Can a forum be implemented within a wordpress theme's aesthetic structure?

[Daniel Klayton]

Hello all!

I have a question about using vBulletin inside a wordpress.org website (one that has hosting through hostmonster.com, if that matters).

I would like, if possible, to have a vBulletin forum operating 'inside' the aesthetic structure of the existing website. As in, there would be a "Forum" tab in the main navigation bar, and that page is the forum (and all its subsequent nested pages).

The biggest concern is whether it will be possible to have all of the forum operating, visually, within the 'body space' of the pages on my website, as it looks now.

To get a clearer idea of what that means (heh computer science/web design are not my forte, so I've learned that my language can be a little less than clear to some..), you can check out the website at: www.waistcoatandwatch.com

Thanks for the support yall

[Lynne]

Do you mean you want it to look the same in the forum as it looks in wordpress? That would require a custom style.

[Daniel Klayton]

More as in:

rather than having vBulletin appear in the entire browser space (as it does on this site, and most I've seen it in implemented in), I would like it to appear within a section of my website's visual space: the same visual section that is sometimes filled with a blog, sometimes filled with a product description, sometimes with a shopping cart view... so like, if my browser window is say, 1600 x 1200, I would like the vBulletin view/forum/page to only be 1200 wide, and start 600 pixels down from the top of the page, 'nestled' within my website's header, navigation bar, and aesthetic structure...

So actually, I guess that is the real boiled-down kicker: I would like to have the same header and navigation bar appear on vBulletin forum pages as they do on any other page of my wordpress-powered site...

Thanks for the help, hope that's clearer

[BirdOPrey5]

Not by default and not easily. With heavy customization of code and templates just about anything is possible though.

[syrus.xl]

If this is with vB4, then it would be easier to deploy. If you are thinking of using vB5 I would personally hold off until it is out of its Beta stage and the CSS/JS ratio is lower in file size.

Many forums use vB4 now with Wordpress integration, as for the actual design going site-wide with CSS that would take some coding and you have to consider jQuery which is now used in both scripts.

[jdj]

The short answer is I think so. You've got a tab saying 'community' and that takes you to a sub-directory at http://www.waistcoatandwatch.com/community/ . Looking at your site then that's actually where I'd expect to see your forum. But if you are able to create a sub-directory called http://www.waistcoatandwatch.com/forum/ there's nothing to stop you installing your forum there. You can install it where you want it: root of your site sub directory called forum or subdirectory called community.

One thing to consider though is that you have blogs (I'm assuming wordpress blogs) on your site. vB4, and I think vB5 [only just released as a beta] has blogs in it. I don't know if it's important to you to enable your users to use the blogs and the forum as a single sign-on but I don't know how you'd do that with vBulletin, unless you were prepared to use vBulletin as your blog publisher.

Others may have a better idea of how to do that.

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Many forums use vB4 now with Wordpress integration

How do you integrate vB4 with Wordpress and a single sign-on?