[pmwiki-users] Integrating PmWiki and phpBB2 - site aggregation

Crisp, Steve [UK] SCRISP at ngms.eu.com
Sun Jan 28 03:11:10 CST 2007


Dear all,
 
This is a long thread but does capture highlight a new (to me!) application of PmWiki being able to aggregate multiple sites - this in essence is what I'm trying to do.  Your advice, recommendations, comments very much welcome - even if it's to say DON'T DO IT!
 
I'm still trying to integrate PmWiki and phpBB2 so users think its the same site.  The site has a simple structure, header, sidebar, content and footer.  The idea is to use PmWiki as the main site and switch out to phpBB2 when users click 'forum' in the sidebar.  Sounds simple, but the things I've done so far (see below) are not working well and I'm looking for advice.
 
The two OpenSource sites I'm trying to integrate are here:
 
http://www.enginuity.org/  - original site uses phpBB2
 
http://scoobypedia.co.uk/enginuity/index.php <http://scoobypedia.co.uk/enginuity/index.php/Forums/Forums>   - replacement site using PmWiki.  Note this is only temporarily hosted on my site and will be moved back to enginuity when complete.
 
I've tried using (:includeurl:) markup to embed a forum within a Wiki page.  This looks quite good with a cut down 'style' for those familiar with phpBB2.  See here:
 
<http://scoobypedia.co.uk/enginuity/index.php/Forums/Forums> http://scoobypedia.co.uk/enginuity/index.php/Forums/Forums
 
(:includeurl:) was the first thing I tried, looks the best so far but has two limitations; (1) forum size is variable so you can never get the right size of the embedded html - drawback using object/iframe created via includeurl.  (2) I can't seem to pass a variable to includeurl as the website to load.  I need this as people go straight to specific forum topics so I'd need to catch that (redirect), push them through the above Wiki page but pass the correct forum URL.  This I just can not do as I'm not a php/PmWiki expert by a long shot.
 
The other thing I've tried is to is o the other way - include the Wiki (sidebar only) within the phpBB2 forum.  I thought I'd accept defeat and make the forum site 'look' like the Wiki site.  I thought I would embed a cut down Wiki using just the sidebar only when viewing the forum as this will give the impression the two sites are the same.  I produced a cut down PmWiki skin and configuration that only displayed a Wiki sidebar given a specific URL.  I embedded it using iframe (yuk!) by adjusting the phpBB2 forum template/style.  This looked good also but I forgot what an iframe did - as soon as I click on a Wiki sidebar item it goes to that page but within that frame - obviously I wanted it redisplay the whole web page and switch back out of the forum to the Wiki.
 
I've spent a few days looking at the options and have exhausted my knowledge  :-(  I'm after any other ideas and/or approaches.  I appreciate this is not strictly all about PmWiki here however do feel that the requirements (and eventual solution) here would be of benefit to many others trying to make PmWiki a choice for website(s) integration.
 
This should be simple but can see that this might need to be done in php.  Other avenues(read: rabbit holes) I'm going down is to see if I can produce a cut down PmWiki which offers an API (function) to phpBB2 which simply returns the html from PmWiki's sidebar.  That way perhaps the phpBB2 forum software can be configured to display the sidebar in an additional table column - this time without frames.  The unknown (for me) is if including parts of PmWiki php script(s) within phpBB2 will cause any conflict between the two software.  I've seen PmWiki's 'MarkupToHTML' function and that is what I'll start looking at exploiting next.
 
Your advice, recommendations, comments _very_ much welcome.
-Steve.
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