Wordpress/Vbulletin users, come hither please!

**MissMoke** · 02-19-2008, 08:50 AM

I have some questions that I don't seem to be able to find the answers to and wondered if you who are using it could help me?

I am hoping to dump my vbAdvanced boxy CMS and move toward a more fluid, bloggish type front page. Since our forums are closed to guests, our front page really has to be our representative.

I want WP to be my homepage and for only members of my forum to be able to comment on entries made there. I also want the flexibilty to manage the page better than vb advanced in which I have to create a boxy module to hold the information I want to put out there.

1. Has anyone been able to get the bridge posted on vb.org to work? I've seen a couple of forums that appear to be using it but the thread on vb.org has me scared. And if so, what exactly does that mean? Just that my members (on the forum) can comment on the blog posts, and what I blog shows up on the forum, as well as the comments?

2. Where does the post begin? In the forum, or on the blog? If I wanted to make a new entry for today, would I go to WP and make the post and it would show up on the forum?

3. What about my forum skin? Does the blog integrate with the forum so that my header and footer and background image show up or will the blog have to be designed to match the skin? If so that would make it hard (and expensive) to change skins, especially since we have two active but very different looking skins and I am looking to spruce us up later this year with another skin.

4. I've never worked with WP before. Am I going to have to know HTML to add blurbs here and there about challenges and contests? Or will it work like Blogger where you name your sections and paste the info where it needs to go.

5. How difficult is the install? What about the bridge? Just so that if I have to send this out for quote I will know that $X is NOT enough money to do this project.

Thanks for your input, I'll post more ?'s if I come up with them.

**MissMoke** · 02-19-2008, 07:59 PM

Well boo.

I haven't really found anyone who got the bridge to work. Not to mention I'm no HTML whiz so maybe this isn't a good choice for me.

**Brandon Sheley** · 02-19-2008, 08:25 PM

1. I messed with it one day and didn't get it working correctly, but I only spent about 15 mins on it.
2. I think it can be set how you want it. I would of wanted the blog post to remain a blog post, but allow the members of the forum to comment.
3. no, they are different.. There are tons and tons of Free Word Press Styles, you can find a coder to design and code a wp style for less then 100$
4. no html experience is needed

wordpress now uses widgets, so it's drag and drop for the modules.
5. wordpress is very easy, I don't know about the bridge.

hope that helps you out

I'll try to check out the bridge again asap, especially since I have the phpld directory and vb integrated now

-Brandon

**MissMoke** · 02-20-2008, 03:12 AM

Someone at .org responded that he had got it to work. His site looks great with the addition. I've asked him if he would mind installing it for me. I guess I would need a theme that goes with my default skin then.

**MissMoke** · 02-22-2008, 09:23 AM

Ok update.

I got someone to install it, he said it wasn't that big of a deal. However,it doesn't appear to work as the coder said it does. It DOES post the blog entry to the forum of choice, however on other blogs where this is installed, when you click on comments, it takes you to the discussion in forum wherein if you are a member of the board, you may comment.

My install is not doing that. The coder that installed it said it doesn't appear that the mod does that. All it does is integrate WP and VB, there aren't any other functions to install. So, I dunno if he had to pull it out or if I have mine set up wrong but that's the BEST feature in the whole mod and I can't even use it.

Original coder is unresponsive to my questions so I deactivated the plug- in until I can find someone who knows how to get it to do what he SAYS it will do.

**lombardo** · 02-22-2008, 10:13 AM

Is there a way if someone registers with your blog they automatically register with the forum aswell?

**MissMoke** · 02-22-2008, 10:26 AM

No, it doesn't appear to work that way. The way it is designed a person reading the blog could click to comment, be taken to the forum discussion, and depending on the modification you have installed, could either see truncated responses ("to see this full post click HERE to register!") or the typical welcome headers.

However mine is not working like that whatsoever. The only thing it has done is made it so that blog posts post on the forum and it made my users WordPress Subscribers. It's not useful to me if that's all it will do.. that is not what I installed it for.

**lombardo** · 02-22-2008, 11:07 AM

what you said there at first would be ideal for me as my blog is about my forum. wish someone would come up with somthing like that.

**MissMoke** · 02-22-2008, 11:23 AM

Could probably hire a private coder. I have seen it working, it likely takes some cash though.

**Brandon Sheley** · 02-22-2008, 11:38 AM

I wouldn't think it would cost more then 1 or 200 dollars to have a custom coded job done.

**lombardo** · 02-22-2008, 12:30 PM

I'm skint,my site is only 2 months old and i've already spent about £300 on it and i'm not working at the moment.

**MissMoke** · 02-22-2008, 12:40 PM

It's a bit low on the priority list for me, but I definitely will get it fixed sometime in the future.

**AWS** · 02-22-2008, 07:58 PM

The person that installed for you did something wrong. The bridge uses vbulletin user table so if a user signs up on the blog they get an account on the forum. Your vbulletin users are also blog subscribers so if you decide to use the WP comment system instead of the forum they will be able to comment. Using the blog for comments is the way to go. I think the person missed a config setting.

**MissMoke** · 02-23-2008, 05:19 AM

Yes, my members become WP subscribers the second they click on the blog. However going to the blog does not make the general public members of my forum. I don't believe it was designed to work that way. At any rate membership is invitation only sos that would only work if you had open membership, no?

What it did do was give them a dashboard that allowed them to submit an entry. I didn't want that and there was no role that was just 'read and comment', so I turned off mapping to every group except Administrators. I want people to be able to READ the comments (in forum) but not be able to comment unless they are members.

I'm kind of hacked that I spent $XX having it installed, for that ONE feature.

Only thing I can do now is a workaround where it posts an excerpt in forum and takes them to the blog for commenting. They won't like all that jumping around though.

**Ross** · 02-23-2008, 03:11 PM

I had no luck with it either

after installing it, the blog itself was only showing the first 2 lines of a post (if you made it directly on the blog). I am hoping to try and work on it next weekend.

**MissMoke** · 02-23-2008, 04:56 PM

It appears the guy who installed mine missed an important part of the readme. I might be able to get it to work like I want after all if I can get him to make that change.

After all that, I'm now not sure I want to even use wordpress. Now I've given myself a headache!

Ross if you check the thread at vb.org there is a coder named MisterPopularity- he did mine and it works. Just missed a part. If you bat your eyes and ask nicely he may do yours as well. He's done it before.