I’m new to discourse.
How well is it possible to integrate discourse into a complex website or integrate a website into discourse.
I need high integration, graphically and technically. These should be no optical difference between the website and the discourse. I need customization on the graphical layout of discourse and also low-level DB access. I’m integrating various other custom dynamic code with the forum software including a webshop.
I do not want to be limited to discourse plugins.
Are there any resources on discourses internal DB structure?
How easy is customization and integration with static and server-generated pages.
It really depends on what you’re trying to do. If you’re trying to pull pieces of your discourse instance into an existing website, then take a look at this:
If you’re trying to go the other way, I would challenge you to ask if this is really necessary. By creating links on discourse that go to your site and links on the site that go back to discourse, you’re effectively doing the same thing.
This is exactly what I do and I have people ask how I managed to incorporate something so dynamic and database driven into my static site. I don’t. One is on a subdomain with heavy linking back and forth.
Well besides a graphical integration I also need the integrate the websites technically.
For example I need to access stats of users and run my custom code to award ranks/permissions for users. Likes should cost credits and I need to change the appearance of the profile page dynamically.
Also I need to integrate single posts into my pages and have users reply from just there.
Just my opinion, but it sounds like you need to build a plugin that connects to your site and also look at the embedding process.
Your plugin would need to restrict the like button based on the result it gets from your site and run an ajax call back to your site to keep it updated. I would probably run a couple daily sidekiq jobs to make sure everything is in line.
But to answer your question, yes. I would say it’s possible. But is it worth it?
I don’t. One is on a subdomain with heavy linking back and forth.