php bb/forum

[dhossai]

Happy Holidays friends!

I was wondering if it is possible to implement any bulletein boad with my existing user table! what I meant is I alrady have a page where users signup to log in. Now I want to use the same user credential to use the bulletein board. Could some one pls explain how can i implement it.

[alexgeek]

It would probably take a lot of queries, what does your user table look like?

[dhossai]

My user table has following field
userid(which is email address), firstname, middlename, lastname, address, city, country, age, gender, education and current profession. you can view it at
http://www.bangladeshilivingabroad.com/signup.html

[saltedm8]

PHPBB2 keeps sessions using cookies. Making the cookies extend to your main site is a fairly simple task.
There is a small complication with keeping the PHPBB2 sessions active when linking from your integrated main site to your forum. You have to use the append_sid() function on all the links to your forum. It is also recommended to do this with all links that point to the mainsite, but it is not required.
Lets start with a simple file that we will include in all your main site pages. This file will take care of the cookies PHPPBB2 uses and allow us to use PHPBB2 defined functions.

PHP: Select all

  <?php
define('IN_PHPBB', true);
 $phpbb_root_path = 'forums/'; //Relative path to your PHPBB2 installation
include($phpbb_root_path . 'extension.inc');
include($phpbb_root_path . 'common.'.$phpEx);
 $userdata = session_pagestart($user_ip, PAGE_INDEX);
init_userprefs($userdata);
?>

THis is an example page which includes the above file and checks if a user is logged in and if the user is a guest displays a login form.

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  <?php
include('include.php'); //include our session handling file, make sure you have the right file name if( !$userdata['session_logged_in'] ) // Is the user NOT logged in?
    {
      ?>
<form action="forums/login.php" method="post" name="login"> <!-- Show a simple login form -->
 <input type="text" name="username"><br />
<input type="password" name="password"><br />
<input type="hidden" name="redirect" value="../index.php"> <!-- Redirect the user to a page different than the PHPBB2 index page. You can delete this if you want. The path must be relative from the PHPBB2 login file. -->
 <input type="submit" value="login" name="login"> 
</form>
      <?php
    }
?>

Make sure that the action attribute of the form tag points to your forums login page.
Now for the append_sid() function, here is an example of how the function can be use on your URLs.

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  <?php
 $phpbb_links = array ( //start our array
'home' => append_sid("index.$phpEx"), // .$phpEx is the way PHPBB2 writes the .php file extension, change this to just .html if you use .html files or other file extensions. 
 'forums_home' => append_sid("forums/index.$phpEx"),
'tolist' => append_sid("toplist.$phpEx"), // notice the comma after each line
 'downloads' => append_sid("downloads.$phpEx") // there is no comma on the last line
); // end our array
?>

You can simply put this code at the top of your page or even better put it in the sessions file that you include on each page.
Then you simply call the variable when you want the link.

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<a href="<?php echo $phpbb_links['home']; ?>">Site Home</a>

It's as simple as that. This is how to display some information about a user when he or she is logged in.

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  <?php
include('include.php'); //include our session handling file
if( $userdata['session_logged_in'] ) // Is the user logged in?
    {
    $appendLogout = $u_login_logout = $phpbb_root_path.'login.'.$phpEx.'?logout=true&amp;sid=' . $userdata['session_id']; // Add the session ID to the logout link
     echo "Welcome back, <a href=\"forums/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=".$userdata['user_id']."\" title=\"".$userdata['username']."\">".$userdata['username']."</a>!<br />"; // Show a welcome message
     echo "<a href=\"forums/privmsg.php?folder=inbox\" title=\"You have ".$userdata['user_unread_privmsg']." new messages\">(".$userdata['user_unread_privmsg'].") New Messages</a><br />"; // Any new PMs?
     echo "<a href=\"forums/profile.php?mode=editprofile\" title=\"My Profile\">My Profile</a><br />"; // Edit your profile link
     echo "<a href=\"".$appendLogout."\" title=\"Logout\">Logout</a><br />"; // Logout link
    } // end if, if you want you could add a login form in an else statement below
?>

Make sure you make the links point to your forums, if you want you can change all the links to use the $phpbb_root_path set in the included file as I have done in the logout link. Also notice that i didn't use append_sid() on the logout link, it is required to add the session id manually on a logout link otherwise you will get an error from the logout page.

[RohanShenoy]

Do you mean you already have a database which has some usernames and passwords.
Now, you want to implement another forum and for people who have registered their usernames and passwords earlier, you want them to login into the new forum using the same usernames and pasword; right?

[dhossai]

First of all thank you very much to "Saltedm8" for your time to post such a long and descriptive posting. I will have to sit down and understand the whole thing. I am a novice in the subject so it will probably take time for me.
Now to Rohan, you got that right. I want the existing registerd people to use the BB using the same credential when they signup to the site. And also new people who sign up to the site should use the same id and password. I do not want user to register twice. I hope you understand.

[RohanShenoy]

The simplest solution I can think of is:
1. Change the headers of your existing database and make them similar to those of the table in forum database. Import this database into new forum database.
2. Now point your existing login script and registration form to the forum login form and registration form.

[saltedm8]

if you want to keep the same credentials, there is a mod that can help you add custom fields to the phpbb register form, and then you can just copy ( migrate ) your existing users and put them into the phpbb users table ( if you did what i said above, you will be using phpbb's database table, not a new one and you cant use the one you already have either )

[Jack Franklin]

Surely the easiest thing would be to backup your table, install the phpBB forum database, and add your values to the correct fields in the new MYSQL database?

[saltedm8]

it would be but you have to make sure you change some of the values in the saved file to 'match' the mysql tables and database info of phpbb

for example you will have to change

my_table to phpbb_table

my_username to phpbb_username ...etc

( these are not the actual values they are just examples )