I recently finished a new project for Jack Bosch from http://www.landforpennies.com/ - www.jackbosch.com. While working on the project I ran into some roadblocks and figured it might me helpful to someone else to post how I maneuvered around them to have a successful integration.  For reference, the new site is located at Land for Pennies Gold. Amember is a Powerful and full-featured membership/subscription software for your website.

The project at first involved setting up the integration of aMember with Wordpress and Vanilla.

For those interested in Vanilla integration I found 3 links that are a must read.

1. elorg.com
2. Lussomo Discussion forum
3. Wordpress Authenticator - Correct one!

First of all, if you are attempting to make an integration - Make sure you use version 2.5.1 or higher for Wordpress.

• Install amember
• Install Wordpress
• Install vanilla

Visit this link and make sure you read all the instructions at elorg.com.

What I found is that I had to read a few of these until I really understood the sequence. There are key parts on each that help me through the process.  One key issue is getting the correct Authenticator file.

On the Lussomo Discussion forum link below, you can read the top and what I found worth reading was the section highlighted below from Bivak May 19th 2008 & mafro May 20th 2008.  click here to go to it.

Notice that you won’t do this yet but I wanted to let you know this is important.  After reading the post, it didn’t make much sense,  I’m not usually a writer but I am starting to write more often. I will let you know below where I start.  Just keep the edits below in mind when we get to that part. The edits below are to the settings.php file.

These are the steps that I have taken:

• Followed the steps in the Wiki that describes how to integrated Wordpress and Vanilla (http://lussumo.com/docs/doku.php?id=vanilla:integration:wordpress).
• Placed your code in library/People and saved it as ‘People.Class.WordpressAuthenticator.php’.
• Edited the settings.php file in the conf directory;

// Wordpress Authenticator
// Map to the wordpress user table
$DatabaseTables['User'] = ‘wp_users’;
// Map existing wordpress columns to Vanilla
$DatabaseColumns['User']['UserID'] = ‘ID’;
$DatabaseColumns['User']['UserLogin'] = ‘user_login’;
$DatabaseColumns['User']['Name'] = ‘display_name’;
$DatabaseColumns['User']['Password'] = ‘user_pass’;
$DatabaseColumns['User']['Email'] = ‘user_email’;
$DatabaseColumns['User']['DateFirstVisit'] = ‘user_registered’;

The WP_SECRET_KEY is the same as SECRET_KEY in wp-config.php. Also, I updated the wordpress database;

mysql> update wp_options set optionvalue=’my_secret’ where option_name=’secret’;

• Installed and activated the MD5 Password Hashes plugin.  I then logged in again so it altered my MD5-hash.

Make sure you download this file for your Wordpress Authenticator

Make sure you install the MD5 hash.

After you do the installs.

Visit Lussomos site

First Step after everything is installed is to Alter the WP user database to match the Vanilla Fields.

Then alter the database

ALTER TABLE wp_users
ADD `RoleID` int(2) NOT NULL DEFAULT ‘3′,
ADD `StyleID` int(3) NOT NULL DEFAULT ‘1′,
ADD `CustomStyle` varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
ADD `FirstName` varchar(50) NOT NULL DEFAULT ”,
ADD `LastName` varchar(50) NOT NULL DEFAULT ”,
ADD `VerificationKey` varchar(50) NOT NULL DEFAULT ”,
ADD `EmailVerificationKey` varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
ADD `Email` varchar(200) NOT NULL DEFAULT ”,
ADD `UtilizeEmail` enum(’1′,’0′) NOT NULL DEFAULT ‘0′,
ADD `ShowName` enum(’1′,’0′) NOT NULL DEFAULT ‘1′,
ADD `Icon` varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
ADD `Picture` varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
ADD `Attributes` text NULL,
ADD `CountVisit` int(8) NOT NULL DEFAULT ‘0′,
ADD `CountDiscussions` int(8) NOT NULL DEFAULT ‘0′,
ADD `CountComments` int(8) NOT NULL DEFAULT ‘0′,
ADD `DateLastActive` datetime NOT NULL DEFAULT ‘2006-06-06 00:00:00′,
ADD `RemoteIp` varchar(100) NOT NULL DEFAULT ”,
ADD `LastDiscussionPost` datetime DEFAULT NULL,
ADD `DiscussionSpamCheck` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT ‘0′,
ADD `LastCommentPost` datetime DEFAULT NULL,
ADD `CommentSpamCheck` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT ‘0′,
ADD `UserBlocksCategories` enum(’1′,’0′) NOT NULL DEFAULT ‘0′,
ADD `DefaultFormatType` varchar(20) DEFAULT NULL,
ADD `Discovery` text,
ADD `Preferences` text,
ADD `SendNewApplicantNotifications` enum(’1′,’0′) NOT NULL DEFAULT ‘0′;

Get your Authenticator file from the first link I gave you for it. Wordpress Authenticator

Then add the following to you Vanilla config file

// Wordpress Authenticator
$Configuration['AUTHENTICATION_MODULE'] = ‘People/People.Class.WordpressAuthenticator.php’;

Then run this on your Mysql database- This will set the correct user role.

- UPDATE wp_users SET RoleID = 4 WHERE id = 1

And the missing link is

mysql> update wp_options set optionvalue=’my_secret’ where option_name=’secret’;

Make sure you get this done.  As one of the instructions missed it.

Then make sure amember is authenticating Wordpress with the Amember plugin for Wordpress. If Amember is not authenticating you may need to get support from Amember to fix the Wordpress plugin for you.  We had to use them on this project to fix the plugin in order for it to work.

When you log into one you should be logged in both.

At the end of the process we came to one conclusion that was already suggested on other sites, it was best to use BBpress. This is also something that was suggested by elorg.com on her site.

We had also tried to run multiple installs of Wordpress and found that aMember would only do the authentication to one version of Wordpress.

We tried installing multiple versions but it breaks the protection and members added to the new aMember installation where able to gain access to the other protected sections.

In the end there were two plugins required to control level access, Role Manager and HidePost. With Role Manager we are able to set different roles for different level users.

We can then use the [hidepost=level number] [/hidepost] and place protected content inside the brackets. We then select the different roles in the Role Manager and we set it from 0-10.

You can then make different headers and place the corresponding code to the different sections with aMember to block access to those areas.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, if you are attempting to do an integration first make sure that you read the links above as you will find that 1 of them won’t work fully by itself.  After installing it multiple times I noticed the small difference from them.  Also, make sure you obtain the correct Authentication file for Vanilla.

On the BBpress integration with Wordpress. It couldn’t be any easier… basically 1,2,3 steps and you are all set. Integrated straight from the installation as dealing with the role manager of BBpress blocked my access twice and had to reinstall BBpress from scratch.

It was also very easy to fit the current theme within BBpress.

So, I would strongly suggest that you don’t waste all of your time in Vanilla, instead go ahead and move onto BBpress! One thing you will not miss is all the time you will spend setting it up.  The client is satisfied with the end project and I myself have learned the joys of working with BBpress.

Stumble it!

This entry was posted on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at 2:00 am and is filed under Design Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.