WP-United is a powerful yet compact modification for phpBB 2. The package integrates WordPress, the leading blogging and content management tool, into a phpBB community.

Use WordPress as a stand-alone portal, or as a fully-integrated blog system

The choice is yours! The multitude of clean, well-designed templates for WordPress make it an excellent choice for a site homepage. If you want, you can allow community members to comment on WordPress posts, or give them their own fully-fledged blog.

Combine WordPress into the look and feel of your site

You can choose to have WordPress appear inside your phpBB header and footer — as users browse posts or articles in WordPress, they will also have access to phpBB function such as log in/out, profile, and private messaging.

Many owners of phpBB sites will have spend a long time customising the look and feel. You won’t have to duplicate this as WordPress will sit inside your existing header and footer, without any modifications! (the integration even switches your document type declaration, ensuring the combination produces valid XHTML markup!)

Automatic login integration

Users don’t need to register for a separate WordPress account — it is all managed behind the scenes by the integration package.

You can choose how user levels are mapped from phpBB to WordPress — for example, you could give phpBB users the ability to create posts, mods the power to edit posts, etc… or you could allow only phpBB admins to create posts, and everyone else to comment… the choice is yours. You can even turn the mapping completely off — allowing WordPress to use its own login system.

To blog or not to blog?

WP-United can provide the ability to give each community member their own blog. Members can choose the title, description, and even the look and feel of their own blogs. WordPress itself doesn’t even natively support this functionality!

For members who have blogs, a “Blog” button will show up in their profile and under their posts, which, when clicked, will take visitors directly to their blog.

Users can show their phpBB avatar in their blog — and community members commenting on blog posts can have theirs show up too.

Of course, any or all of these features may be turned off.

Plug n’ Play — Zero Changes Required!

WP-United is a 100% phpBB mod. No changes whatsoever are made to WordPress files — which makes upgrading your WordPress install a breeze! You don’t even need to install a WordPress Plugin!

The mod applies all its behavioural changes to WordPress through a unique WP-United Connection. This Connection controls how WordPress behaves while it is integrated into phpBB.

The WP-United Connection is very flexible — WordPress can be installed anywhere on the same host relative to phpBB. You can install WordPress inside or outside your phpBB folder — or you can even install phpBB inside your WordPress folder!

Easy Setup Wizard

WP-United comes with an easy-to-follow Setup Wizard that resides in your phpBB Admin Control panel.

The Wizard walks you through setting up WordPress, and includes AJAX-enabled tools to auto-detect some of the key options for you. The Wizard establishes the WP-United Connection with your WordPress install with one click.

Theme compatibility

WP-United will work with almost any WordPress theme, out of the box. (However, if you want to provide per-user blogs, you will probably want to make a couple of small changes so you can list users on the WordPress homepage — a sample index page is included in the mod to help you get started.)

WP-United is still in Beta stage, but feel free to download it and try it out today!