I know you have a gallery and forum, however has anyone considered building bridges to other stand alone bb's or galleries like coppermine and one of the phpbb's?
Since we utilize quite a few large and popular stand alone programs, such as message boards and photo galleries, it would be nice if our users could continue posting in galleries or forums that have thousands of images or posts, without having to log into a separate section of our site.
Just my thoughts
FTW
Comments
If the existing site has some sort of API then this should be possible.
There is a D7 module... Although it looks abandoned... no updates since 2013 on the D7 alpha version.
https://www.drupal.org/project/phpbbforum
DrAlbany, I would like to thank you for your response.
By checkig coppermine and phpbb, I found out they both have API's. We already use a bridge on them, in order to tie them into other cms programs without the users having to log in separately. However we are currently testing a new genealogy or family tree program that will host gedcom files, and so far it seems like they do use an API for links to googlemaps, but we are checking further.
As far as the " D7 module... Although it looks abandoned... no updates since 2013 on the D7 alpha version." you lost us. Could you share the name of that module or better yet, point us to someone that may be able to create a bridge from backdrop to all three programs for us?
Thank you so very much
FTW
Happy to help. Sorry for the delay in responding, it was a busy weekend.
Just in case you were not aware, Backdrop is a fork of Drupal 7 so modules or plugins for Drupal 7 will work with minor changes in Backdrop.
I vaguely remember using Coppermine quite a few years ago :)
API's are a way for different websites to talk to each other... but sometimes the talking is in one direction only.
There is a plugin for CPG1.6 called Tunnel2CPG that provides a one-way user synchronization from other web applications... including Drupal 8... so It may be possible to have the creator add support for Drupal 7 / Backdrop CMS.
In general, there are quite a few large and popular stand alone programs. Far more than you use. Not all of them have any sort of connecting bridge (API), but most, if not all, of those that do, have different APIs from each other, so there is not really a one-size-fits-all API connection from one software to another. (There could be, but that would require all developers of all those programs to come to a consensus about the API and for all of them to use it, and that hasn't happened).
It would be far more helpful if you told us exactly which large & popular stand alone programs you actually use, so we could point to you what already exists and tell you how easy or difficult it would be to create the bridge for the specific programs you use. Some of them might exist as Drupal 7 modules that could be converted (ported) for use in Backdrop, and they would be quicker & easier to get working on Backdrop than something that doesn't yet exist.
Also, the module DrAlbany mentioned was in his post https://www.drupal.org/project/phpbbforum It is a Drupal 7 module, but that could probably be moved to Backdrop fairly quickly & easily.
Thank you for responding oadeh.
The primary gallery we use is Coppermine and it does have an api as well as bridges that tie it to the forum we use which is phpbb.
Coppermine also has bridges to "a few" CMS programs such as Mambo and Xoops2, however we do not use those CMS programs any longer, especially for the primary non-profit we are most interested in.
I figure the hardest bridge, will be for the genealogy program we are currently using called Webtrees. I think they have an API for Google Maps, but don't know of any current bridges YET.
Thanks
FTW
Thank you. That is most helpful.
And what do you know, there is already a module for Drupal that integrates with Webtrees: https://www.drupal.org/project/webtrees, though it says it "provides limited integration", so I don't know how useful it will be for you. The Drupal 7 one could be converted for use in Backdrop.
There does not seem to be any integration between Coppermine and Drupal or Backdrop. Based on what I was able to discern, it seems most people just link to their Coppermine gallery from within their CMS, but then that means the users most likely need to log into them both individually. Maybe something could be programmed to make that easier, kind of like what the Webtrees module above does.
@oadaeh I found a plugin - see my post above... It is for D8, but according to the developer's post...
https://forum.coppermine-gallery.net/index.php/topic,79031.msg383109.htm...
"By use of secure encrypted cookies, users logged into supported apps using a special link to CPG will automatically be logged in to CPG"
By the looks like users will need to login to the Drupal/Backdrop side first.
@ oadaeh
Thank you very much for the webtrees information and link. I think we have at least one site with Drupal on it, ( I would have to find out which server and version it is), that we can test the bridge, if it doesn't work out of the box on backdrop.
Bottom line is if it will at least work to allow our admins, volunteer editors and general users to sign up with our primary site, (Drupal or Backdrop) then upload or download files from Webtrees without having to sign in again, that would make my entire year a win-win.
I will try to check it out this week and let you know if I have any difficulty.
FTW
I think it would be good to have some advice about the general approach to creating a bridge for other systems. Yes, it needs development in the other system also, but clear direction on what needs to be included for a secure bridge would be a good idea.
Integrations to other systems will be particularly important for small businesses and small non profits as they try to piece together the functionality needed. I created a post about what is needed for integrating MRBS - a very powerful and user friendly room (and other resource) booking solution that also works well on mobile but didn't get very far. MRBS has integrations for users to Wordpress and joomla; it used to have an integration with Drupal7 but it was shut down as it wasn't secure enough. I do think that the range of integrations we can support could be an important strand to our outreach and marketing.
There are different levels of bridge, some including MRBS, just share users and session, others like CiviCRM have much closer. If people, including myself are keen to explore creating bridge modules then knowing the different hooks and functions we should be using to get logins and sessions in a secure way would be helpful.
I think probably the easiest, most universal way of doing that is to create a REST API on the target system, requiring some sort of unique key for authentication, and utilize it on the source system.
I started doing that with two small systems I maintain, where one tells the other to create, modify, and/or delete email accounts and aliases. I haven't finished it, because I needed to rebuild the target system and modify the database structure, and I haven't gotten around to completing that yet, but what I have works so far.
The main functions I used for the core functionality of making the calls were:
Of course, there's a lot more to it than that, like creating a valid URL, preparing the data, error checking, etc., etc.
In addition, there's defining and creating the API itself, and that can be done using something like the Apigee spec. as a guide: https://docs.apigee.com/ (You don't have to use their services/software to define your API.)
Also, to potentially make all this whole things easier or harder (depending on your viewpoint), there's the Services module that automatically makes as much of a site's data available as desired: https://backdropcms.org/project/services (I was using my target system as a bridge to the email server, and not the site's data, so that module doesn't work for my situation.)
I'll comment on your MRBS post with info specific to it.
Since @oadeah found a Drupal/Webtrees Bridge that we would like to use, I have a few questions before I get started.
1: I found out I had deleted our version of Drupal, so since that bridge is for Drupal and we no longer have Drupal on any of our sites,should I request a bridge be built for Backdrop or load a version of Drupal on one of our servers, just so we can use that bridge?
2: While checking the versions of Backdrop that we have, I discovered one site has version 1.20.2 and the another one has 1.20.1 and that puzzles me since I checked for updates on the 1.20.1 and it stated we had the current version. Since this is the primary site we currently use for Backdrop and Webtrees, I would like to make sure we are currently up to date on both programs before installing any bridges, so how do I update Backdrop when it currently states we don't have any updates pending?
Thanks
FTW
Question 1
The easiest way to request a port (where someone takes a Drupal version and converts to Backdrop) is through the github channel.
https://github.com/backdrop-ops/contrib/issues
Select "New Issue" and fill in the details...
Click on "Get Started" on the "Port Request" option...
Question 2
That's very strange... I've not seen that problem before... I would clear the caches on the 1.20.1 site and then check again...
Hope this helps.
Thank You DrAlbany for your response.
I filled out a Port Request on GitHub. We will wait and see what happens.
On the version comment, apparently the glitch or difference in the version number of Backdrop is Soflaculous gives one version number, (we look there often because it gives us a quick version number on all the programs we are using) and the version number displayed in Backdrop/Admin/Reports/Version Updates.
So, as long as Backdrop gives the correct versions, we will make a note to check it manually, whenever we need the current version.
Thanks Again
FTW