Hello! I’m very new to this. I want to create a forum for a hyper-local community with elements of e-commerce by integrating some classifieds style features. I’ve decided that WooCommerce would be the best platform for getting the job done.
Once I install the Discourse WP plugin, will I have Discourse running at full functionality since it’s opensource, or will I have to pay the $100/mo package on the website for this; that would seem odd since I’d be paying for hosting somewhere else with the WooCommerce setup? If it is in fact free and fully functioning at this point, how exactly do I go about managing it? Would it all be through the WooCommerce/Wordpress platform? With so many features, it’s hard for me to imagine how managing the forum would work through Wordpress.
Unless you’re already really wedded to Discourse for a bunch of other reasons, I’d recommend that you check out Discourse Subscriptions. There is documentation here for getting WooCommerce to work, but nearly ever time I’ve accepted what seemed like a lot of money to get WooCommerce to do something for someone I’ve been sorry. The last time I punted and gave back their money.
@pfaffman According to the TL;DR on the ‘Discourse Subscriptions’, this isnt exactly what I’m looking for. I want the forum to be free and open, I’d be monetizing in other ways with stuff like featured posts, and things of that nature.
So how exactly do I go about managing the forum once its installed on woocommerce? is it all through wordpress or do i create some sort of account with discourse as well?
No. The wp-discourse plugin only connects your existing WP site with your existing Discourse site. If what you want to do is to sell some stuff on your site and have a forum that shares the same user database/login info, then that’s probably what you want. If you want to charge for access to, say, certain parts of the forum, you can do it, but it’s a bit more complicated than I’d like.
to sell some stuff on your site and have a forum that shares the same user database/login info
Thats exactly what I want, a website based on my Discourse site that allows me to do other things on there as well. I have no interest/need in putting a pay wall on any part of the forum.
So this seems like I’d have to have a hosted discourse site and then a separate WooCommerce site, then integrate them using the wp-discourse plugin? This would allow full Discourse forum functionality on my WooCommerce site for the user? And then I’d manage the forum through the Discourse hosting backend?
If that’s the case, for the sake of saving the $100 a month, is there a way for me to integrate the API so I don’t have to pay that?
You can install Discourse for free and self host it, but you need another server (unless you want to do a bunch of extra work). See Discourse official Standard Installation.
I see, so in this case it seems like the best option would be to use the discourse hosting and just integrate with the plug-in on the separately hosted woocommerce website. Just for clarification on my end, this will have a fully functioning discourse forum on the main woocommerce website? There will be no need for my users to access the separate discourse website?
You will have two different URLs (e.g., www.x.com and community.x.com). Logging in to www will also log you into Discourse. You can use themes to make Discourse look like the WP site and provide navigation back and forth.
Understood. So how does discourse fit into www.x.com with the wp plugin if its just going to redirect to community.x.com anyhow? Sorry for all of these questions, just trying to figure it out before I put in the investment since it’s a little steep for my income.