Hi dev_list folks! Currently I'm trying to use the Jahia JForum Portlet. It works quite fine, but I see some drawbacks, which may result from the fact that JForum is running as a portlet in our application. Maybe you could give me some advice, or tell me about related experiences:
current situation: I have an existing portal application - running on Jahia - which has it's own user administration, i.e. create, update or delete portal users. I have integrated JForum as portlet, and chanded the JForum DAOs to acess the same database as the hosting portal application. Single Sign On works quite well, i.e. when I log on to the portal I'm also logged on to JForum, that is OK. One problem is: JForum has its own user management, so I possibly have to reenter fields, which I already may have entered in the portals user registration, or user profile form. For the end user it is surely better if he has to enter information, e.g. his email address - only once. Or if he changes his email address within JForum it should also be changed in the portal. .... Another problem: when I integrate the portlet within the page, I can decide which Jahia groups, will be mapped to which JForum roles (admin, manager). This works well. But when I change this mapping later, e.g. remove one Jahia group from role JForum-manager, users of that group who have been registered as JForum-manager in the meantime will remain JForum-administrators, because their role is already stored in the JForum DB-tables, and the change of the mapping does not propagate ... -- I have thought of this solution: Since JForum and Jahia use the same database, I can extend the portals user managment, in a way that it also persists relevant JForum information into the JForum tables. For example when the user enters his email adress in a portal form, it will be stored twice, one time in the portal user table, and another time in the JForum user table. So I could remove the user management forms from JForum because al relevant data is entered from "outside". Maybe this is not a good solution because it bypasses what portlets are for?. -- another solution would be: to integrate JForum as it is in the portal application, not as a portal, but running within the same context. I do not know how much problems this will bring, or how easy it will be? -- JSR 128 Portlet API I do not know much about JSR 128 but maybe it would provide some features to couple portlets and portals more tightely. Does anybody know about this? _____ kind regards Wilhelm Berger
