Looking for advice on how to integrate a forum into a Joomla site

Buchanan0204 · 30 Mar 2011 at 01:13

I'm looking for a bit of advice on how to integrate a forum into a Joomla website. I would really love to use Vbulletin like OcUK as I think it's a cracking forum style.

My knowledge is pretty limited with regards to web design, I tend to paint by numbers.

If you need to see the site, let me know and I'll post it up.

Cheers.

Jakeee · 30 Mar 2011 at 08:19

http://www.alledia.com/blog/joomla-tutorials/agora/

http://www.kunena.org/forum/77-gene...unena-joomla-and-the-world-of-internet-forums

http://www.kunena.org/forum/16-archive-installation/1840-how-to-install-kunena

Mr Blonde · 30 Mar 2011 at 15:30

It can be done with care via the Jfusion plugin : http://www.jfusion.org/docs/doku.php?id=vbulletin;frameless

Buchanan0204 · 30 Mar 2011 at 17:23

Mr Blonde said:
It can be done with care via the Jfusion plugin : http://www.jfusion.org/docs/doku.php?id=vbulletin;frameless

That's right over my head to be honest with you. Do you think I could get away with installing one of the above mentioned from the other guy.

Basically I'm looking for a basic plugin/module to install, and that should be me. Is it this easy? Or am I being far too optimisitc?

Mr Blonde · 30 Mar 2011 at 18:29

If your host comes with cPanel you will have a thing called Softlicious which is basically a list of scripts that automate the install of many different CMS's, forums and other stuff. It's what I used to get my Joomla CMS installed initially. I then put Kunena forums on via the Joomla install after that.

After that it's just a matter of creating the various forum sections and categories that you want in place and a menu option pointing to the forum...or you can have it visible on your front page should you wish.
Here's the one I did. It's totally average but it's fine for us : www.swedgeville.org

The option to install vBulletin won't be available to you however, as it's a paid for forum. If you really want it then heading over to vBulletin and seeing what they say about integrating it with Joomla is the way forward.

A note of caution : Don't use Joomla 1.6 with Kunena if you do decide to go that route, as it's as buggy as hell at this time. Stick with Joomla 1.5.22 for now.

Buchanan0204 · 31 Mar 2011 at 15:54

Mr Blonde said:
If your host comes with cPanel you will have a thing called Softlicious which is basically a list of scripts that automate the install of many different CMS's, forums and other stuff. It's what I used to get my Joomla CMS installed initially. I then put Kunena forums on via the Joomla install after that.

After that it's just a matter of creating the various forum sections and categories that you want in place and a menu option pointing to the forum...or you can have it visible on your front page should you wish.
Here's the one I did. It's totally average but it's fine for us : www.swedgeville.org

The option to install vBulletin won't be available to you however, as it's a paid for forum. If you really want it then heading over to vBulletin and seeing what they say about integrating it with Joomla is the way forward.

A note of caution : Don't use Joomla 1.6 with Kunena if you do decide to go that route, as it's as buggy as hell at this time. Stick with Joomla 1.5.22 for now.

Thanks' very much, I'm going to have a bash at it now. I'll keep you posted how I get on.

Your site looks really good, when you said you can have it on the homepage... is that the way yours is setup. I would like mine to be like Ocuk, where it's a different site altogether, of course linked... but no sign of the homepage, so people can login directly to that.

Mr Blonde · 1 Apr 2011 at 01:27

Buchanan0204 said:
Thanks' very much, I'm going to have a bash at it now. I'll keep you posted how I get on.

Your site looks really good, when you said you can have it on the homepage... is that the way yours is setup. I would like mine to be like Ocuk, where it's a different site altogether, of course linked... but no sign of the homepage, so people can login directly to that.

No, I don't have it set up like that. I want people to hit the front page and see the main menu there and read the "about us" first. We're a gaming guild and don't want any old riff-raff applying to join us

If you want your forum to be the first port of call :

1. Log in to the Joomla administrator backend.

2. Go to the Kunena menu or wherever your "Kunena Forum » Entrypage" menu item is located.

3. Click on the checkbox on the left and click the Default button in the toolbar.

From what you're asking though, it sounds like you'll need to find a plain "one column" Joomla template to get a similar look to this here...and a dynamic one at that (not fixed width). One where you can put up a banner / header logo at the top saying who you are and then have the forum covering the full width of the page below this.