Any experiences with the various portal systems availbale for phpbb? i am considering IM Portal, easySite, and ezPortal for phpbb. which one should i choose?
Cobra ... In my opinion none. I would go on a small CMS, for starters, if you don't like complicated things. After that you could go to a Mambo or Drupal ?
Mambo is not SE friendly. Also, i dont want to have a full fledged CMS for now. I viewed the demo of the portals i listed and as u said none is up to the mark. now i think i will go for wordpress with a mod to display forum topics in the index.
Mambo is the best CMS in the world, if we're speaking "SE friendly". You just have to overcome the obstacles some didn't This is one of my personal websites, built on Mambo platform: www.xperts.ro Check the URL's, check the pathway (breadcrumbs), check title, meta description
For PHPBB the first one I used is EZportal it is simple and basic... Since then I have been using mkportal for several sites.. It does have some limitations but I have made several of my own modifications to help over come thoughs... Works well for me with phpbb.. I can set up a new custom site in pretty short order with mkportal and phpbb... It is not as full-fledged as something like mambo, but mambo and phpbb don't really work that well together... Mkportal works with smf, phpbb, vbulletin and some others....
expertu, Well, ur site is cool with mambo. i had a look at it. its SE friendly. I dint check the XHTML validity. but looks clean and neat, though i cudnt understand the language. thanks for the integration link too. aeiouy, i am out of my mind from phpbb portals. everything is clean there and well integrated, but doesnt leave me much options a CMS can offer me, like my own news and articles in the homepage. the site is basically a forum driven website, and thats y i dint go for some ready made CMS system. Anyway, i will stick out with my wordpress plans for home page.
From my admittedly limited experience with Mambo, it sometimes seems to have problems integrating with phpBB forum software... the link you provided, expertu, seems to bear that impression out.
There are a lot of integrations. User systems and all. They are all great. I guess, like all software in the world, there are bugs. But can't live without them.
Yeah just having messed with a lot of systems... I don't think I am up for the potential issues mambo presents... Plus it is a bit overkill for what I normally need... I am tempted to mess around with it on a future site with phpbb but I don't want to kludge it together. Plus now that I have used mkportal for several sites I am really comfortable with the entire structure and know how it pretty much works... so I had to give up that level of comfort. I would rather spend my time and energies, at least right now, on customizing sites instead of just getting the basic framework going. But thanks for the link, I will keep my eye on things.