Is anything actually integrating with v8?

[Jim Williamson]

As much as I like TNG, I have come to the conclusion that I really prefer it integrated with something, just for ease of use by my various extended families. Some of these folks do good to get on the web and browse, so having to jump between a forum and tng, or a cms and tng, etc is a bit of a pain for them...

My grandmother is in her 80's, I'm just happy she can get on the computer and launch IE, click a bookmark and find what she wants... so my sites need that all in one integration. Once she logs in, it needs to be just clicking of links, not the addition of having to log into something else....

I have somethings up and running with e107, I'm not crazy about it, but it works, but it's still TNG 7, I'd like to be able to move on to v8.

Joomla would be one of my preferred choices, but that's not advancing very quickly. Sticking with e107, same situation...

At this point I'd be happy with almost anything... but since I couldn't program my way out of a paper sack, I'm stuck waiting...

So, is there anything on the horizon? Anything close at all? Or is it time to move on?

~J

[Brett]

As much as I like TNG, I have come to the conclusion that I really prefer it integrated with something, just for ease of use by my various extended families.

Against what you have said above, I run a plain TNG template and all my family find it easy to use, once logged in. My mother is 86 and has no problem navigating and finding information she did not know.

[Jim Williamson]

Against what you have said above, I run a plain TNG template and all my family find it easy to use, once logged in. My mother is 86 and has no problem navigating and finding information she did not know.

Understood... what I meant was, I intend to run both, since TNG is not, yet, as robust as it could be. I am trying to avoid them having to log into the cms/forums/whatever we end up with, and also log into TNG...

So, I stick with e107 and tng 7 for now... since it works at least.

I get my forums, my gallery, the blogs, everything with a nice single sign on. All that is missing now is the awesome features added to tng 8.

I see it does seem to work with MediaWiki, and I'm going to try to port that into TikiWiki instead, it's a tad more robust, but I'll make Mediawiki work if needed.

[LDPrice]

Understood... what I meant was, I intend to run both, since TNG is not, yet, as robust as it could be. I am trying to avoid them having to log into the cms/forums/whatever we end up with, and also log into TNG...

So, I stick with e107 and tng 7 for now... since it works at least.

I get my forums, my gallery, the blogs, everything with a nice single sign on. All that is missing now is the awesome features added to tng 8.

I see it does seem to work with MediaWiki, and I'm going to try to port that into TikiWiki instead, it's a tad more robust, but I'll make Mediawiki work if needed.

I know this is a couple of months old, but I'm cruising through some old messages and thought I'd ask you...what have you worked out for your site?

My site is Joomla with a couple of addons, with TNG and Zenphoto for family tree and family photos. NO bridging, just identical look via css. The only thing that REQUIRES login is TNG for living folks, so there are a few registered users on that, none on Joomla or Zenphoto.

My issue is...I want articles, blogs, user-contributed stuff (articles), I want users to be able to comment anywhere, identify photos, add people, etc. And I want them to only have to log in once.

In my ideal world - they log in once with Facebook or Twitter or Google or Yahoo or MSLive or OpenID, and that "cookie" is used to identify them everywhere -

* on the Disqus comments

* on the Zenphoto comments

* on the PhocaGallery comments

* on the "contact me" pages with email interface

* in the TNG Users list for people editing

* for Joomla editing privileges

* or whatever wik

* or wordpress

* or whatever I come up with.

I looked at tikiwiki, and LOVE the idea of the all-in-one solution, but DAMN it's complex.

Seems like you're in the sorta same boat, as I'm sure, are many others -

Has anyone looked into Janrain / RPXnow? It seems like there's a single sign in solution floating somewhere in there, I just can't suss it out.

[bsl20b50]

I know this is a couple of months old, but I'm cruising through some old messages and thought I'd ask you...what have you worked out for your site?

My site is Joomla with a couple of addons, with TNG and Zenphoto for family tree and family photos. NO bridging, just identical look via css. The only thing that REQUIRES login is TNG for living folks, so there are a few registered users on that, none on Joomla or Zenphoto.

My issue is...I want articles, blogs, user-contributed stuff (articles), I want users to be able to comment anywhere, identify photos, add people, etc. And I want them to only have to log in once.

In my ideal world - they log in once with Facebook or Twitter or Google or Yahoo or MSLive or OpenID, and that "cookie" is used to identify them everywhere -

* on the Disqus comments

* on the Zenphoto comments

* on the PhocaGallery comments

* on the "contact me" pages with email interface

* in the TNG Users list for people editing

* for Joomla editing privileges

* or whatever wik

* or wordpress

* or whatever I come up with.

I looked at tikiwiki, and LOVE the idea of the all-in-one solution, but DAMN it's complex.

Seems like you're in the sorta same boat, as I'm sure, are many others -

Has anyone looked into Janrain / RPXnow? It seems like there's a single sign in solution floating somewhere in there, I just can't suss it out.

I would really like to see an all-in-one solution too. It would make things a lot easier if users could use a facebook or gmail login to log in to my site. I tried suggesting it on the users2 list, but I think the main thrust of my suggestion was lost.

[ogen]

I've been following TNGForum.us for a while, especially the CMS section, because I've been wanting an all-in-one/integrated solution as well. I've recently arrived at a few conclusions about my website endeavors.

First off, there are a couple of TNG websites that I consider to be kind of a "standard" as far as what I'd like my site to be:

- http://www.kloosterman.be/genealogy/index2.php

- And recently: http://www.thewillistree.info/

While there maybe others that I've missed, I like those two because they are well designed and appear like they would be easy to use for non-technical types, and they are just beautiful websites.

Kloosterman's is mainly TNG with some custom code wrapped around it for some areas (his explanation: http://www.kloosterman.be/website-how-eng.php) but it functions as a CMS of sorts, while The Willis Tree is more akin to what I want to do, in that it is based around TNG and WordPress.

I'm like you in that I have a very wide range of people who use our family website as far as technical know-how.

What I want:

1) TNG

2) Photo gallery that is not genealogy related.

3) News section (everything from birth announcements to graduations)

4) Discussion/Forums (mainly discussing reunions, stories, and genealogy)

5) Area to store miscellaneous information (recipes, etc.)

6) Calendar of events (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.).

Ideally it would all be integrated. I kept running into problems with the CMSes I used to try and accomplish that (the last round was Joomla). My main problems were:

1) At some point, either TNG or the CMS software gets updated and then things get out of sync as far as the login and sharing of data. I don't have the time or knowledge to manually update plugins or whatever to make sure they keep working together if I want to upgrade TNG or the CMS software. I really have no desire to be running out-of-date software, whether it's TNG or the CMS, especially if there are usability or security upgrades involved.

2) Most CMSes can be difficult to use for people who aren't technically inclined

3) I really didn't have anybody who could back me up when I was away from the internet.

I recently reached a point where I decided that I had to keep TNG part free of the main CMS. I wanted to keep TNG current, and there were too many new and nice things that Darrin Lythgoe has added over the past year or so to stick with an older version. The genealogy section was the main focus of the website, and I tended to forget that at times. Many times it was the reason why a relative was visiting, it contained the bulk of the content on the website, and it was a clearinghouse of sorts as far as tracking a lot of information and clearing up misconceptions or bad information.

So I split the website up into two sections: A genealogy section powered by TNG, and everything else powered by WordPress. That doesn't mean I don't plan on making an attempt at integrating the two, at least login wise. It does mean I no longer have to worry about logins and plugins breaking between TNG and the CMS if I updated TNG or the CMS software.

The advantage of handling everything else with WordPress was that it was easier to use for non-techies than the other software I've tried, and a huge benefit was that I had a few relatives who had WordPress blogs already or posted on them, which meant that I instantly had some back-ups for the WordPress side of things. Given how easy it is to update WordPress and its plugins, I found two people who helped keep an eye on updates and to take ownership of the WordPress side, so to speak. This freed me up to focus almost exclusively on the TNG side.

How my site is built:

* "Landing page" - just a simple .html file with some graphics that has a simple explanation of the purpose of the website, who it's for, a contact email, and the research going on. It doesn't have a lot of information - no information on living individuals, but it has some information on key ancestors, which has resulted in me connecting with a few distant relations.

* /WP (WordPress) - The WordPress side of things, and it's completely locked down to anybody who is not verified by myself or one of the relatives. If you don't have an account, you can't see anything.

* /familytree - TNG, which is also locked down like the WordPress side.

The reason for locking down the WP and TNG side is for security/privacy. We have children posting and we have photos and contact information for a lot of relatives. The "landing page" has enough information that somebody can determine if they are related to us or not. If they are a very distant relation, I end up working with them through email rather than give them acces to the main WP or TNG side. There is the option for giving them limited access to a limited tree on the TNG side if I feel it's appropriate. The WordPress side is for close relatives only.

My future plan is to have a stand-alone TNG install in the root directory that will have a very basic family tree of ancestors who passed away at least 60 years ago and will be publicly accessible to anonymous visitors, with a few important/key photos and documents for each ancestor (where possible). It will take the place of the landing page I have right now. I just haven't gotten around to it.

WordPress setup - main/required plugins and themes

* Theme: WP Weaver which is a highly customizable theme. Used because it's easy for people who are familiar with WordPress but not necessarily html/CSS to go in and make changes. The relatives who handle the WordPress side found it easy to customize within the WordPress administration dashboard. They can fix various things if any problems crop up, and it's easy for them to refresh the site with the seasons (changing headers, etc.).

* Privacy: Absolute Privacy Allows me to block access to anonymous/unverified users..

* Forums: Using a beta of the the bbPress plugin which is working out nice. SimplePress could do in a pinch, but once the bbPress plugin is out of beta, I will probably add in the BuddyPress features from the BuddyPress plugin once it's updated.

I use several other plugins, but they are standard WordPress plugins (security, sitemap, archives, etc.). I am not running any dedicated gallery software although that will probably change as more grow. Right now people can upload photos as they please and place them on various pages. Where we want to display (on the WordPress side) old photos relating to family history/genealogy, I make sure they are uploaded to the TNG side of things, and then have them embedded in the WordPress pages/posts. That means only one copy of the photo on the server. Right now we aren't using a dedicated calendar plugin - somebody came up with a scheme that works just fine. Should we add more birthdays and other events, we may try to add in a fancy plugin. Right now simplicity is a must.

I created a similar setup for a friend, and one unexpected result, there was a lady who began making biographies for different people on the WordPress side, complete with embedded photos from the TNG side, and links to the genealogy data on the TNG side. She found it easier to do than with past CMS software that had been used on the website (including MediaWiki at one point). She was careful to link the appropriate pages within WordPress and TNG, and she just started making WordPress pages with biographies of people. I set up Advanced Custom Widget for her and she started using it to add a brief summary in the sidebar that is different with every biography, with links to other relatives. I'd rather see MediaWiki used, but on the other hand this reduces the amount of software running. I can take the completed biographies written up on the WP side and just turn those pages into PDFs and attach them to the TNG side if I wanted to get fancy, or assemble them in a book.

I will be looking into TNG and WordPress authentication more closely as time permits, but even if they never work together, it's still only two logins and I have seen an increase in the use by family members since it appears to be easier to use for everybody concerned. I am working towards both the TNG and WordPress sides looking very similar to one another. I would love to have the kind of integration that The Willis Tree offers, but for my needs, these are working fine. Ideally everything would integrate, but for now, I don't have to worry about one side breaking if I update the other, or having to remain on older versions of software.

Sorry for the long post, as you can see, this is something I spent a lot of time pondering/agonizing over.

[John Paulding]

Thank you for that long post. I know it's a few years old but I've been going through the same thing and even though some people are integrating wp and tng, I tried for 10 hours and gave up. I'm suspecting it's something to do with godaddy. They're different and I'll be getting away from them asap. Anyway, the above post gave me some ideas and links to plug-ins.

[klooster]

There is a wong (outdated) link to my Kloosterman site mentioned by Ogen (thanks for the compliments) in the previous posts.

The correct updated TNG-WP link is :

http://www.kloosterman.be

A full explanation how I integrated my TNG website with Wordpress (without the WP-TNG plugin) can be found here:

How I made my TNG-WP integration

The advantages of the method described are:

- It is a very easy way to integrate WordPress with TNG.

- Minimal change to one core file of TNG (only one very short code line added).

- Displays TNG within WordPress with no iFrames.

- Can be used with any standard compliant wordpress theme.

- Can be used with any variable width or fixed with header / menu.

- The menu can be placed anywhere (with Artisteer)

- You can have a horizontal and a vertical menu (with Artisteer) .

- You can have 1 or 2 sidebars on any non-TNG page.

- TNG and WordPress are kept in separate folders for easy upgrading.

- TNG and WordPress can share the same database.

- Optionally add a template switcher (if you export with WP Tuxedo) so every user can choose the TNG template they like best.

- Should be compatible with TNG mods.

- This method has been tested on TNG v 10.0 and WordPress 3.9. It should work with other versions of TNG and WordPress 3.0+

- And last but not least, the theme made with Artisteer and exported with Wp Tuxedo passes the WP Theme-Check, so it’s up to spec with the latest theme review standards (very important).

Limitations:

- Works only with WordPress compliant themes, the standard TNG-templates will not work, because they are not WordPress templates.

- The sidebar shows only on the non-TNG pages.

- Vertical menu only on non-TNG pages.

- TNG and WordPress must share the same database.

- WordPress users are separate from TNG users.