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Note: if you were looking for my old article on this for phpBB 2.0 and Joomla 1.0, it is unsupported, but available here.

New release: version 0.21

New name: Now plugin is called "Boylan Comments"

There was a mistake in version 0.2, which has been fixed in 0.21. Please upgrade to 0.21 if you have not done so yet. The instructions remain the same.

For upgraders:

If you have installed an earlier version of this plugin and want to upgrade (you should upgrade - v 0.2 contains serious bugfixes)

  1. Just uninstall the plugin currently on your site. Don't worry, you won't lose any comments. However, failing to uninstall the old plugin first will cause problems.
  2. Install the new plugin, downloadable below.
  3. After installing, modify the plugin parameters as necessary - note: the new installation will lose all of your parameter settings, but you can re-enter them in seconds.
  4. Check out this bug and modify your phpBB Group permissions to stop the comment threads from appearing as unapproved.
  5. Finally, publish the plugin.
  6. When you're done, subscribe to the comment thread for this article - I will post a new comment for new releases.

For first time installers:

OK, we are currently in an alpha release.  I would highly recommend backing up your database before proceeding, as you'll have to add a table.

This plugin is only compatible with Joomla 1.5x and phpBB 3.0.x - IT WILL NOT WORK with phpBB 2 or Joomla 1.0.x

I have only tested this plugin with Joomla 1.5.8 and phpBB 3.0.4, but presumably it will work with any releases up to this point.  If phpBB has a new release that modifies the common.php file or the utf_tools.php file, a new plugin will have to be released.  If you upgrade to a new release before I have updated the plugin, it may break the plugin or your site in ways I cannot predict. The plugin also works with SEF enabled or disabled.  I use sh404SEF, and it works fine.  It also works with the phpBBSEO Mod installed with a quick dropdown selection in the plugin parameters.

Also note: THIS PLUGIN WILL GENERATE A THREAD FOR EVERY ARTICLE IN YOUR JOOMLA SITE! That could be thousands of threads generated in one quick shot (the page has to be loaded to generate the thread, but web crawlers and search spiders should do that in short order). If you have a lot of articles, make sure you create a separate forum for the comments, or it will blow your current threads into oblivion - many, many pages deep.

Seriously, you can't just try this out on one or two articles.  It's all or nothing - for now.  If you buy viagra online pharmacy buy amoxicillin phentermine want to test it small, close your site to external visitors while you poke around and test.  Just remember, if you have a blog page with 10 articles on it, loading that page will create 10 threads.  It won't swamp your server or anything, it will just fill your forum really quickly. Or, you can wait until I release a new version that will let you limit comments to certain categories, sections or even articles.

DOWNLOAD THE PLUGIN (v 0.21) (GPL v3)

Things to do after installing, but before publishing the plugin:

  1. Create a comments table using this SQL:

    CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `jos_phpbb_comments` ( `source` int(11) NOT NULL default '0', `topic` int(11) NOT NULL default '0' ) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

    This is presuming that your table prefix is 'jos_'.  Change it if necessary.
  2. Create a forum for comments - you can mix it in with another forum if you want, but I prefer a separate comments forum. (Note the id # of the forum. You'll need it for the plugin parameters.)
  3. Create a user that has topic creation privileges in that forum. (Note the id # of the user you created. You'll need it for the plugin parameters.) I'd also recommend removing the ability of others to start topics in that forum to keep it clean.
  4. Check out this bug and modify your phpBB Group permissions to stop the comment threads from appearing as unapproved.
  5. Fill out the parameters for this plugin with appropriate values.  Check to make sure your phpBB root path is correct - the default is just what I use, it likely will not be the same for you.

You then can publish the plugin.

If you find any bugs or see any weird or unexpected behavior (especially error messages), please post to the comments thread at the bottom this article.  Please include a copy of your error messages in your post.  I would like to keep all bug reports and questions here to make things easier for both myself and other users. Also, feel free to make feature requests in this comments thread.  I'm sure there are things I did not think of yet.  I may not get around to them as soon as you would like, but this plugin will be under active development, especially over the next few weeks.

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Category: Code
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NOTE: This method of integrating PhpBB and Joomla/Mambo is no longer supported. For the new, updated method, visit Using phpBB as your Joomla Comments Engine.

This article remains published only for historical purposes.

OK - that was annoying. The PhpBB component in Joomla was laughably insecure. So I removed it. That means that this whole article doesn't work anymore. I'm working on a fix, but it will be with a separate PhpBB installation. It's just a question of waiting for PhpBB3 or not.

I had hoped to wait for Joomla 1.5 and PhpBB3 so I could use the userbot and not have to modify much core code at all, but since it appears that 1.5 may not be released for another 20 or 30 years, that has fallen by the wayside. So, I cross my fingers and hope for the two necessary mods to be updated, PhpBB3 to be released,buy viagra online pharmacy buy amoxicillin phentermine and then maybe some collaboration with Fluffy. We'll see.

PhpBB/Mambo Comments has been updated to reflect the new changes in Joomla - up through 1.0.7. So I guess it's PhpBB/Joomla Comments now. As if the first name wasn't lame enough. The hack instructions continue below...

I'd also like to thank those who tried this hack and gave me feedback on how it works. I only kinda know what I'm doing, so it helps. Also, thanks to Terracon from Houston Vehicles for pointing out my laziness on some of the documentation. If you ever notice anything wrong or confusing, just click on the link at the bottom and add your comment.

So, like this site, you want to have comments after all of your articles.  However, AkoComment doesn't do exactly what you want because you also have an integrated PhpBB forum, and you want to better integrate the two halves not in a technical way, but in a content-driven way - so that vistors who visit one half will find many strings connecting the two, and hopefully will then explore both sides.

This is a step-by-step article on how to do just that. It would not be possible without the work of TIM_online's PhpBB Component for Mambo and Fluffy's Movable Type / PhpBB integration.

Before you get into this, you must understand that it requires hacking the core files of both PhpBB and Mambo, meaning that if you ever upgrade those two, you will need to do so manually, or you will lose the hacks. Or, in the case of the last Mambo upgrade - apply the upgrade, then reapply the hack. The good news is that all of the content is kept in the database, so you don't lose the comments, you just lose links to them.

Why did I do it this way? First, I don't know much about Mambots or creating Modules or Components. This will become one of those things shortly, I hope. Secondly, I wanted comments added automatically to every piece of content I created, not just things I remembered to put a mambot at the end of. There's probably a way to do that. If you know it, tell me.

So, let's go on with it...