WordPress and Phpbb3 integration

If you have a WordPress blog and have been looking for a real integrated forum solution, look no further than WP United.  WP-United is an impressive integration package that glues together phpBB, the leading open source bulletin board, and WordPress, the popular blogging tool.

The site I am currently testing it on: www.ozsource.org The phpbb3 forum script is currently using the default prosilver style and is integrated into WordPress seamlessly: www.ozsource.org/forums

WP-United Homepage

Features

WP-United is a powerful yet compact modification for phpBB 3. The package integrates WordPress, the leading blogging and content management tool, into a phpBB community.

  • Use WordPress as a stand-alone portal, or as a fully-integrated blog system
  • Combine WordPress, or phpBB, into the look and feel of your site
  • Automatic login integration
  • Cross-posting from blogs to forums
  • Smilies and avatars
  • To blog or not to blog?
  • Plug n’ Play — Zero Changes Required!
  • Easy Setup Wizard
  • Theme / Plugin / Mod compatibility

Plus much more!

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted

Another WordPress upgrade issue.  This time the exact error message is as follows:

Downloading update from http://wordpress.org/wordpress-2.8.3.zip.

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 2357261 bytes) in /home/xxx/public_html/wp-includes/http.php on line 1324

There are a couple ways to fix this issue, with the easiest is to edit wp-settings.php at line 13 and increase the value from 32M to 64M:

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '64M');

As per this WordPress support topic you can also increase your host php limit which will help fix the issue in the future.

WordPress PCLZIP_ERR_BAD_FORMAT

I got this error in one of my WordPress installs: Incompatible archive PCLZIP_ERR_BAD_FORMAT (-10) : Invalid archive structure.

In this case it was due to using an installer such as Fantastic or Installatron to initially setup WordPress, a manual install over my current install fixed this.  There is Further research here on WordPress.org also.

The solution is to download this version of http.php and install it over your own wp-includes/http.php file. Presto! all good to go.

WordPress: Cannot redeclare pclziputilpathreduction()

If you have tried the new auto updating in WordPress 2.7 and have been given this error: Fatal error: Cannot redeclare pclziputilpathreduction() (previously declared in /Yourhome...

Deactivate the WordPress Automatic Upgrade Plugin WPAU as it is no longer needed.

How to get your latest posts from vbulletin via RSS

You need to enable the External Data Provider in your vbulletin settings in order for this to work.

RSS2

Example: http://www.ozsource.org/forums/external.php?lastpost=true&type=rss2

RSS

Example: http://www.ozsource.org/forums/external.php?lastpost=true&type=rss

To display only new posts use external.php?newpost=true&type=rss instead.

Now how do you get this into wordpress?

Out of the box, WordPress can retrieve and pass an RSS feed. WordPress uses the MagpieRSS and RSSCache functions for parsing and automatic caching and the Snoopy HTTP client for the actual retrieval. See Fetch_rss.

A code sample to fetch your 10 latest posts:

<?php // Get RSS Feed(s)
include_once(ABSPATH . WPINC . '/rss.php');
$rss = fetch_rss('http://www.your domain.com/forums/external.php?lastpost=true&type=rss');
$maxitems = 10;
$items = array_slice($rss->items, 0, $maxitems);
?>

joomla authentication method reset.

I was helping someone remove the Rokbridge Joomla 1.5 phpbb3 bridge due to this error:

Warning: plgAuthenticationPHPBB3::require(/home .... failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/xxxxx/public_html/xxxxx/plugins/authentication/phpbb3.php on line 66

Google wasn't much help in diagnosing a similar issue so here goes the sql fix I sent the user:

Fire up phpmyadmin and click your Joomla Database (Left Menu).
Select "jos_plugins" and phpmyadmin will display the Filestructure of this table.

You now need to click the "Browse" Tab to display this table in rows.

Make sure you have all the rows showing i.e. "200 row(s) starting from record # 0"

You Should see the authentication rows named:
Authentication - Joomla
Authentication - LDAP
Authentication - GMail
Authentication - OpenID

I am not sure what the bridge authentication cell will be called - probably Authentication - Rokbridge or similar.
Click "Edit" on Authentication - Rokbridge and change published to 0
Click go
Now click "Edit" on Authentication - Joomla and change published to 1

You should now be able to log in as per normal.

WordPress - Post to Page?

I was searching for some way to convert a WordPress post (a blog entry) to a page (static content) without the need to edit individual database entries: 'post_status' column - from 'publish' to 'static' etc when I came across p2pConverter

Wonderful guys these plugin writers!

Converts either a static Page into a Post, or a Post into a static Page!
Just click on the Manage tab in the Admin interface, and click the Posts or Pages sub-tab.  Within that page you will see an extra column, with a Convert! option. If you want to convert a page or a post to the either, click that link! Or you can click Convert while editing a post or page in the bottom right side bar.

ozsource network updates

ozsource.net The original aussie web and media lifestyle blog.

hevshe.com is another web experiment:  The alternative ♀♂ source.  Not sure what I'll be doing with it though it gives me something to do when I should be working.  I also need to stop being lazy and start doing some wordpress themeing.

flobblebobbleseocmstest

There is an interesting article on Compass designs which asks the question: Does WordPress have better out of the box SEO than Joomla?

Out of the box the results are not apparent, but with a bit of 2 minute tweaking what would happen?

Vbulletin Integration - CMS ’s and Portals

I bought a vbulletin license a while back in order to update OzSource to something a bit more advanced, the issue was trying to give this forum script a home/portal page as an entry point for a community and with my limited coding ability, I set apon google to find potential ways to achieve this:

vbadvanced

vBadvanced CMPS is quite a popular portal for vbulletin which can pull threads from various forums and populate a front page. Quite a few different modules are available for it though it lacks the ability to create articles and categories. The $49.99 vBadvanced Dynamics has this feature available from vbadvanced also.

vbdrupal

An integration of the popular cms Drupal and vbulletin. Quite a powerful solution though difficult to master in the short term. Currently integrated with Drupal 5.7 and can use your vbulletin style.

VBcms

A similar module based system to that of vbadvanced though costs approximately US$75. Seems to be quite polished, a good alternative.

Ajaportal

AJA is a free Portal/Content Management System (CMS) which can stand alone or smoothly integrates with the most popular forum softwares such as vBulletin, Invision Power Board , phpBB, Simple Machines. Haven t tried it though certainly looks interesting. It’s a fork of PHP Nuke which has had a lot of negative criticism in recent years. Forks like Raven Nuke have proven to be secure so this could be one to watch.

Subdreamer

Integrates and skins the most popular forums available. This $99.99 script may be an option for those looking for a quick and easy instant online community.

MKportal

Also integrates with the most popular forum scripts and is free. Tried this with phpbb3 and it seemed to be a fairly decent alternative. The community is a bit smaller but has lots of potential.

Gtpublish

Not online yet but claims to “GTPublish empowers vBulletin Administrators to store and manage content more effectively.”

VBsed

Something I stumbled apon and was immediately impressed with. Not available for download but maybe in the future: “vBSed is a custom made cms script written around vbulletin and it is based on the not so popular but brilliant cms seditio.”

I’ll update this list when I can.