Vanilla Forum Integration

There was a topic back in 2012 where Deano was working on integrating Vanilla into Dolphin. Not sure what ever happen to that but would like to know if someone has successfully integrated it OR would be willing to work on an integration.

Don't know about integration but I have installed Vanilla at my subdomain and connected it to Dolphin using jsConnect SSO...

How about a little instructions on setting up the jsConnect SSO for Vanilla Forums and Dolphin?? 

 Okay... I will make a tutorial and send you the link in a day!

Here is a very quick, brief way to get going if you wanna try it.

Download Vanilla 2.2 HERE

Download JsConnect HERE

Extract and install Vanilla 2.2 as directed. I installed mine on a subdomain (ex. forum.mysite.com)

Extract the JsConnect and the upload it into the /Plugins directory where you installed the forums.

I am choosing to 'embed' this into my website and use SSO to connect. So here is what I did:

1. In the dashboard of Vanilla, I enabled embedding under the 'Forum' Section.

2. Once activated, it will give you the script needed to embed into your website. 

3. Vanilla has a theme specifically for embedding under Appearances.

4. Go into the Vanilla Dashboard and enable the JsConnect app in the Addons > Plugins area.

In Dolphin, create a new page and give it a name (ie MyForums). Add a HTML block and name it something like Forum Post.

You will then need to access you database via MyPhpAdmin and insert the embed code from there since the HTML Block will strip it.

NOW THE PROBLEM AREA (That I am having) - Configuring the JsConnect Settings for SSO:

I went to the very bottom and clicked Generate ClientID and Secret (no problem)

The fields are somewhat explanatory but I am having an issue with these 2 fields:

Authentication URL

Everything looks fine in the main website BUT it is still requiring a sign in. I did notice that it put an addition sign in box that has the site name I chose in the Settings. Clicking it prompts me to login to my site, but it doesn't log me into the Vanilla forum part.

I wrote a tutorial here http://bit.ly/1oscQan , You can check!

Note: I am not an advance developer nor even a beginner developer. I am still a student! So whatever I have written may not be the optimal solution. I am 100% sure it will work but there may be a better solution available too. I am talking about the PHP and SQL code written in the tutorial!

IrfanAlam,

First, thank you for the tutorial. I followed the instructions but I continue to get the error during test:

Connection failed: Access denied for user 'mydolphindbusername' @ 'localhost'. (Using password = YES)

Of course, the user is my actual Dolphin database user. I know the username and password is correct. I triple checked it.

In your code, you have this at the top:

$memID = $_COOKIE['memberID'];

Should we be putting something where 'memberID' is?

Should we be logged into Dolphin at the same time when testing the URL?

 As the error says itself, Access denied. You may be giving incorrect database name or database user or database password. Are you mismatching username with dbname? You can check all these details in /inc/header.inc.php file

Create one separate sample php file and paste the following to try this if it is working

<?php $servername = "localhost"; $username = "username"; $password = "password"; $dbname = "databasename"; $conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname); if ($conn->connect_error) { die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error); } $sql = "SELECT * FROM Profiles WHERE ID='1'"; $result = $conn->query($sql); if ($result->num_rows > 0) { while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) { $dname = $row[FullName]; $demail = $row[Email]; } } echo $dname; echo $demail; ?>

See if it showing site admin name and email or not.

>> $memID = $_COOKIE['memberID'];

It will fetch you the logged in member ID on Dolphin

>>Should we be putting something where 'memberID' is?

No, Its default function to get logged in memberID.

>>Should we be logged into Dolphin at the same time when testing the URL?

If you have placed the 'if' condition and if you are logged in then it will show you something like this 

test({"uniqueid":"1","name":"Admin","email":"admin@mydolphin.com","photourl":" ","client_id":"245879359","signature":"77adfbdf52ae5246sd9837554s1a7daafb2"});

If you are not logged in then it will show something like this 

It seems you are not Logged In at My Dolphin or You account is not active. Unable to retrieve data!

Thanks. I was able to figure out the connection error. All is working well BUT, it doesn't seem to like the following:

$dnick

$dname

$email

When I connect, in stead of showing the nickname, name, email, it actually shows in Vanilla as $dnick, $dname, etc. So its not pulling the info for some reason.

Edit: The test script you provided works fine though.

test({"uniqueid":"$dnick","name":"$dname","email":"$demail","photourl":""

NVM - I figured it out. I had $dname, $demail, etc.. inside quotes..

Example

'$dname'

Thanks!!

Is it working? Are you able to login into Vanilla Forums when you click Sign in with My Dolphin button?

I pasted my complete jsconnect.php edited file here http://pastebin.com/nRBa5sHm

Just change the

1. database details

2. Client ID and Secret

3. Change website name to your website in echo field under ob_start();

It will work! 

What are your main benefits for using vanilla over orca?

IrFanAlam - Yes, everything is working just fine now thanks.

Daihlo - Vanilla is pretty simple and has all the basic needs you could ask for when it comes to a forum, plus very easy to navigate. I have a particular site where most members are middle aged or older. Too much can scare them away however, KISS (Keep it simple stupid) is whats needed sometimes.

Not to mention that Vanilla supports mentions using the @Username sign, easy file uploader (browse or drag and drop) or simply paste the URL, among other things. The easier you can make something and still have full features, the better.

Hey when you guys are using the Embed for Vanilla Forums with Dolphin, if you click on a Discussion, are you seeing the Top Navigation Bar for the Vanilla Forums partially cut off sometimes, and if you Refresh it then appears correctly?

 I didn't, but I was also using the embed friendly theme.

I will go ahead and let you know that I canned the idea of embedding this forum. Vanilla has a neat little feature built in when you click a forum topic, it takes you to the last comment you read. Helps quite a bit when topics have more than one page and you don't have to go through everything to get to the last one.

This feature will NOT work when you have it embedded into Dolphin. So I just kept it in the sub-directory and redirected there instead.