[thelist] Integrating a discussion forum

[April]

Of all that I've played with, punBB seems to be the easiest for using 
its database for other parts of your site.  You don't have to use the 
forums signup to create new users, and you can use the forums 
authentication to check if someone is signed in from anywhere in the 
site.  There's a how-to somewhere on the official sites discussion 
forum.  You're using their database schema though and adding your own 
custom fields.  As for it using your existing database schema... the 
amount of modification that would take probably wouldn't be worth it, 
since it's even more work and you break the forum for updates too.

partyarmy wrote:
> I have an existing website with an existing userbase. I'd like to
> integrate a bulletin board system instead of making my own, but can't
> find one that will work with my current setup. phpBB has a plugin that
> will import users from a csv file, but that only works if my userbase
> is static, and I can't really run the plugin everytime a new user
> joins the site. Doesn't seem ideal to have the same users in two
> different databases either.
> 
> Does anyone know of a way to use an existing userbase with phpBB or a
> discussion forum that allows you to use a custom database table for
> storing users?
> 
> Any help will be more than appreciated.