# Embedding a forum inside a rails app **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [March 3, 2006, 5:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/embedding-a-forum-inside-a-rails-app/76286 "2006-03-03T17:37:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![adamdorsey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@adamdorsey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adamdorsey)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2006, 5:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/embedding-a-forum-inside-a-rails-app/76286/1 "2006-03-03T17:37:21Z")
what is the best way to embed a forum (phpbb is currently installed under /public/forums/) inside my layout ? I dont want the foum to be its own page i would like it to appear inside the main part of the page with navigation and border in tact. is this possible with the current way it is installed ? thanks adam ---
**Author:** ![adamdorsey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@adamdorsey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adamdorsey)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 10:53am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/embedding-a-forum-inside-a-rails-app/76286/2 "2006-03-04T10:53:40Z")
Am Freitag, den 03.03.2006, 11:35 -0500 schrieb Adam D.: > what is the best way to embed a forum (phpbb is currently installed > under /public/forums/) inside my layout ? I dont want the foum to be > its own page i would like it to appear inside the main part of the > page with navigation and border in tact. is this possible with the > current way it is installed ? Why don’t you use a iframe? – Norman T. [http://blog.inlet-media.de](http://blog.inlet-media.de) ---
**Author:** ![adamdorsey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@adamdorsey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adamdorsey)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 1:31pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/embedding-a-forum-inside-a-rails-app/76286/3 "2006-03-04T13:31:10Z")
You aren’t really going to have much luck integrating a PHP app into a Rails app, short of using an iframe as suggested above. I’m currently working on a Rails website which uses a punbb forum and the simplest way of doing it was to create a punbb skin that wraps the forum in the sites layout/navigation and then run the forum off of a subdomain ([forum.foo.com](http://forum.foo.com)) next to the main site ([www.foo.com](http://www.foo.com)). The only downside is the punbb forum is duplicating your rails layout so it means two things to maintain and the navigation on the forum skin is also hardcoded to point at [www.foo.com/somelink](http://www.foo.com/somelink) which is also more maintenance. Its not a huge site though so not much of an issue. In fact, we ARE integrating the two in some ways, because part of the Rails app needs people to log in to access it and the client has requested they can use the same credentials for both the forum and this part of the Rails app. We have accomplished this by creating a new database connection in database.yml for the punbb database, creating a new class that extends ActiveRecord::Base called Punbb which is set to use the punbb database, then extending the Punbb class to create models for the tables in the Punbb database that we need to use, in this case just the user table. Now we can authenticate against Punbb’s user table easily. On 3/4/06, Norman T. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Norman T. > > [http://blog.inlet-media.de](http://blog.inlet-media.de) > > * * * > > Rails mailing list > removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid > [http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails](http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails) – Cheers, Luke R. > **[Luke Redpath - Freelance Ruby, Rails and iOS app developer / London / Essex / UK](https://lukeredpath.co.uk/)** > > Experienced freelance and contract developer offering Ruby, Rails and iOS app development services for iPhone, iPad and other iOS platforms. Based in Colchester, Essex, London and remote. ---
**Author:** ![adamdorsey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@adamdorsey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adamdorsey)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 3:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/embedding-a-forum-inside-a-rails-app/76286/4 "2006-03-04T15:34:55Z")
thanks i put the forum at [forum.domain.com](http://forum.domain.com) and then just used an iframe as suggested above. I manipulated the CSS of phpbb to match my layout colors and now things look fine (enough). Thanks for the suggestions. adam