of server resources, as compared to "other" content management systems.

The website I linked to above is the first time I have tried this.  Currently I have two more sites waiting for this same exact type of set up.  But one of the draw backs, its takes a lot of time to tweak the themes between Wordpress and SMF so they look alike. 

[TomasM]

Comments create additional content on your blog post, so it is good for search engines - content looks fresh.

[taha116]

I know wordpress in and out and how to modify code so it wont show the comment disabled thing let me know if you need my help, i dont write codes i just know how to modify it very well (4 wordpress)

If i help you though you will need to add my name, and a link 2 my site as a thanks

[~kev~]

Thank both of you for the input, and I think I have got it worked out.

I wanted to update this thread and let everyone know that I had to make some changes to the wordpress .htaccess file.  If I typed in website name/forum - I would get a wordpress error page.  but this address would work - website name/forum/ <-- notice the / leaving that off would cause an error.

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^wesite name . com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http:// web site name .com/$1 [L,R=301]

I did not write the code, I found it on another forum and edited to what I needed.  So if you try the wordpress + smf - non integrated and get errors, edit your .htaccess file to rewrite the address.

And now, the wordpres site looks like a real webpage, and not a blog.  Even though the page looks simple, it serves the purpose. 

[taha116]

If you need help with messing around with wordpress to turn it into something totaly new i am the man 4 the job

[Traveller_Ted]

Hi, trying to get an answer to a simple question. Have WP 2.6.5 using 'pretty' urls, hence .htaccess requirement and SMF 1.1.7 There is no bridge requirements, WP used for CMS only [no posts allowed]

Issue Users [including admin] find a 403 error screen at first attempt. Subsequently usually they can access normally.

Anyone give advice on the .htaccess set-up they are using, or equally any fixes [or things to check] from hosting point of view.

Regards
PS Posted http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=278614.0 originally, possibly in the wrong place

[~kev~]

Issue Users [including admin] find a 403 error screen at first attempt. Subsequently usually they can access normally.

Anyone give advice on the .htaccess set-up they are using, or equally any fixes [or things to check] from hosting point of view.

Regards
PS Posted http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=278614.0 originally, possibly in the wrong place

Is the error with or without the trailing / at the end of the URL? 

I have having a problem with wordpress not converting sitename.com to sitename.com/  or sitename.com/forum to sitename.com/forum/ 

The domain name had to typed in exactly right, or the site would report back an error.  Is this the same thing that is happening to you?

[Traveller_Ted]

Hi Kev, thanks for the prompt response.

AFAIK the trailing slash is not an issue, the URL appears correctly and the forum itself loads, however once loaded when the user name password combination is entered into the forum a 403 error is generated, however, if the user goes back in the browser, and then renters the data the user is logged on.

Would a lost in translation slash cause a 403, not a 404 error? In your case prior to fixing this what error did you get with a missing slash?

I'm of the view, though I may be wrong, that there's either latent server config or htaccess mismatch.

Since your site uses 'pretty' urls in WordPress, I'm assuming you have an .htaccess set-up. Do you have just the one in root or do you have one in SMF root as well?

In the other post on the I listed my present .htaccess files, any comments?

Regards

[~kev~]

Since your site uses 'pretty' urls in WordPress, I'm assuming you have an .htaccess set-up. Do you have just the one in root or do you have one in SMF root as well?

In the other post on the I listed my present .htaccess files, any comments?

Regards

To be honest, I do not remember the exact error message that I was getting.

I do not have an .htaccess file in the /forum/ directory, only in the wordpress directory.

Try logging in from websitename.com/forum  and from websitename.com/forum/ <--  Notice one URL has the "/" at the end and one does not.  And if one or the other gives you an error.

There has to be some type of difference between when the user enters the data, gets error, backs up, reenters the data and then it works.  What is the difference in the URLs between working and not working?

I am at work right now and do not have ftp access to get my current .htaccess file.  If you wish, when I get home this evening I can post the contents of the file.

[Traveller_Ted]

Hi Kev,

Just tried website/forum and it still presents the forum index page with the url in the browser changing to show the trailing slash.

Agree that there's a difference but I'm gosh darned if I can see it.

Would appreciate seeing the .htaccess file.

Thanks & regards,

PS: good grief, just looked at my watch and it's 03:27 in the morning here, been dealing with several 'issues', time for bed

[~kev~]

Hi Kev,

Just tried website/forum and it still presents the forum index page with the url in the browser changing to show the trailing slash.

Agree that there's a difference but I'm gosh darned if I can see it.

Would appreciate seeing the .htaccess file.

Thanks & regards,

PS: good grief, just looked at my watch and it's 03:27 in the morning here, been dealing with several 'issues', time for bed

Here is what my .htaccess files looks like.  Post a link to your site so I can take a look at it.

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^websitename.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http:// www. websitename . com/$1 [L,R=301]  <---- I inserted spaces to prevent this from being a link



# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

[Traveller_Ted]

Hi Kev,

Have added the FollowSymLinks section which I didn't have and will review results.

Since I'm helping a friend here, I'll refrain from posting link since I don't have the owner's explicit permission, though he probably wouldn't mind.

Thanks again, I'll report back on results.

Regards

[Traveller_Ted]

Hi Kev,

Just a quick note to thank you for your time and courtesy. Added the FollowSysLinks section, and thus far, this  appears to have resolved the 403 issue.

Thanks again

Regards

[taha116]

This is really cool but is thier a way to integrate categoires & posts so when i post a post in a category on wordpress it apears on SMF?

[~kev~]

This is really cool but is thier a way to integrate categoires & posts so when i post a post in a category on wordpress it apears on SMF?

Using SMF and wordpress like I have done here, they are not integrated in any way.  So I doubt that the feature your asking about would exist.

I usually start a thread in the forums at the same time I make the wordpress post.  Then add a hyper link at the bottom of the article.

[taha116]

This is really cool but is thier a way to integrate categoires & posts so when i post a post in a category on wordpress it apears on SMF?

Using SMF and wordpress like I have done here, they are not integrated in any way.  So I doubt that the feature your asking about would exist.

I usually start a thread in the forums at the same time I make the wordpress post.  Then add a hyper link at the bottom of the article.

AWW... That is something important that should be looked into integrating, Well I hope they will do something like this soon

[D9r]

This is really cool but is thier a way to integrate categoires & posts so when i post a post in a category on wordpress it apears on SMF?

Using SMF and wordpress like I have done here, they are not integrated in any way.  So I doubt that the feature your asking about would exist.

I usually start a thread in the forums at the same time I make the wordpress post.  Then add a hyper link at the bottom of the article.

AWW... That is something important that should be looked into integrating, Well I hope they will do something like this soon

Google is your friend    www.google.com/search?q=wordpress+smf+forum+post [nofollow]

Wordpress Post to SMF [nofollow]
Version: 1.5 This plugin adds Wordpress posts as topics in SimpleMachines Forum 1.1.7, and links the WP post to the comments in the forum.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/post-to-smf-forum/ [nofollow]