Integrate PunBB forum into WordPress

April 7, 2005 in Web Development, WordPress by

As I promised previously after installed LiewCF.com Forum, here I describe how to integrate PunBB forum into WordPress. The softwares used are WordPress 1.2.2 and PunBB 1.2.4. The same method probably works for later version, too.

Preparation:
Rip the header and footer code of your WordPress template. Remember to remove any WordPress template tags from the code, also the CSS stylesheet links of your template. Here I use _HEADER_ as template header code, _FOOTER_ as template footer code and _CSS_ as template css stylesheet links.

Step-by-step:

  1. Edit main.tpl (remember to make a backup first) that sit in http://www.YOUR_PATH/forum/include/template directory.
  2. Plug in your template header(_HEADER_) and footer(_FOOTER_) code into main.tpl. It will looks something like this:
    [html]



_HEADER_


_FOOTER_



[/html]

  • You are almost done now. Now we need to tweak the PunBB forum CSS code to make the forum looks better in WordPress. Goto http://www.YOUR_PATH/forum/style/ and edit the CSS code of the PunBB template you are using. I use PunBB Oxygen template, so I edit Oxygen.css.
    In fact, the PunBB forum looks fine after done Step #2 but the font size is very small in Internet Explorer. That’s why I tweak the forum’s CSS code for IE.
  • That’s it. You are done!

    • Additional: PunBB Plug-ins
    Beside default PunBB installation, I install RSS mod and Active Topics mod from Alex King PunBB Mods collection.

    Thought:
    Hope this small instruction to integrate PunBB forum into WordPress is helpful to some bloggers. Initially, I was planning to use miniBB for my blog but its simple (read: limited) admin control scared me off.