Recommended Forum to use with s2/wp?

[jamesmm]

Hi,
I've recently had the need for a membership system and am really excited I found s2!

I have some questions I was hoping to get answered before starting.

I'll be needing to use a forum on my site and was wondering if there were any suggestions on what forum package to use. I see this forum uses phpBB and wonder if it's at all integrated with s2 or WP?

I've been looking at the simplePress forum. It seems to have all the needed features. After looking at the s2 options I think it will be possible to protect the forum (for only paid members) using either the Page Access Restriction or the URI Access Restriction.

Does anyone have any experience or input on the access restriction method for simplePress? Or other forums for that matter.

Another thing I fear are any conflicts between s2 and simplePress. I found one small issue. Navigating to the lost password page via the forum, the s2 and simplePress logo overlap. I did a work around, by changing the logo in the simplePress skin/theme to a 1x1 trans png.


So, thanks for your input ahead of time, any would be appreciated.
Thanks,
James

[Jason Caldwell]

Hi James. Yes, Simple:Press appears to be compatible with s2Member. I was not aware of the logo overlap, so I'll have a look and see what we can do to avoid that in a future release, if possible.

- phpBB integration is coming soon.
- bbPress integration is coming in the very next release of s2Member v3.1+.
You'll find it under: s2Member -> API Bridges -> bbPress Bridge/Plugin

[9K-S2K]

Is phpBB integration still coming soon? Any update on this would be great. Thanks for a great plugin!

[rainleader]

Is phpBB integration still coming soon? Any update on this would be great. Thanks for a great plugin!

+1 I'd love to have this functionality!

[Jason Caldwell]

Yes, it's definitely coming. However, there are still issues with our implementation, which we're working through. We're hoping to have this ready in the release of s2Member v3.6.

[Lifeischoice]

do you have a sneak peek at list of features for the phpbb integration (e.g. user and/or template integration etc) Thanks...and looking forward to 3.6 soon:)

[wrswrsnz]

Wordpress = 3.0.4
phpBB = 3.0.8
S2Member = 3.5.8
phpBB Single Sign On = 0.8.5

Hi Jason,

Thanks for S2Member and your support.

We're developing an upgrade to our current site so it's not live yet. It uses phpBB for the forums (has for the last 10 years). We've recently gone with Wordpress for the front end of the site. We're looking to have added features and members only areas with logins and permissions coming from the well established forum.

I couldn't get WP_United to work so opted for phpBB Single Sign On instead. It works great.
However, it doesn't play nice with S2Member when logging in from phpBB so we currently have S2Member disabled. As a consequence we can't have private pages the way we want them yet.

Can you advise if the integration will manage and automate the logon to both WP and phpBB?

In the interum until ver 3.6 is relaeased or until phpBB integration is included is there an easy fix for the following?

We use authentication for logon in WP from phpBB and WP - whichever has the member first. phpBB Single Sign On checks and syncs members from both WP and phpBB and creates cookies for both sites when loging in.

If S2Member is enabled, the login process in phpBB gets redirected to the S2Member login welcome page and the phpBB cookie doesn't get created. You are loging into WP but not phpBB. This effectively stops standard members loggin in to phpBB. The exception is if you are an administrator or other special level - then you stay at the phpBB login successful page.

Is there a way to stop the S2Member redirect from the phpBB login page so it stays at the phpBB login succesful pageinstead? If this is relatively easy it will give us a workaround until integration is released.

[Jason Caldwell]

do you have a sneak peek at list of features for the phpbb integration (e.g. user and/or template integration etc) Thanks...and looking forward to 3.6 soon:)

No, but we are going to accept beta testers for s2Member v3.6 very soon.
Please keep an eye out in the forums for the announcement.

[Jason Caldwell]

Can you advise if the integration will manage and automate the logon to both WP and phpBB?

We're not there yet, but yes; this is our goal.

Is there a way to stop the S2Member redirect from the phpBB login page so it stays at the phpBB login succesful pageinstead? If this is relatively easy it will give us a workaround until integration is released.

Thanks for reporting this. I'll see what we can do about it in the next release.
In the mean time, please give this a shot and let me know how it works.

Create this directory and file:
/wp-content/mu-plugins/s2-hacks.php

Code: Select all

<?php
add_filter ("ws_plugin__s2member_allow_other_login_redirect_filters", "__return_true");
add_action ("ws_plugin__s2member_after_loaded", "remove_s2member_login_redirection_action");
function remove_s2member_login_redirection_action ()
    {
        remove_action ("wp_login", "c_ws_plugin__s2member_login_redirects::login_redirect");
    }
?>

!

* WARNING. Unfortunately, a side effect of this hack is that s2Member's Unique IP Restrictions will no longer be applied. If you can live with that, you're fine. @TODO :: I'll see what we can do about this in a future release. We need another Filter/Hook to make this possible without damaging IP Restrictions.

As an alternative, you could also make some code changes directly inside this file:
/s2member/includes/classes/login-redirects.inc.php

[wrswrsnz]

Thanks for the help Jason,

When this code is added we get this error at the login page of the phpBB forum:

[phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/functions.php on line 2471: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/fnzasor/public_html/fnzas_wordpress/wp-content/mu-plugins/s2-hacks.php:1)

On other pages of the forum there are also errors above the header.

I think we might just wait out the arrival of direct phpBB support as I don't like modifying code away from it's original function. For now we will leave S2Member installed but disabled so we can get the new site live in about 1 week. We can sort out S2Member later as it's not really needed right now.

I had previously seen the code for the s2-hacks.php you helped someout else out with and tried that with a similar error - sorry, I should have mentioned that.

[Jason Caldwell]

Do you have any spaces/tabs or line breaks before or after the <?php ?> tags?
That's what causes the header errors.

Code: Select all

extra line here ( bad )
<?php

?>space here ( bad )

[wrswrsnz]

My bad,

Had a tab (space) before the <?php

Thanks for your help, seems to be working perfectly with S2Member active. We can now proceed with full development - awesome! I knew I had a long way to go with learning php but it seems I have much more to learn that I thought. I never would have thought a space could make so much difference...

W.

[Lifeischoice]

do you have a sneak peek at list of features for the phpbb integration (e.g. user and/or template integration etc) Thanks...and looking forward to 3.6 soon:)

No, but we are going to accept beta testers for s2Member v3.6 very soon.
Please keep an eye out in the forums for the announcement.

Great....Thanks..will be on the lookout...

[artEV]

I'm eagerly looking forward to the phpBB (or SMF) integration.
In the meantime, I'm using Mingle Forum (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/mingle-forum), might want to check it out.

It runs on a page by putting a shortcode, so I simply allow access to the page for certain Level members.

[wrswrsnz]

do you have a sneak peek at list of features for the phpbb integration (e.g. user and/or template integration etc) Thanks...and looking forward to 3.6 soon:)

No, but we are going to accept beta testers for s2Member v3.6 very soon.
Please keep an eye out in the forums for the announcement.

Great....Thanks..will be on the lookout...

I'd like to be a beta-tester for 3.6. Would you mind adding me to the list if it's not already full?

[rainleader]

Since the s2Member version naming scheme has changed to the format of YYMMDD, is phpBB integration expected in any 1106XX release?

[PseudoNyhm]

I'm also interested in finding a good forum to integrate with WP/s2Member. I like phpBB in general, but I'd rather avoid the overhead of an entirely separate application. Unfortunately, I've found all the WP plugin forums to be lacking/broken (including Simple:Press, Mingle Forum, forumpress, and bbPress).

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

[cassel]

Just from personal experience, i installed Mingle Forum. Since it is one page of the site, it can be restricted in the same way any other single page can be restricted, with ccaps. I have used Simple Press as a user, and i really dont like the format and such (personal preference there).

There is a thread in here about NOT showing the forum tab in the navigation bar for those who do not have access. I was looking into that. However, i ended up choosing another option: leave the tab in the navigation, but put the forum itself behind the membership wall with a conditional. For those without the permission to access, they only see a text that i choose explaining why they do not have access and how to gain access (another place for a "sales pitch" in a way).

Depending on when you check my site, you might or might not see all that since i am just in the process of getting that forum hidden, and the non-members' text formatted.
http://scrapbookcampus.com

Good luck with your search.

[PseudoNyhm]

Thanks for the quick reply cassel. What you described is exactly my working plan as well! That is, Mingle Forum plugin, with a Forum nav bar button, which uses s2Member conditionals to display a message about upgrading if not Level_1+.

Just to give back my preliminary findings to other s2Member users, I found that Simple:Press breaks s2Member shortcodes, which I used in a sidebar widget. Simple:Press wasn't able to say exactly why, but they suspect something to do with the way their plugin (and/or s2Member) integrates with WordPress.

Both Mingle Forum and ForumPress appear to be forks of Forum-Server, which was an update of WP-Forum (this history may not be entirely accurate). Between Mingle Forum and ForumPress, I cannot tell which is newer, but more people seem to use Mingle Forum plugin.

Mingle Forum plugin worked for me in testing, but it doesn't have many admin switches to turn off features I don't want. I had to alter a good bit of code to make it fit my needs, which will never survive a version update. I'm not real keen on how some of it functions, but I don't recall anything being outright broken.

Anyone with long-term experience running Mingle Forum plugin? Is it reliable?