I havent gotten back to you yet im in the process of getting a new job as a process server/levying officer. So im going to be very busy but ill help when i can.
Alright first things first from what i see on your site you can achive using Simple machines forums and a portal and profile mod. Thats what i would use if i were you their website is
Here. Read their FAQ and install instructions before you make you mind up on it.
Heres how i would build a site. Basically the process is pretty simple. you install SMF forums on to your server following their install instructions. That will make a forum like this one on your webpage. From there you'll need to install a portal mod to smf. This lets you add a front page ,article ,pages ,shout box's etc..
this makes updating your site alot easier its basically makes you webpage as easy to edit as myspace or facebook. The reason i would go with smf is simplicity. It already includes calendars you can put dates on a way to log in on the front page and have it carry over to the rest of the site you can add profile mods that let you have profiles similar to face book. that will let individual members upload images to your site under their member page so when you click on their name it will take you to their profile.
Another benefit is the skins are all written in css so their easy to edit and their are many tutorials on how to do this.
THe other alternative is using two different Cms similar to what you have right now i've never done this but im sure we could figure it out. I know to do it you need to create two different databases on your server. one for the frontend website and the other for the forums. you create your front end site and upload it to on database and than upload your forums to the other and link the two.
this makes updating your site alot easier its basically makes you webpage as easy to edit as myspace or facebook. The reason i would go with smf is simplicity. It already includes calendars you can put dates on a way to log in on the front page and have it carry over to the rest of the site you can add profile mods that let you have profiles similar to face book. that will let individual members upload images to your site under their member page so when you click on their name it will take you to their profile.
Another benefit is the skins are all written in css so their easy to edit and their are many tutorials on how to do this.
THe other alternative is using two different Cms similar to what you have right now i've never done this but im sure we could figure it out. I know to do it you need to create two different databases on your server. one for the frontend website and the other for the forums. you create your front end site and upload it to on database and than upload your forums to the other and link the two.
Forum integration into a preexisting site from what i've read is pretty difficult to do and requires knowledge of php which i dont have. The only way i think i could do it is to keep the header and footer of a page and delete everything in between and create an i frime to "hold" the forum. But you would need a php script to retrieve the forum and load it into the page.
This is why i would go with a forum that has a portal system you can add onto it. i also liked it because with the portal system you can set it to post a section of the forum to the front page. I created a news section in the forum that would post on the front page of our site so it kind of had a blog feel to the front page and when someone clicked on it it would take you to that topic in the forum where you could add comments to the news article. For our news i just posted game nights and when we won matches etc...
There is also a thing called blocks in the portal settings. you can add a block almost anywhere on your page . you can put almost anything in there from a navigation page to shout boxes or add's. Also there are articles articles are basically a page like your rank page its lets you add text to its own page like an html website.
It may sound d=aunting but its easier done than explaned or said. If those faggots in tfo were douche bags i could show you exactly what it is but they cant do shit without fucking everything up. Ill have a ceel in two weeks than ill give you my number and shit. Ill keep checking back here also.
Hope this helps if you need any help let me know i might take a day or two but i'll get back to you.
