Quick and dirty integration with Vanilla?

Cool!

Thanks for the fill in.

:D

[*note to self*]
Hmmm, maybe this is the way to go?

I really like the look of Vanilla and I hadn’t seen it before. Thanks for posting something about it!

Has anyone tried to use my basic Vanilla integration?

And, perhaps more importantly, does anyone know of any WordPress user that has integrated with Vanilla having followed the original instructions?

I note that in the official Vanilla thread that there is only 1 example URL (posted on 25th Aug), and if you click on "forum" from that url or go directly to
http://www.firefighterwebmaster.com/forum
you’ll see that phpBB was installed on the 27th, which rather suggests that this particular person got fed up of Vanilla within 2 days.

There’s ironically no link to the discussion thread from the walkthrough (which is in a wiki), so I guess some people won’t have seen the thread, but presently I have no idea how many people have managed to get it to work. I think the major issue is that it requires a fresh install of Vanilla; I’d imagine the bulk of people who like Wordpress and like Vanilla will already have users in both dbs.

I’d like to bring this thread back to life because I am an avid Vanilla AND MODx user.

I want to thank PaulGregory for giving me an idea on how to start my integration module. I will be continuing his work and am in the process of integrating Vanilla with MODx in a more refined way. After this first post I will not be documenting my work any further until it is completely finished. Rest assured I will be with this project until it is completed!

Current Status:
I’ve completely integrated the Vanilla Registration with MODx web users (not manager users). All features (including Reset Password and User Search) related to User Management in Vanilla implemented. No MODx work has been as of now. I anticipate that I will need to create a Module and a Plugin to complete the whole package.
Vanilla files modified so far:
[tt]People.Class.Authenticator.php[/tt]
[tt]People.Class.UserManager.php[/tt]
MODx database tables modified:
[tt]modx_web_users[/tt] - Added lum_RoleID
[tt]modx_web_user_attributes[/tt] - Added all other unique Vanilla User columns

The Integration files are placed in the MODx namespace library on the Vanilla side so as to not "hack" any core Vanilla files. This will ease in upgrading Vanilla. The MODx database table modification will not hinder any MODx functionality. It also honors the MODx table prefix setting (from config.inc.php).

Software Versions:
[tt]MODx 0.9.6 RC2[/tt]
[tt]Vanilla 1.1.2[/tt]

More info in the coming days!

Great news sir lancelot ! Thanks for picking up the ball on this one

I am pretty sure there are many MODx + Vanilla fans who will enjoy this, myself included !

+1 for that!

This is actually on my todo list for the week as I dumped one of my SMF forums for Vanilla last week.
Let me know how I can assist.

-sD-
Dr. Scotty Delicious, Scientist.

Quote from: Dr. at Apr 18, 2007, 10:45 PM

+1 for that!

This is actually on my todo list for the week as I dumped one of my SMF forums for Vanilla last week.
Let me know how I can assist.

Thanks ScottyDelicious! I appreciate the offer. I’m not so good with creating MODx modules so I might give you a preview of my code soon

And just in time for me, too! I’ve been trying to decide which would be better, to work up some kind of native MODx forum snippets/modules, or go with a selection of connectors/integrators to existing forum apps. I’m beginning to lean toward the latter. Why re-invent the wheel, if there are already acceptable versions available?

Quote from: sottwell at Apr 19, 2007, 01:04 AM

And just in time for me, too! I’ve been trying to decide which would be better, to work up some kind of native MODx forum snippets/modules, or go with a selection of connectors/integrators to existing forum apps. I’m beginning to lean toward the latter. Why re-invent the wheel, if there are already acceptable versions available?

I prefer to take the pieces of acceptable wheels and turn them into high-performance tires. In this case, I’d love to see a native forum system reverse-engineered from Vanilla or punBB using xPDO. The problem with trying to integrate these systems is that none of them are designed (based on known industry standards for authentication and authorization) to work with external user/permission systems, and IMO, it may be easier to rebuild the views as MODx snippets/plugins by just reusing the forum-related database structures, than to try and solve those identity discrepencies or constantly keep the data in sync.

Quote from: OpenGeek at Apr 19, 2007, 08:53 AM

I prefer to take the pieces of acceptable wheels and turn them into high-performance tires. In this case, I’d love to see a native forum system reverse-engineered from Vanilla or punBB using xPDO. The problem with trying to integrate these systems is that none of them are designed (based on known industry standards for authentication and authorization) to work with external user/permission systems, and IMO, it may be easier to rebuild the views as MODx snippets/plugins by just reusing the forum-related database structures, than to try and solve those identity discrepencies or constantly keep the data in sync.

I agree that this would probably be the best solution. Unfortunately, I don’t think most people have enough of an understanding of xPDO to accomplish such a complex task, and in the interim, the connectors solutions seems to work best. I imagine that as examples emerge of using xPDO for reverse engineering databases of already built and finely-tuned databases and then forward-engineering the view through MODx, that people will start to understand xPDO in a more concrete manner. I know for me it is pretty abstract, and maybe an example along the lines of the osCommerce you reverse engineered using xPDO, might go a long way.