Topic: anyone ever connect a simple machines forum to wordpress?

[nitehawk10]

Hello!
I am a "newbie" at trying to make a webpage or anything like that. I managed to create a website, ( still offline cause I am working on it)
I wanted to install a forum in the website along side the other pages, and installed a well known plugin. I watched a "zillion" youtubes, and followed directions closely, but it wouldn't work. I un-installed and reinstalled and it wouldn't work properly so I tried their forum support page, and got nothing, other than a spam in my email box, so I scrapped it and looked for
something else. I tried a "one click" forum install on hostgator of another well known forum plugin, but  the forum site would not connect with my wordpress site no matter what. I contacted both the plugin maker support, and hostgator too and was on the phone for a long time and they couldnt get it to work, it wouldn't embed or integrate with wordpress, so I scrapped that one too...
I contacted a less known forum plugin maker and decided i would try to install that forum product. I couldn't find any download install instructions on their website, so contacted their forum, and got the brush off!
 I admit I am a bit discouraged, I was looking around on hostgator and found that they have simple machines forum "one click install" so am thinking to give it a try..Does SMF integrate- or embed with wordpress without any problems?
Any advice before I start the proceedure alll ovver again??
Thanks ahead of time.

[Kindred]

Sort of... some people have had success, but there is no currently supported bridge...

And, quite honestly, wordpress does not play nice with other, external, scripts

[SaltedWeb]

I tried this a couple years ago with SMF, no luck lots of issues.
I tried with a paid forum, Xenforo, same issues. I think its allot like
dropping  Chevy engine in a Honda, oh you can do it with allot of work, time and well you still end up with a
Honda with a Chevy engine. There are allot of mods and portals I have found nearly make a wordpress obsolete
even more so with the new SMF when it comes out look pretty amazing and again would leave not allot of use
for wordpress in my opinion.

[nitehawk10]

Any idea of a open source forum that will install EASILY ( for a newbie) and embed or integrate with wordpress?
I tried bbpress and what a nightmare that was,-apologize to bbpress lovers--but that is a fact, It wouldn't put a login-register- password reset on the forum page no matter what I did-- and i  uninstalled--reinstalled several times, would scatter stuff on other website pages, or would put part of it on the forum page and the rest elsewhere..
 I tried phpbb _one click install through hostgator, and it would not connect up with my wordpress site, and I sat on the phone for ages trying to work through the problems, and it just wouldn't work.. Considered vanilla, and even downloaded it to my computer, and the thing wouldnt open
no mater what :-(
Any good ideas for a simple forum?

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

There are a lot of "forum plugins" out there for Wordpress, but honestly I haven't seen one really good one.
Depending on your needs though, I'd say Wordpress might not be the right approach at all - if you really want and need a good forum,
then perhaps try building your site around SMF - there are simple built in functions to integrate SMF to webpages available, and if those aren't enough then portals might do what you want too.

How do I integrate SMF into my PHP coded website?
How to use the SMF user system outside of SMF
SSI Readme

[landyvlad]

Or do what I did.  I have a worpress page

www.gsx1400owners.org

on which there is a link in the menu bar to my separate SMF forum - http://gsx1400owners.org/forum

This is by far the easiest way to go, so long as you don't have any need to have members or users registered on a WP site also able to access the forum with their same credentials.

As you can see in my example the wordpress is very basic (no need for users / logins etc etc)

Cheers

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

That would of course be the easiest way to go. Properly done themes on both, and no one will pay attention to the fact that they are separate platforms.

[SaltedWeb]

But could not a portal do much of what the WP did in this link?
Portals can be made to look just like that WP and the plus would be having a universal menu bar.

I had thought about WP and found that allot of what portals do, for me solve the problem.

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Depends on the use case, what is the OP wanting to use WP for - it is a pretty flexible piece of software really.

[MamaTea]

I am really wanting to do the same thing- basically making my "comments" section of my WP blog posts a forum thread from SMF. (or something similar)

I am pretty new myself and have limited time to work on building the structure of my site with limited income so no outsourcing.

There are a lot of neat mods out there for chatting and chatrooms though I have not found what I am looking for exactly.

I was browsing to see if anyone was talking about this currently.  This thread has certainly reinforced that I should just start looking for mods to maybe turn an SMF into a blog.  It seems like I'll have more luck in it if I can get the right MOD situation happening.

Plus WP sort of sucks. hah!

If anyone has any good tips on a "comment section" mod, let me know because I still wanted to do this with the other content areas of my website.

[GigaWatt]

Try SMFBlog .