Merged [Merged topic] Multiple forums on one site?

Hello,

I am fairly new to joomla and I was wondering if this forum or any other integrated forum software will allow me to have more than one forum on a joomla site?

You can only have one instance - one installation - of Kunena on your Joomla website. You can classify, within that single instance of Kunena, different sections and categories. You can even allocate some sections and categories to different subsets of your users, if you want. I cannot see any benefit in having two different discussion boards (the same or different software) running concurrently on one site. It confuses your users.

I'm sorry to say, but I disagree with the argument that different forums would be confusing to users.

I will try to explain why, in my personal case.

I run my site, of which parts are build for:
- students of my school.
- students of a course group (Not part of school)
(It might also have been students for subject A and other students for subject B etc.)

Those groups (might) have their 'own' website (layout etc.)within the site itself.
If this layout is different from what they are used to, it might lead to confusion.
Besides that, students of 'subject A' are not interested in discussions in 'subject B'

So, is there a way to switch the SITE template according to the user group?

You can crack this nut with a nutcracker or with a sledgehammer:

1. You can have one website, one Kunena forum, two categories, two types of users. You can restrict access to each category based on the user type. This is the nutcracker option. It means you can develop complementary information for the site in one place and the site can serve a multiplicity of purposes
2. You can create two sties, one Kunena forum each site. Each site has its own registration/login procedure and you can thus limit access to materials based on who is allowed to register and use the site. Information that is common to both sites either has to be duplicated or held in one or other site with some bridge between the two. This is the sledgehammer option.

There is a third option: one site acts as a portal between two other sites, each site has it's own separate forum, user database, etc. and the portal contains the common information of the two subordinate sites. I've seen this option used quite successfully.

Bottom line: one Kunena instance per Joomla site.

If you want to have, say Kunena and Brand X software running concurrently, this may be possible as long as there are no conflicts between the two. For example, you cannot run Fireboard concurrently with Kunena because they share similar data structures but they operate on different software platforms and their interaction with one another will cause operational problems. In effect, Kunena clobbers Fireboard and vice versa.

From the user's point of view, running two different forums on one site may not present any problems (unless there are occasions when data is unexpected altered by unforeseen circumstances) but from a website management viewpoint this situation creates a time-bomb, trying to keep different forum software up-to-date and out of each other's way. Therefore, I suggest you stick to the one forum software and learn well how to manage it.

Perhaps, in these circumstances, Joomla is not a viable option and maybe you should consider free-standing forum products to crack this nut.

I managed to get my website layout matching to the user (using Group ID in a 'if,then,elsif,if)
Can this be done with the layout (colours) of the kunena forum too?

Take a look at
www.training.bedlamites.nl
login etest
pw elycio
>> forum

or
www.herle.bedlamites.nl
login herle
pw sufferd

I am interested in suggestions of 'where' to put the 'if' coding.

Hey,

We are running several sites within one Joomla install.
Is is possible to create a number of Forums, that run independently.
So website A has a forum for the visitors of A, website B for the visitors of B,....

Is this possible in one Kunena install? or do i have to make different Kunena installs?

Thanks for your input!