I am not sure if this should be placed elsewhere, so please move if needed.
Within the next several months, I will administer a network of 20+ established MyBB forum communities, all on different domains, and all running the latest version of MyBB 1.6. All forums are niches of the same large general industry, so it will be useful to have one or two common forums shared and accesible from any one website across the network, where general industry discussion will occur.
1) How can I create a common forum that can be accessed from any of the websites?
2) How could login information be shared across each one? Eventually I would like registering to occur once -- after registering from any site, that person can then use that login information on any other site in the network.
Has anyone else accomplished a similar arrangement with MyBB? I know this can be done with Vbulletin.
To do this, there would need to be massive amount of core file edits. It may be easier in MyBB 1.8 due the the loginhandler being added, but I'm not sure.
(2012-05-01, 09:06 PM)Paul H. Wrote: [ -> ]To do this, there would need to be massive amount of core file edits. It may be easier in MyBB 1.8 due the the loginhandler being added, but I'm not sure.
Thank you for your reply.
Can you, or anyone else, elaborate on how MyBB 1.8 changes the loginhandler? Any word on how 2.0 will handle this?
(2012-05-01, 09:58 PM)Wimbledon Wrote: [ -> ]Can you, or anyone else, elaborate on how MyBB 1.8 changes the loginhandler?
I don't think that would make it any easier. You'd need to share tables between each installation. It's much more trouble than it's worth because you'll be constantly finding issues and bugs with it. It might be easier to just have separate forums.
(2012-05-01, 09:58 PM)Wimbledon Wrote: [ -> ]Any word on how 2.0 will handle this?
I'm afraid not, we're not at that stage yet.
Thank you both for your helpful replies.
1) Nathan, while certainly troublesome to perfect, would you say it is at least feasible? This is actually very important to me to eventually implement.
2) Do you know of any MyBB-powered sites out there that currently share tables, even among as few as two sites? How would these tables be shared?
3) Has anyone done anything remotely similar? Any guides as to how I would even approach this?
Honestly you should use a professional package. MyBB just isn't suited for this as it is. And the time you'll place into this would be better spend paying to have this ready.
Over the years many have tried and they have all failed. You'll run into so many obstacles doing this you'll likely give up 1/2 way through wasting any time you placed into this.
Just don't bother. Seriously.
(2012-05-02, 05:07 AM)Wimbledon Wrote: [ -> ]1) Nathan, while certainly troublesome to perfect, would you say it is at least feasible? This is actually very important to me to eventually implement.
If you have the time, money, and experience. Something like this won't come cheap. It's very hard to maintain. I wouldn't even consider taking up such a project and I've done some pretty wacky things with MyBB in the past.
(2012-05-02, 05:07 AM)Wimbledon Wrote: [ -> ]2) Do you know of any MyBB-powered sites out there that currently share tables, even among as few as two sites? How would these tables be shared?
A few people have attempted it with MyBB, ending up losing interest because it was taking too long. This is something which will need constant work and a lot of planning.
Sounds like I should start working again on my
Subdomain Split plugin as this is getting to be a requested a lot more lately
(2012-05-02, 02:25 PM)pavemen Wrote: [ -> ]Sounds like I should start working again on my Subdomain Split plugin as this is getting to be a requested a lot more lately
I was typing out a suggestion for an attempt using subdomains, cnames, and forum specific themes but felt it was too theoretical to post.
MyBB does allow you to specific themes to forums. I don't see anyone ever use it but it's there and could be powerful if properly implemented. Like having custom Steam colors on a gaming forum for Steam forums area. You can do complete changes like the logo and everything.
Remove the breadcrumb to full index, do some fancy schmancy edits and I think it will work. But not without a lot of experimenting and pain.
The benefit of that approach is that not only do you share the database but the file system as well. Making things like avatars and plugins network wide and on one server.
Now this is just a theoretical approach and I've never seen anyone do it but in my mind I think it's possible and how I would try it.
Big issue of course will be making sure cookies and sessions work under the cnames.
If you use just subdomains this would be easy to do.