WP-United has two major new features on the horizon. I have pre-alpha code, but it will probably not be included in v0.8.9.

A user integration tool — you can run this when you first install WP-United, and are integrating logins. It will present a list of existing WordPress users and help you attach them to a phpBB account. Right now, you have to rename these accoutns manuallyif no matchin phpBB user exists.

Have phpBB appear inside WordPress. This really wasn’t the original scope of WP-United — it has always been a “phpBB Mod”. phpBB is used for (optional) authentication across both WordPress and phpBB, and can (optionally) grab your WordPress install and put it on a phpBB page. However, I have had  so many requests for doing this the other way round, that I tentatively plan to introduce it as an option.

The process for doing this latter feature will be very similar to the way it is now — a WordPress page will be grabbed, and pieces of the header and footer will be placed on the page, around phpBB. phpBB will still be in control of the process. Performance will be a key concern, as two full pages will be being generated. I’ll ovecome these concerns with caching, but having WordPress appear inside phpBB will still be the preferred option. (It’s what we do on this site!!). Blog.php will still be the access point for the blogs for the time being.

Integrating this way round will not give users the easy ability to put phpBB header features on a WordPress page, and as such, I will be waiting to see how much interest this generates before releasing the code.

 I’m willing to take on other features that are suggested – so if you have any burning “must-haves”, feel free to make them heard!