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Looking for a forum software with member map


tux
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I'm currently running a wordpress site for which I want to help the site visitors to get in contact locally. By using the postalcode for example a map could be created with markers for all the registered users. By clicking on a marker a user should be able to get in touch with this person.

First I was looking at phpBB which covers the "get in touch" part for the visitors (private messages, later maybe also the forum functionality). What's would be missing is a member map, so registered forum users see who is also registered that lives near them. There are two deprecated extensions for phpBB that already provide the mapping feature (OpenStreetMap/GoogleMaps).

I already set up ProcessWire and copied the contents to get a feel for it (without the theme however). The forum on this site looks pretty good and is seemlessly integrated. So I was wondering...

- is the forum on this site a custom development based on processwire? If so, is it closed source or can others use it?

- If not, would integrating phpBB into a processwire site be possible? Integrating phpBB into Wordpress doesn't look easy / or not very stable with version changes.

 

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Hi @tux and welcome to PW.

a) look at the bottom of the page: Powered by Invision Community - it's also PHP-based, so sharing content between PW and IP.Board is pretty easy. Both systems have an API and hookable methods. https://invisioncommunity.com/features/content#forums

b) Depends how you define "integrate". Haven't used or looked at phpBB in a long long time, but since it's also built with PHP, the two systems can certainly talk to each other.

Bootstrapping PW is easy: https://processwire.com/api/include/

I guess you would have to decide what your main system is gonna be: the forum or PW? The rest is simply making sure you can use the same CSS for both, in order to make it look like one system, and not alienate visitors when they switch from one to the other.


 

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  • 2 weeks later...
27 minutes ago, desbest said:

I recommend MyBB with XThreads and you might want to make a mybb plugin yourself.

Thx, this looks nice, but am I right that this forum is 0% responsive and also has no mobile version? All those solutions look so oldschool :( Even https://www.phpbb.com/community/ looks more modern...

May I hear your reasons for choosing mybb over phpbb (they look quite similar)?

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It is possible to have a responsive design for mybb. Here is a good example on the Sinisterly forum.

I choose mybb over php because back in 2006-2008 I ran a free web hosting company, and made the big mistake of choosing phpbb instead of mybb. There was no such thing as plugins. They were called mods. To install a mod you had to modify the core phpbb code, and this caused HUGE problems if you had multiple mods installed or were running a newer phpbb version. Some mods would not work even if you had the required phpbb version and had followed the installation instructions correctly! You had to backup your website every time before you installed a mod. The "automod" mod which automated the modification of phpbb core files made the process easier, but did not solve any problems. You also have to backup your forum before upgrading phpbb as they do new versions which break the website and theme of the website if you're using a custom theme.

Phpbb uses bad shoddy code and mybb uses better code. The way to make plugins for mybb is much better than how to make a plugin for phpbb. And mybb has the XThreads plugin!

PS. I have not tried phpbb 3.1 and above where they rewrote a lot of things, added new features and removed lots of the suckiness.

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