I'm a complete newb when it comes to customizing bb's and such.

I setup a demo site for my brother for testing and playing on phpbb3 rc7, http://vinny.homeip.net:8880 and set up two themes I DL'd from the net.

I wanted to integrate it into a portal like http://www.motohouston.com or http://sanantoniosportbike.com.

I know both of the above are not phpbb. I don't want to pay for vbulletin, and I played with smf for a few minutes after installing and configuring phpbb. I didn't want to start from scratch on smf since I've put a little effort into phpbb.

I didn't want to leave the plain phpbb only, as that seems a little dry.

I installed phpbb3-portal, but nothing changed. I didn't toy with it much since I'm here at work, so I reverted to the state before the install and was curious if anyone had pointers, tutorials, bitch-slaps, or anything else of the sort.

The way I have it set up on DSMpurity.com (and the way most forums should be set up) is to not have the forum software on the root. Create a subfolder for it, i.e. yoursite.com/forum, and then that'll leave room for your portal on the root.

I have limited experience with phpbb3, and I do have experience with SMF.


**Edit** I think phpbb3portal is integrated with it, so you can probably disregard what I just said.

You do however, have a database error with the portal.


**Edit2** SMF does however, integrate with Mambo, a free open source CMS. Just food for thought.

Originally posted by cc8balla
You do however, have a database error with the portal.

I know, I'm still playing with it. I followed the install mod txt file and got everything installed, but there's no help on their support forum for it with mssql, as most use mysql.

I also found several references to an install_portal.php that is no where to be found in the ver I downloaded.

I know that some versions of *nuke (phpnuke, postnuke, etc) integrate with phpbb. Might want to check into those...

I was just checking phpnuke a few minutes ago, and was googling to see what else might integrate.

I'll play around with it more tomorrow.

Thanks for the infoz.