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Ufa wrote:

How to set that when someone try to register on forum, that he is registered with CB also?

Is it possible?

Thank you

I've read similar requests about this "problem" dozens of times and it's a long time for me to understand what the problem is. I mean, when I read questions about users trying to login or register "on the forum" what have we been talking about?

I believe we're discussing the links I've arrowed in the following screenshot:


In summary, there isn't a problem if you ensure that all new registrations are carried out using the CB registration procedure.

This hasn't been a problem for me because I've assumed (quite wrongly) that people wouldn't register as members on my site using those links! I haven't had to worry about keeping Community Builder user profile information up-to-date because I assumed that my users would register themselves in a different way, namely, with the CB registration form.

There's a bit of a problem, therefore, with the "Kunena login/registration" links: the assumption is that you're asking your users to use the standard Joomla login/registration functions.

If we follow the advice given by CB, we're supposed to

1. Use CB Configuration Manager » Registration: set Allow User Registration = "yes, independently of global site setting"; and
2. Use Global Configuration » System: set Allow User Registration = "no"

Unfortunately, if a user clicks the register link (as shown in the image above) they'll get a HTTP: 403 Forbidden error ... which isn't exactly very helpful!

So there needs to be another solution, one that removes the confusion and directs users to the Community Builder login and, particularly, to the registration procedure. I think the Login alteration discussion provides a few clues as to what needs to be done. I'm going to have a closer look at it to see whether the YOOlogin suggestion deals with the registration issues we've discussed here.

Strictly-speaking, this is a question about Community Builder and not a questiona about Kunena, however because StrikeDaMic wrote

Interestingly, my gender is being displayed (with a Mars sign) in the forums even though there is no cb_gender field in CB anymore. All other users don't have any gender sign.

I will do my best to explain the issues.

Community Builder has its own user profiling data [jos_comprofiler] which is separate from the Joomla user profiling data [jos_users] which is separate from the Kunena user profiling data [jos_fb_users]. Somehow there's a mechanism to keep these sources of data in synch with one another; it's not 100% reliable, though, and there are management tools in the backend which repair the occasional discrepancies that occur from time to time.

It should be said, when you're working with Kunena forums you are, for the most part, using Kunena user profile data. We've had many discussions about the desirability of managing this data under CB and integrating it into Kunena, just as much as we've had many discussions about the desirability of incorporating Kunena forum information as a "tabbed item" when a you're viewing a user's CB profile. I don't know whether there's a consensus view on whether it's desirable to incoporate Kunena into CB or vice versa; whether or not it's desirable, it's certainly proven difficult in practice to achieve a satisfactory solution.

The male "Mars" symbol you've seen in forums, is obtained from the Kunena user profile database ... not the CB one! However, just because that's the way it is, doesn't mean that you're unable to search the userlist on a similarly defined field in Community Builder. I say "similarly" defined because, although you can't [easily] design a CB search using data from a foreign [Kunena] table, if you knew how to construct an SQL SELECT statement, and you could be bothered to write the PHP script, you could effect a solution ...

First of all, I'm not aware of a "standard" cb_gender field that's deployed when you install CB. If you deleted such a field, you probably had created it as a custom field the first place. However, if you want to re-create the field, you're still left with the problem of how to populate it!

Leaving that issue aside, you should be able to create a filed called "gender" using the CB Field Management tool (it will be stored as "cb_gender"); you can assign which tab you'd like it to be displayed; you can define this field as something you'd like to collect at user registration time, and you can use the CB List Management tool to filter your user lists on its value ... if that's what you want to do. However, you cannot use this field to populate the Kunena user profile database!

The reason that you will probably not be able to populate Kunena gender into a corresonding CB cb_gender (or vice versa) is because the datatype of the Kunena gender field is TINY_INT(4) and the datatype of your CB cb_gender field will be VARCHAR(255); one of them contains numbers, the other contains text. Text to numbers, numbers to text? You see the problem? From this point on, it just gets more and more difficult to explain.

Lastly, StrikeDaMic wrote

Also, I wonder why my gender is being displayed properly (even though I NEVER defined it) even though I had deleted the original cb_gender field ...

It's displayed "properly" because you did define it! You just didn't define your gender using CB; you defined the value in Kunena!

@vcardillo: yours is not an odd request at all; I think it touches on many of the fears, worries, concerns and doubts that many of us are feeling about the future of Community Builder and its ability to integrate with Kunena. Well done in putting the issue on the table.

In other discussions that we've had here, people have questioned the very need for Community Builder in a Joomla site that uses Kunena forums! In passing, I would strongly urge you to upgrade from Joomla 1.0.15 to 1.5.9 in order to take advantage of the considerable improvements made in relation to other aspects of Joomla; furthermore, there's no certainty that either CB nor Kunena will remain backwards-compatible with Joomla 1.0.x in future.

In our discussions we've touched on some of the user profiling features that Kunena seems to be usurping from Community Builder. There has been some noise made about using Kunena's login module in preference to other login products, including CB. Kunena provides a "list users" function and, as you said, the means to change your email and password.

I'm wondering if Kunena has evolved beyond its niche product role (as a forum extension to Joomla) into other areas that were the traditional territory of products like Community Builder?

In our discussion entitled Is Community Builder worth installing? I canvassed some of the reasons why I chose CB for my web development:

• CB's "tabbed" profiles;
• integration with other products, such as JoomGallery, Acajoom and Kunena;
• user registration;
• extensible data fields; and
• it's free.

In other words, CB was a good choice as a community management system.

In our discussion entitled Signature, ordering and viewtype migration script for CB we've touched on the value of using CB's user profile data and concluded that both the Community Builder development team and the Kunena development team have questions that need to be answered. What is particularly disturbing is that both development teams have been tight-lipped on plans to better integrate their products with one another. In fact, it seems to me, neither team appears to be talking to the other. It's strikingly apparent that neither this website nor Joomlapolis have made any announcement about a timetable for harnessing the products together. As users, we're being politely asked to sit tight, and wait patiently.

I believe CB's development team needs to wake up because, I think, they're in danger of being outmanoeuvred by other players in the community management game among whom, it could be said, Kunena is beginning to emerge. I could be wrong (and I hope I am) but that's what the evidence suggests.

Thank you, beat, for providing an update - the first I've read - about CB's plans to develop a CB-Kunena tab plugin. This is welcome news, indeed!

I'm sorry if I appear to be pushing my one pet criticism, about the lack of response on the issue of freely integrating CAPTCHA into the user registration process but, if you look at the previous mention I made at the Joomlopolis website , my remarks were not satisfactorily addressed.

#6327 refers to the message number in this, Kunena forum. You might also review my earlier remarks in this forum @ #5945 .

Overall, I think that CB is a good option to use. I don't want this forum to become a back-door way of airing complaints or criticisms about Community Builder, but I think several contributors have already expressed a certain "frustration" with the feedback model used at Joomlapolis, and maybe that matter needs to be taken on board.

A-ha! Now we're beginning to make some sense!

Matias wrote:

It's Kunena feature and you need to go to Kunena internal profile. Just turn off integration, go to My Profile, copy the URL and turn integration back on.

I tried your suggestion, Matias, and it works perfectly!


I didn't understand "copy the URL", but it doesn't matter. In fact, it works so well, I wonder why people would want to use integrate profiling with other products? I decided not to turn integration back on again.

On my website I use Community Builder for the registration/login process. This automatically populates the Kunena user database with basic Joomla user registration data. CB allows the users to upload avatar images - I realise that Kunena does, too - but, more importantly, CB allows my users to see a list of all the members. The only other benefit that CB offers, in terms of using the forum, is that the CB tab allows users to see the last 5 (say) messages that a user posted. If you want to browse through everything that a user posted, users can look at the Kunena profile.

Perhaps other people have views on whether to use a third-party profile integration when they deploy Kunena or whether it's probably better, in the long run, to use the Kunena user profile system?

As far as www.kunena.com is concerned, this site has chosen to integrate the Kunena forums with JomSocial (I think) and that's why cowboysdude's instructions earlier (#6325) made no sense.

Thanks, heaps!

I'd also make a couple of other comments in relation to the CB integration with Kunena:

There is a known problem with signatures not working within the Kunena forum. Although it's possible for an administrator/manager to modify users signatures (from the backend), it's not possible for users to do that for themselves.

There is still no "official" Kunena plugin for Community Builder. Although it's possible to view a user's forum posts from within their CB profile, the mechanism to achieve this is a kludge of the existing cbsimpleforumtab plugin ... and there are known problems installing this feature.

I'm also waiting on the integration of CB's CAPTCHA as a public release as part of the user registration process. It's difficult to justify the expense of €25 for a feature that really should be part of the core build. On the other hand, if you install Community Builder it's a bit like moving into a brand new home for free ... but having to pay for the front door key.