intergrating a MVC (php) Framework with a CMS

Question

Is there a way to build a large-scale, multi-user (meaning users can register and login) web application / website with a php framework like symfony (MVC pattern) and intergrate a CMS like wordpress to manage the site?

My desired goal is to use wordpress to manage the content of the site, and quickly and easily add new features to site using the vast number of wordpress pluggins, while at the same time, having the MVC functionality i need to build new features that wordpress doesn't provide, as well as have automated testing available through the framework.

Initially a lot of the functionality the site needs is already available through wordpress (such as setting up the homepages, blogging, forums, feeds, and feedbacks), but the site needs to be scalable in a manner that is RAD/OOP friendly and allows automated test to be ran on it.

I'm not trying to be lazy, just trying to work smarter not harder. I could create my own CMS, blogger, forum and what not through a framework, but why reinvent all those components if they already exist.

So, finally is this possible, and are there any resources (books, tutorials, case studies, blogs) on how to do this kind of thing?

thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I do something similar with Zend Framework & Wordpress. I basically do a regular Wordpress install which I set as not visible and symlink my wordpress folder to the ZF library folder, this makes all the Wordpress content & functions accessible within my ZF application.

This might be frowned upon since I'm including all sorts of stuff that really is not needed... but it works well and as easy to upgrade as upgrading Wordpress itself.

Answer 2

Joomla is MVC out of the box, seems like it would be the easy solution since its designed to be used exactly as you are describing. 1.6 is in the later stages of beta and includes quite a few access level enhancements that would also be useful.

Answer 3

We'll use symfony + drupal to a similar project, but now it's just a PoC and you can integrate both way : Symfony app inside a drupal node or drupal layout as a drop-in replacement for symfony layout.

An alternative I suggested was to use a Symfony based open source CMS/CMF (like Diem) to have a symfony only environment which would ease maintenance and initial development.