Programmer Wanted

[Kalah]

<img src="/https://www.celestialheavens.com/images ... _small.png" align=right vspace=5 hspace=5>We here at Celestial Heavens have been trying to refurbish our site for some time. Since our main site and forum are linked together, the upgrade process is a bit difficult and takes the skill of someone who knows about programming, and because we are a small site without a big budget, we are looking for volunteers.



<b>Specifically, we need a php programmer, preferrably with knowledge of phpbb3 and joomla - although the latter is voluntary.</b>



If you have the skill set, some free time and the desire to help us finish building the new site, please <b>contact us</b> <img src="/images/smiles/begging.gif"> either by commenting in this story or via e-mail: kalah@celestialheavens.com.



<center><img src="/https://www.celestialheavens.com/images ... "></center>

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/1364943135

[ywhtptgtfo]

You can always merge with Age of Heroes.

[Kalah]

No.

[Peredhil]

Not to mention that AoH site lacks updates in its own -2 news in 3 months,not even a H6 section...

[Angelspit]

Most sites across the community have had problems of some sort. Once a key contributor gets inactive, it's hard really hard to keep up.

We need a stronger foundation, one that will allow fans to get involved and easily share info and content. If we build it, they will come.

[ywhtptgtfo]

You should consider coming up with a way to divide up the tasks into smaller pieces. I am sure there are many like me who would be willing to pitch in some efforts to help, but I wouldn't bank on the possibility of getting a web developer who's both experienced and dedicated enough to spend his free time on this large project alone.



At the very least, you need another person to do the CSS and styling.

[GreatEmerald]

I'd say "screw forum/site integration" and just update the forum. Once that's done, update the site. And then look into how to integrate one into the other. Setting up a new version of phpBB and Joomla is easy in and of itself.

[Kalah]

It may come to that.

[Pol]

spend his free time on this large project alone.

He's not supposed to do this project alone. Only to tie some loose ends. There are other people aboard. But no programmer.

[ywhtptgtfo]

>He's not supposed to do this project alone. Only to tie some loose ends. >There are other people aboard. But no programmer.

To "tie up some loose ends" as the sole programmer? Well, I have no idea of how your website is structured and how much of the work can be done through joomla's toolkit without coding, but when it comes to making a major restructuring of a website, the developer should be the central figure of the project and not someone who ties up the "loose ends".

I don't want to come off as being negative, but that's just me speaking from experience.

[Pol]

@ywhtptgtfo
I see, you misunderstood. We need programmer for a smaller tasks, regarding the integration of our specific content structure. We don't need developer, that's my seat.

[ywhtptgtfo]

And what kind of smaller task do you need to be done?

[GreatEmerald]

>how much of the work can be done through joomla's toolkit without coding

A lot, actually. There are plenty of plugins to choose from, and each offers plenty of configuration options.

[Pol]

Send PM to ywhtptgtfo.

In case of any questions don't hesitate to contact me back.

[GreatEmerald]

Soo, uhm, how's it going? It's 2015 now, and phpBB2 is seven years old now. Yeah...

Also, the https site doesn't seem to be working at all (it gives me the error "ssl_error_rx_record_too_long"). Which means that's all what people with HTTPS Everywhere are seeing when trying to access the site, and it also means that passwords are sent via cleartext and thus susceptible to Man-in-the-middle attacks. (For HTTP/2 browsers will not even support non-HTTPS content, any content, for that reason.)

Then I won't even talk about the software running the site, because if my information is correct, it's even older than the forum software and has quite a few known security holes...

And then there's also this: https://validator.w3.org/check?uri=celestialheavens.com

So an update is needed real bad.

Now, for the original issue discussed here: the forum-website integration. What you need is called jFusion:
http://www.jfusion.org/feature/what-is-jfusion
http://www.joomlatune.com/forum/index.php?topic=3845.0
As you can see, it (at least version 2) provides both the single login and the comment-from-site functionality. No programming needed there.

Alternatively there's also p8pbb, though it's fairly expensive: http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions ... b-comments

Is there anything else that's needed? Note that I have a Joomla website running on Linux myself (VPS, built from scratch), so I know the ropes and would be willing to help out if anything on that front is needed. I don't really program in PHP (though I program in D and C), but for the vast majority of tasks that shouldn't be necessary and definitely should not get in the way of security.

[Kalah]

Actually, things aren't going well. I think things are moving way too slowly and I am beginning to doubt the project will ever be completed; I have therefore decided to set a deadline of end of the year. If not completed by then, I will tro ty recreate CH from scratch. That also is given a 1-year deadline.

[GreatEmerald]

Well, the forums don't need to be recreated from scratch, as the upgrade to phpBB3 should be quite straightforward, it even includes a phpBB2 migration tool out of the box.

As for the website, are you even running an actual CMS on it, or was it all made from scratch? In the latter case, I think recreating it is the best course of action one way or another. Maintaining custom code for an entire website is just not feasible without someone actively working on it. And, thinking about it, even if it currently a CMS, upgrading likely means recreating it from scratch, too (even my Joomla 1.5 → 3 upgrade meant exporting and reimporting all the content). I suppose what you're looking for in that case is a tool that would convert the database entries from your current format to the one compatible with Joomla? That ought to be doable...

[Kalah]

The forum is integrated with the main site. That's part of the problem. The other problem is that we aren't that many who have time to work on this; I guess I am the only one who can work on the site every day. The problem there is that I am not programming savvy myself, so when you talk about "CMS" and "Joomla" I don't really know what you're talking about. You can see how that makes the project unfeasible.
But if you'd like to see if you can help us out, I'd be happy to accept.

[GreatEmerald]

Those aren't programming terms, silly A CMS is a "content management system". It's a web engine for running websites. Most websites use a CMS, as opposed to writing a website from scratch, because it's much simpler and easier to maintain (same goes for forums). Joomla is a type of CMS, and there are others, like Drupal, WordPress, XOOPS etc.

One of the features of CMSs is that they typically have support for addons. That includes addons for integrating with forums, because that's a thing a lot of website owners want to have. Which makes setting up websites relatively easy!

From the front page I can't tell if you're using a CMS already or if it's made from scratch. There's no real indication, and I guess the best way to tell is to remember how the site was built?

And sure, I'm currently working on updating my own website as well (that's why I remembered the state of these forums ), so I can look into the situation here as well.

[GreatEmerald]

One other thing that came to mind, you wanted to have a wiki but that got stuck. If my information is correct, then with the PHP version you're using, no non-ancient (anything newer than nine years old) MediaWiki will run on it, so I'm assuming that's the problem right there.

Of course, there's a bit of a circular dependency in that phpBB2 officially only supports PHP 4. Thankfully, there's a way to make it work on PHP5 with a few simple modifications to the files:
https://techjourney.net/making-phpbb2-w ... with-php5/

So all in all I think you should first focus on renewing all the base technology, and only then look into upgrading the front-ends. Assuming, of course, that you can do it (depends on how the site is being hosted).