Link phpbb usernames to drupal profiles

Question

I'm using drupal and phpbb with a bridge called phpbbforum. It works quite well, the user information is synched between the drupal and phpbb databases. The forum is embeded in a drupal page, so all variables that come with page.tpl.php should be avaliable.

I want drupal to be the only profile handler, so when someone clicks on a phpbb username, that person get's linked to the drupal profile. In phpbbs template files, the link to the profile is called by function get_username_string. I think the right place to edit it is in the /includes/functions_content.php file on line 1178. Right above that line it says "* Get username details for placing into templates." and there's a section about profile links. I just can't figure out how to edit it so that the profile links lead to drupal profiles. Can anyone figure this one out?

Answer 1

I managed to achieve this just a few days ago! I must say, it did take a good 30 minutes for me to figure the files that needed to be edited, but after that, it was a breeze!

Basically, you have to edit the phpBB3 PHP Includes files, so that they point to the Drupal user profile, instead of the phpBB one. This can be achieved very easily. Firstly, install the Pathauto Drupal module. Make an auto alias for all user profiles, so that they go to yoursite.com/users/[username]. Then basically, in the phpBB PHP Includes files, make the user profiles direct to: yoursite.com/users/{USERNAME}.

In phpBB, {USERNAME} means the user's username. So when you add yoursite.com/users/{USERNAME}, it will direct to the Drupal profiles that you created with Pathauto. For example, my Drupal profile pages are mysite.com/users/admin, and phpBB will use the {USERNAME} tag to print the user's username. So in phpBB, if you change the profile URLs, they'll go to the same place.

It's pretty easy, but will require a bit of PHP knowledge. Mine is working seamlessly now, and only took about 5 minutes after I'd searched through the phpBB files. What you must remember is - These modifications would be made to phpBB itself, and not Drupal, seeing as you want phpBB profiles to go to Drupal ones. If you need any help, let me know, I'll try to help you out. :)