My site that im building is www.smcscience.co.uk/index.php It uses the Community Builder bridge to bridge it (i had some major problems with other bridges).

Also, my friends have made Joomla sites with the phpbb bridge from CB as well:-
www.fluffy.co.nr www.zirup.com www.hodkins.net
www.1up-clan.co.nr

All use Joomla

I agree with your comment about CMS and forum synching, i had some major problems at first. However, i would seriously recommend the Community Builder phpconnector bridge. It syncs users perfect. But it all depends on what you want your site for, the sites shown above would be prodominantly forum based and its nice to have an integrated flashy frontpage whereas this is the opposite and joomlaboard fits perfect

These sites all look really good. But none of them actually have the forum "wrapped" into Joomla. I wanted the forum for this site to appear in the content area, as opposed to be a completely separate looking site. That was one of the primary reasons I chose JoomlaBoard. SMF has a wrapper, but it caused errors.

As an added note: One of the benefits of using a stand-alone forum is that if for some reason you decide to abandon your Joomla site or it stops working, you can still keep the forum intact since it will run on its own.

Im sure in the the phpconnector file there is an option for integration but that still requires someone to redesign the template of the forums.

The only sites that i have seen which are integrated are the rocketthemes as all of the sites stated are, but they are for SMF

I think joomlaboard works well with this site, but wouldnt it get annoying having to moderate it on a large site

ThemeBot wrote:

QUOTE:
It can be a bit confusing when you first start learning a CMS. You need to create a menu item that points to the JoomlaBoard component. Then it will be accessible from the frontend.

Thank You.

I will go back to it and see if I can remember how to add a menu item. I have added other menu items so I should be able to find it without too many detours.

Once I do find it.... Where would I find the Address for the menu link to link to? (the address of the joomlaboard) Is it going to show up when I 'mouse over' it in the control panel anywhere?

I Found it!!!! Disregard my previous question about address.
I really found it fast!!! I am really proud of myself.

Sorry for being such a newbie Thanks again for your help with this. I really appreciate it. (and the template as well...my site looks so much better already).

This discussion is very interesting. I agree about the phpbb2 forum structure. I havn't figured out how to modify the templates yet. I have switched out the logo so that my forums have their own graphic.

What I would like to learn is how to re-direct the register link to a page that gives new members a list of forums to choose from. (some have a desire to remain invitation only and this would ultimatley remove their forum from the automatic registration option)

another thing that I would like to be able to do is to use the phpbb2 and not have members need to log in more than once (if they are logged in to joomla-they should be logged in to the forum as well)...

This is a potentially endless list that I am exploring options at the phpbb community. And for now I'll use the joomlaboard until I can figure out all the other aspects (and a bridge??? there seems to always be more to learn }

I am pretty good at editing phpbb forums now.

Any questions ask me and i might be able to help

As for your registration question, it is a lot easily if you have dreamweaver.

Open up overall_header.tpl

Have it in design view and you should see

Code:

{L_REGISTER}

Single click onto this;

Code:

{U_REGISTER}

should appear in the link field on the bottom taskbar. Change this to your desired link starting with http://

If you do not have dreamweaver and just a basic code editor or wordpad then dont worry

Find this line of code

Code:

<a href="{U_REGISTER}">{L_REGISTER}</a>

Edit

Code:

{U_REGISTER}

with your desired link starting with http://

Hope that helps

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As for your login feature, is your joomla are forum bridge or are they separate

If they are bridged, then i belive it is just the browser that prevents simutaneous logging. I remember on my site, it does auto login until i clear my cache then all hell breaks loose

Another really nice editor for web developers is PSPad. It is freeware and has a lot of great features, like color-coding your html and php code when the files are opened. It will also load huge files much quicker than notepad. Check it out, it is worth the download:

http://www.pspad.com/en/

I'm eventually going to write an article, something along the lines of, "A Web Developer's Essential Toolkit of Free and Open Source Software."