Flarum + Django (flarum-ext-django)

jordanjay29

WaldemarHamm Ugh, I hate those sites. That's why I browse with addons like uBlock for the most part.

WaldemarHamm

Franz From looking at some old solutions for bridging php in general and also phpbb it looks like people try to store the Session ID/Cookies-Stuff into a database on the Django-side and then having the PHP-side look at it and pass the cookie on to the PHP-app.
Any objections to this concept?

WaldemarHamm

Maybe it would be possible to instead have Django serve an API that provides user-info, so we could skip the whole database shenanigans on the PHP-side?
But how do I ensure data-security in that case? Password-protection for the API? Localhost-enforcement? Both? Something else?

WaldemarHamm

I'm also not sure about how to render Flarum inside a HTML-template that is used by Django. There seems to be no "best practice" for using inline PHP in the HTML-template because the very thought of doing so is frowned upon.

The easy way could be to serve Flarum on a subdomain or subpath where the webserver expects PHP instead of the Django entrypoint.

But then I'd need to make everything that Django provides (e.g. user info, private message count, newest blog articles, and whatever I may think of that is visible outside of the content wrapper) accessible via API, so I can still show it in the PHP-environment via PHP that Flarum needs.

So either I manage to run inline PHP code within the Django template engine or I have to write an API for a ****ton of stuff to pass it over to Flarum.

Am I missing something here? What would be the best approach?

luceos

WaldemarHamm embed functionality is planned, also to support embedding with Wordpress.

Still thinking about all this. And not sure how to assist you further.

WaldemarHamm

luceos It's one thing to embed a PHP-app into another PHP-app, or to put it in other words: Have one specific URL serve PHP.
It's another thing having one specific URL serve Python AND PHP and then everything inside a Python-Webframework.

luceos

luceos maybe some way of redirection between the two can work. This is how such a setup works at my workplace between a control panel and a wordpress site:

Assuming D (Django app) and F (Flarum installation)
User logs in on D and wants to go to F. Therefor clicking the link (button or other element) to F.
- User is redirected on D to a page that calls an extension API endpoint with the username, password and receiving a temporary token.
- User is then auto redirected to F with an encrypted version of token.
- F extension validates the redirection by checking the token with the saved token for this user.

The other way around will work the same, but the D app will ask F whether the token used is valid.

WaldemarHamm

luceos That would be one way to solve the first hurdle, but I need to have a grasp of the whole picture before beginning.

Assume the following:
1. I have a webpage that maybe looks like this: http://demo.datcouch.com/index/reveliohtml
2. I want to make it availiable under "Forum Layout" in the header there.

Now the problem is: Everything is rendered by Django, which is based on Python. I can't just put a PHP app in there right out of the box.

There seem to be two ways: Either I manage to use inline PHP code in the HTML template by either prerendering it before passing the template to Django or overloading the domain configuration in nginx so it would maybe render it after Django did.
Or I make it so the Forum link is not rendered by Django but rather by PHP. But then I'd need an API for every dynamic content you see there (counters for read articles, latest articles and whatnot).

The easiest way would be to separate both designs entirely, or in other words: Do not embed Flarum but use it as a standalone. But I refuse to go down this path just yet.

EDIT: The last suggestion would also enable the use of an iframe, but I hate iframes...

luceos

WaldemarHamm Flarum frontend is a html/js app. PHP hardly has anything to do with your issues because Flarum itself talks with a PHP backend. You might duplicate how Flarum works by implementing your own frontend.. no I can't recommend that ?

WaldemarHamm

You mean to tell me there's no PHP code involved in rendering the HTML but only for database-stuff?

luceos

WaldemarHamm Not completely, php does generate some html, but the main interaction is between js and the php api.

You might want to wait for either @Franz or @Toby to share some insight on how they would approach this.

WaldemarHamm

luceos I see.

Well I don't know if it would be viable to try and reimplement the rendering part of the PHP-code in Python.

But as long as PHP is involved in rendering Flarum I can't just put it in a HTML template that is rendered by Django right out-of-the-box.

WaldemarHamm

Franz luceos First step to success:
I managed to set up an Ubuntu server that successfully serves a django app via postgres on domain.tld and Flarum via mysql on forum.domain.tld via nginx.

I will look at how everything looks and works now.

Man had I a lot of stuff to work out getting there...

WaldemarHamm

I updated the original post with a ToDo-List for convenience reasons.

Franz

I would have just resorted to an iframe, but apparently you want to avoid that ?

So, yes, you'd have to recreate the HTML skeleton that Flarum needs, and include the proper JS files - but that's really not too much work, even in Python.

As for authentication, I'd probably replicate the parsing logic in Flarum - you'd need to replace Flarum's authentication middlewares with your own...

WaldemarHamm

Franz Sounds like I'd need to fork Flarum and just make a Django-Package out of it and then render it on my own. Any objections to that?
This way I could skip the Django-package/Flarum-extension necessity. But then again I don't know how I could assure up-to-date Flarum code without manually updating it.

I'll ponder about this some more and try to follow your suggestion rendering Flarum through Django first.

Franz

WaldemarHamm No fork is needed, I'd say. You'll need

your Flarum extensions for proper authentication with Django's auth system, and
a Django package that renders the basic HTML that Flarum needs (wrapped with your site's HTML) and includes the JavaScript.

WaldemarHamm

Franz The second point (btw. how do you make bulleted lists? The markup guide said something about beginning each line with - but doesn't work for me ^⁾ means I need to copy or link the Flarum HTML template and also copy (or better link) the Flarum javascript and include it within the Django HTML template, correct?

WaldemarHamm

Franz So I'm looking at the flarum files right now. The three important viewing files should be index.php, admin.php (and maybe api.php).
But all they seem to do is require some other file that itself requires a bunch of stuff. Sadly I'm not experienced enough with PHP and apps in general with such a deep structure.

Could you point me to the location of the relevant HTML skeletons and tell me the JS files I'd need to link? That would help me a lot ?.

WaldemarHamm

Well the js and css stuff seems to be in the folder /assets alright. (Tell me if there's more ?.) Looking for the HTML skeleton now.

EDIT: Could it be that there's no real HTML skeleton per se, but that it is really created fully dynamically?

EDIT2: I guess that it's all about the IDs in the HTML and the JS playing with it. I'll try to dig in some more but would appreciate any help.

EDIT3: Yeah, I found the views folder in /vendor/flarum/core. So the HTML skeletons are PHP files. Looking at the forum.blade.php there are three tags that seem PHP-related. One is for the forum URL, the other for the title. And the last one is for the content.
Franz Now two questions remain:
1. How would I go about asking the API for the forum URL and title, so I could include that in my Django template.
2. How can I replace the {!! $content !!} part? Is this PHP or JS?

Sadly flarum.org/docs/templates is not yet implemented/available.

WaldemarHamm

By the way: If anyone had problems up till now setting up Flarum with nginx on Ubuntu 15.10 server within a local VM guest, you can ask me up.

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