Works out of the box doing exactly what was expected, with good documentation and fast support if you need any help.
On top of that no hidden charges.
Splendid work, try it out.

This works exactly as it says it does, and when I had an issue pop up, the support was incredibly fast.

:D

The first time I tried a previous version, it just wouldn't work no matter what I tried. Despite this, I tried the newest version (0.2.0) and it worked flawlessly. I really like having all the info and options. The only complaint I have is that it doesn't parse the quote functionality in phpBB so that you get something like "[i:e3f54d7f93]" before the message if the user uses the quote reply in phpBB. I presume this could be easily sorted out in a future version.

The only other option for showing phpBB info in Joomla is "JoomphpBB" from elearningforce.biz and it's not nearly as nice or full-featured as this module...and it's not free. This is the rare occasion where a GPL extension is far better than it's commericial equivalent. Get it now!

Worked perfcetly from the start, following a request to include a link to the poster's name, an updated release was made available in a couple of days.

Posts on the forum answered quickly - please donate - I have

Steve

I was able to make this work successfully but only after about an hour of experimentation on the settings.

The main problem I had was that my phpbb install was done for me by my hosting provider's Control Panel system, so I didn't know all the database settings. It would be beneficial if the module provided more troubleshooting feedback, e.g. "Unable to locate host" or "Invalid login" etc. Once I got close to the correct settings I finally got an error message (in the module's display window on my homepage) but I'd already tried about every possible setting at that point. I also didn't know which 'admin' login it needed; the documentation should be clearer that it needs the SQL admin login, not the phpbb login.

Aside from my request that there be better feedback/documentation, I withheld giving this module the highest rating because it stores the back-end login in plain-text. My site's now live yet so I'll probably reinstall it so that Joomla and phpbb share the same db, eliminating the need to enter my SQL login info.

Owner's reply:
Hi there and thanks for your review.

I will work on a few more detailed error messages but the field description (if you hover the mouse over "phpbb database username" it says "The username used to access your phpbb mysql database") I think is pretty clear :) The problem with plaintext password storage is more within joomla since it doesn't offer a "password" field in the module configuration. It would be nice if there was a way to store module configuration data in an encrypted file if needed...



Anyway I'll work on the docs some more and if any problems arise feel free to post to the forums on smartshitter.com. No need to fiddle around for an hour on your own :)



regards

Alexander Heuer

The module is very promising, but like with everything and joomla, the board is seldomly standalone.

I use of course a bridged version of joomla and phpbb2, and the module fails to load the shortcuts in the activity module inside the wrapper "Yet".

but keep it up, i look forward to using it more when the wrapper functionality is in place.

Owner's reply:
I did some research and it doesn't look like there is a possibility to link to a subitem within the joomla wrapper iframe.

Problem is, by the time, someone clicks the topic link, there might not be an iframe to send the link to and joomla's com_wrapper component does not allow for dynamic pages to be linked to.

I guess the only way for you to ever get this functionality is if either joomla changes its wrapper component behaviour OR use a "better" bridge for phpbb like mehdi's bridge: http://www.mehdiplugins.com/misc/phpbbjoom.htm

It is the same I am using and you can decide whether to run the forum in it's own window or merged in your joomla site.



Regards

Alexander Heuer

Great idea, I've been looking for something like this for a long time... but unable to actually evaluate because it refuses to allow no value in the 'table prefix' field.

Owner's reply:
I now made it possible to leave the prefix field empty. Feel free to give it a go now :)

It does what is says and ir does it well. Hope you will update it to phpbb3 when it comes out.