WordBridge
Version
0.5 (last update on Feb 27, 2012)
Rating
Compatibility
Reviews
17
License
AGPL
Non-Commercial
Type
Date Added
28 May 2011
You don't have to use an unfamiliar blog editing tool or a tool in Joomla that resembles WordPress. There's no need for a one-off migration, export or conversion from WordPress. Simply configure WordBridge with your wordpress.com blog address and then all your WordPress edits and posts appear directly on your Joomla site. No need to worry about formatting; posts appear using your Joomla templates and stylesheets. Easy!
If desired, you can even merge different WordPress.com blogs into one site.
Once WordBridge is managing the blogs on your Joomla site it can make direct calls to WordPress.com tools to display by category or tag. You can search the blog contents. It supports all the links that your WordPress.com blog provides, such as add comment, like on Facebook, send a Tweet and so on. It uses SEO-friendly URL links too.
This extension takes only seconds to install. All you have to do ito get up and running is create a new menu item, supply the name of your wp.com blog and save. It starts pulling posts off wordpress.com and into joomla with no problem.
The only quibble is that the header for each post is active and looks like it should allow you to click through to the blogpost, but that isn't working for me yet. Clicking the header just takes you to a blank page on your joomla site (or at least it does on mine). But if you click on 'add comment' for a individual blogpost then it takes you through to the post on WP.com. I haven't yet got to the bottom of what's going on there.
The only quibble is that the header for each post is active and looks like it should allow you to click through to the blogpost, but that isn't working for me yet. Clicking the header just takes you to a blank page on your joomla site (or at least it does on mine). But if you click on 'add comment' for a individual blogpost then it takes you through to the post on WP.com. I haven't yet got to the bottom of what's going on there.
Owner's reply
Thanks for the positive review.
Your 'quibble' doesn't sound right - you should be able to use links in the post to the Blog. We'll help if you raise an issue at the project page - https://github.com/cognidox/WordBridge/issues. Let us know in the ticket what version of Joomla you're using , what OS your site is hosted on and your wordpress.com site URL.
Just installed this and it worked immediately. I had to make a couple of minor tweaks to settings but these are outlined on the developer's wiki. I also had questions that were responded to by the developer within minutes! If you are using Wordpress.com to host your blog and Joomla to manage your site content then this is a fantastic component to use.
I am always a little skeptical about reviews of how great an extension is. This one lives up to reviews and then some. Installed and configured in minutes. The integration of WP blog entries with existing Joomla! template exceeded my wildest expectations for such a simple product. I guess I really like it!
Okay it took me 15 minutes from the Joomla end to coordinate and figure out how to configure not the developer. Took me and I mean took 10 seconds literally to configure, point to where I wanted it to go and then 5 seconds to upload my site and look at the blog, nothing to it and I have no content yet but that's not going o be this developers issue. Please do read the fact this site is not for you unless you use WORDPRESS, it's a bridge not a whole blogging system, but what a great deal of work it has saved me. Wordpress let's me write a blog, format it and it goes, automatically back to my webpage blog site. YOWSA!!!!
The developer has done a great job. His support his lightining fast and kind, helping to solve issues in a very effective manner.
Be fair with developers like this one: read the product description and documentation and ask for support before giving a rating. He is doing this for free, and he is doing it very well.
Be fair with developers like this one: read the product description and documentation and ask for support before giving a rating. He is doing this for free, and he is doing it very well.
The documentation is excellent in that with the video tutorial - it really helped me install the wordbridge component without any problems for Joomla 2.5.
It's great to have this tool to connect both joomla and wordpress.
Thank you!
It's great to have this tool to connect both joomla and wordpress.
Thank you!
I feel really sorry that this extension isn't getting its due credit here. Some of the reviews have been totally unfair to overlook the description that clearly states (right on the first line itself) that this extension works with WordPress.com blogs only! :)
I also wonder why people couldn't see that this is the only free extension that can bridge Joomla with a WordPress.com blog. WordPress doesn't share your blog's back-end database connection details so every other extension available is unusable at the moment.
Please, have a look at https://github.com/cognidox/WordBridge/wiki to understand the extension better. There's a video tutorial as well.
Pros:
+ Simple to install. Easy to use.
+ Supports caching of blog posts. Time out can be configured.
Cons:
- The extension is dependent on what API is exposed by WordPress.com to the developers so it isn't likely to have too many features (like support for comments, like buttons etc.)
- No support for pagination. Number of posts to display needs to be changed in your blog's settings.
It's a work in progress still very stable and quite usable if you keep your expectations in check.
I think the developers are definitely busy adding bells and whistles and the extension would get better with time but subject to WordPress API limitations.
I'll rate this 4/5 but I'm giving 5 stars to offset some of the (in my opinion) unfair reviews.
Regards,
Ravi
I also wonder why people couldn't see that this is the only free extension that can bridge Joomla with a WordPress.com blog. WordPress doesn't share your blog's back-end database connection details so every other extension available is unusable at the moment.
Please, have a look at https://github.com/cognidox/WordBridge/wiki to understand the extension better. There's a video tutorial as well.
Pros:
+ Simple to install. Easy to use.
+ Supports caching of blog posts. Time out can be configured.
Cons:
- The extension is dependent on what API is exposed by WordPress.com to the developers so it isn't likely to have too many features (like support for comments, like buttons etc.)
- No support for pagination. Number of posts to display needs to be changed in your blog's settings.
It's a work in progress still very stable and quite usable if you keep your expectations in check.
I think the developers are definitely busy adding bells and whistles and the extension would get better with time but subject to WordPress API limitations.
I'll rate this 4/5 but I'm giving 5 stars to offset some of the (in my opinion) unfair reviews.
Regards,
Ravi
I installed the extension, but hadn't realised your blog had to be hosted on wordpress.com - would be great if you could connect your own wordpress blog with your joomla site.
Component installed easily and does what it says. It pulled in a Wordpress.com blog into my Joomla 1.6 site. However, if you need to pull in a blog that is not hosted on wordpress.com, then this plug-in does not work. The author does mention this on his site and attributes this shortfall to the use of the WP Twitter API.
Good, but won't work for me.
Good, but won't work for me.
Hi Paul,
The WordBridge extension is a very nice piece of code and it does some of its job very well, thank you for its development!
What does not work for me at present, however, is providing users with the ability to post comments and share the articles using the sharing options activated in Wordpress.
This essentially makes the extension half-usable as only a static snapshot of the Wordpress blog is displayed within Joomla. I'm therefore publishing a link to the original Wordpress site for my site visitors encouraging them to comment or share, which is not straightforward.
If there is anything I could do to fix this it would be fantastic! Thank you!
The WordBridge extension is a very nice piece of code and it does some of its job very well, thank you for its development!
What does not work for me at present, however, is providing users with the ability to post comments and share the articles using the sharing options activated in Wordpress.
This essentially makes the extension half-usable as only a static snapshot of the Wordpress blog is displayed within Joomla. I'm therefore publishing a link to the original Wordpress site for my site visitors encouraging them to comment or share, which is not straightforward.
If there is anything I could do to fix this it would be fantastic! Thank you!
Owner's reply
Hi Jan,
Agree that the passing of comments and other links is essential rather than a nice-to-have, and it should already be present and working. Unfortunately the WP API is sparse and doesn't provide a lot. It's tracked as a bug/issue on https://github.com/cognidox/WordBridge/issues (#2) and there's been some progress (#11) on fixing it.
If you want to help, you'll need to be(come) familiar with the WordPress API - the project page on GitHub is the place to get involved. Even if we do fix this issue first it would still be great to get more people involved.
At first it looks great, and seems to do the job you want. But after a few days of use, you discover it is unusable at all.
The problem is the cache. Rather than going to wordpress.com every time, and bringing back everything that's up there, this extension loads to site cache and never looks back.
What does this mean? well, if a post is edited on wordpress, this extension is never aware of it, so posts will display the old version forever.
Add to that that it always displays 10 post. It has a feedcount option on the backend, but that is ignored. set it to 5, or 50, you will always see exactly 10.
It also does NOT support comments, Facebook like, or any other wordpress option, despite promising to do so.
All in all, a good idea, but no success.
The problem is the cache. Rather than going to wordpress.com every time, and bringing back everything that's up there, this extension loads to site cache and never looks back.
What does this mean? well, if a post is edited on wordpress, this extension is never aware of it, so posts will display the old version forever.
Add to that that it always displays 10 post. It has a feedcount option on the backend, but that is ignored. set it to 5, or 50, you will always see exactly 10.
It also does NOT support comments, Facebook like, or any other wordpress option, despite promising to do so.
All in all, a good idea, but no success.
Owner's reply
Improvements to the cache mechanism is being tracked as an issue on https://github.com/cognidox/WordBridge/issues/8
The extension is very easy to install.
With a bit of trial and error with the CSS i managed to style the title headers as needed.
However on the description it says that it supports comment boxes etc. However after much trying (and viewing the developers site) this extension does not support comments on your joomla site(visitors would need to go direct to your wordpress blog).
Don't get me wrong if you want your blog post displaying in a simple format on your joomla site then go for this extension. However if you require more functionality for your users then at present this is is not up to the job.
With a bit of trial and error with the CSS i managed to style the title headers as needed.
However on the description it says that it supports comment boxes etc. However after much trying (and viewing the developers site) this extension does not support comments on your joomla site(visitors would need to go direct to your wordpress blog).
Don't get me wrong if you want your blog post displaying in a simple format on your joomla site then go for this extension. However if you require more functionality for your users then at present this is is not up to the job.
Great blog extension for Joomla to Wordpress
The support from them is out of this world, a HUGE thanks to Vittal for all your help and support.
Would recommend this to anybody!!!!!
The support from them is out of this world, a HUGE thanks to Vittal for all your help and support.
Would recommend this to anybody!!!!!
Easy to install and works well even though I cant get the facebook, twitter and commentbox to apear on my joomla site. (Im a biggner so probably my fault)
