Eminos Posted August 12, 2007 Share Posted August 12, 2007 Hi there, I'm currently using Joomlas Wrapper (IFRAME) function to integrate WHMCS into my pages. This has been working fine, but IFRAMEs are evil and I'd like an other way of implementing WHMCS into Joomla. The ways of doing this as I know of are: 1) Wrapper / IFRAME. 2) Customizing WHMCS template to include the Joomla template design. If using this then you actually don't get the dynamic Joomla CMS, but static pages that just looks like Joomla. If you change something in Joomla, like add a menu, it wont show up in the WHMCS templates obviously. 3) Some kind of module/mambot/plugin for Joomla, that can include PHP-pages into content. With this way you could put the WHMCS order page into an article of Joomla. I guess there would be problems with the WHMCS code between the different order pages, but I don't know. I havn't tested this but I am very interested if people have got something like this to work?? /E 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nitro Posted August 13, 2007 Share Posted August 13, 2007 I use something along the lines of option 2 - basically a WHMCS version of the template used on our Joomla based site. Agreed you lose a little flexibility in that you will need to add any new top level menus to your WHMCS template - but I have kept our site design simple such that the WHMCS template will not need to be updated that often. It's a little more work that the Iframe option - but Iframes are pretty evil and ugly... I'm using a split menu system - the top menu only shows level 1 options (WHMCS is one of them) and then the side menu shows all of the sub sections. Any custom ordering / login forms, etc. shown within the Joomla content are simple links or forms posting to WHMCS. Not rocket science, but I don't see any need to spend days or weeks setting up a super slick integrated system. I chose to go for something that was easy to set up so I could spend more time on setting up all of the other more important aspects of WHMCS and my Joomla site content. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ddenev Posted August 14, 2007 Share Posted August 14, 2007 What about integrating user login? To have a SSO (Single Sign On) over WHMCS and Joomla? Have anyone thought about this possibility? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eminos Posted August 14, 2007 Author Share Posted August 14, 2007 What about integrating user login? To have a SSO (Single Sign On) over WHMCS and Joomla? Have anyone thought about this possibility? Well, running a webhosting company as I do, I never used that Joomla login on my page, so I never had to intergrate Joomla Login with WHMCS Login. /E 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nitro Posted August 14, 2007 Share Posted August 14, 2007 Me too - I had contemplated it for about five seconds and decided that it would be better to stick to using WHMCS to manage my client logins and restricted content, and stick with Joomla for my public site & content. I've not come across a situation where I would need an integrated login so far. if I did need this in the future I'd probably look at writing a simple DB copy script to copy WHMCS users over in to my Joomla users group on a cron schedule - would be quick solution and not much point in trying to hack joomla logins to look directly at the WHMCS users table IMHO. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ddenev Posted August 14, 2007 Share Posted August 14, 2007 Just asking, since with Joomla you can add additional components, modules and plugins to provide more added value services to your registered users. Thanks for your opinions anyway. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nitro Posted August 14, 2007 Share Posted August 14, 2007 since with Joomla you can add additional components, modules and plugins to provide more added value services to your registered users. I understand that... I'm writing a Joomla component right at this moment as it happens. You'll find that there is already a fair bit that you can do with WHMCS if you start experimenting with the client side smarty based templates. To keep it simple and safe I choose to keep my public and registered user applications very well separated. However if you do go down trying to integrate the two in the future for whatever reason, I'd still go with a separate / standalone DB sync script rather than writing some form of Joomla bridge. Simpler solution to implement / upkeep and better for the ongoing security of your WHMCS setup - so long as the database users and permissions are set up in a logical manner that is... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ddenev Posted August 14, 2007 Share Posted August 14, 2007 DB sync is good for copying the registered users across the DBs, but how you intend to synchronize logins and sessions with this script? I mean when a user logins to WHMCS how would Joomla know that the user is logged in and vice versa? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nitro Posted August 14, 2007 Share Posted August 14, 2007 ah ok - had not thought about unified login in that way - only from point of view of single user / password. I guess that's one reason why you might be best off looking for a native WHMCS solution to your issues. you could get a bit tricky and set the Joomla session info from within the WHMCS template using smarty and php - so all login / logout would be managed by the WHMCS scripts. but can you really justify spending all that time researching and developing such a solution? I'd be surprised if you could not find a way of implementing any features that your clients would value need using the template abilities provided by WHMCS - keep your systems as simple as practical so you have minimal upgrade and maintenance headaches in the future. however if you do go down the route of attempting any form of bridge, I'd be interested to hear a bit more about what you attempt and how the results turn out... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ddenev Posted August 14, 2007 Share Posted August 14, 2007 Well, maybe I should get familiar with smarty then Nevertheless, if I come out with a bridge or a solution one day, I'll share it definitely ;-) Thanks. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MACscr Posted August 14, 2007 Share Posted August 14, 2007 Im up to about 7 years experience now developing with different CMS's. Your wasting your time and your clients will hate the end result. I promise you. Dont waste your time trying to integrate it with joomla. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desquinn Posted August 14, 2007 Share Posted August 14, 2007 I would not create a bridge as per the fiasco with SMF forum. Joomla have taken the stance that all integrating code is a derivative work under the GPL so the bridge and the attaching work would need to be GPL'd to be acceptable.... so not much fun 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MACscr Posted August 15, 2007 Share Posted August 15, 2007 I would not create a bridge as per the fiasco with SMF forum. Joomla have taken the stance that all integrating code is a derivative work under the GPL so the bridge and the attaching work would need to be GPL'd to be acceptable.... so not much fun LOL, that only applies to distributing them together, has nothing to do with using them together. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desquinn Posted August 15, 2007 Share Posted August 15, 2007 true... but then there was the mention of sharing it .... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MACscr Posted August 15, 2007 Share Posted August 15, 2007 true... but then there was the mention of sharing it .... Right, thats what distribution means. Obviously no one could distribute WHMCS code besides matt. Anyway, their interpretation of the GPL in that context is incorrect. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strats Posted August 15, 2007 Share Posted August 15, 2007 Wrapper is the easier way, practical. Of course the most professional is customizing WHMCS template to include the Joomla template design 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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