integrating Vanilla with another web application

jellicle

Hi. I'm trying to figure out how to integrate with a pre-existing web application which has its own user management and login system. I'd like to integrate Vanilla fairly seamlessly, so that:

--users which are created in my web app are automatically created in Vanilla
--change password in my app, it gets changed in Vanilla
--login to my app, get logged-in to Vanilla
--logout to my app, get logged-out of Vanilla
--change roles in my app, roles get changed in Vanilla
--ability for users to change their Vanilla passwords or apply for
membership through Vanilla is *disabled* (they'll do it through the other
application...)
--Vanilla doesn't give any hint that users can login or logout or signup through it (don't want to let users get out of sync, being logged out of one and not the other - confusing for them)

I'm sure you understand the idea. This is sort of the reverse of the Wordpress integration which is mentioned in the wiki documentation. I don't mind keeping two sets of user records in two different tables; I just want a nice API for manipulating the Vanilla forum from PHP pages that are external to it. I've looked through the forums, and there are some helpful tips, especially from users Dinoboff and daveh, in these threads:

http://lussumo.com/community/discussion/3381/
http://lussumo.com/community/discussion/3340/
http://lussumo.com/community/discussion/4808/

They seem to cover the functions necessary to manipulate the Vanilla user database. Now, no doubt I can figure out how to disable the new user registration function in Vanilla by commenting something out somewhere, but I'm worried about breaking something, and worried about my changes being undone if I upgrade Vanilla in the future, etc.

So, is there any API documentation like this anywhere? If not, can we put it all together? And how can I neuter Vanilla that users can't login, change their passwords, and so on? I suspect I'm not the only one who would want to use Vanilla in this way.

judgej

I'm in the same situation, and can't seem to find the answer. I have users maintained entirely through a separate application, so I would like to remove all traces of login and registration forms from Vanilla. Replacing 'login' and 'logout' with URLs of my out would be a benefit (I would send users to the login and logout functions on my CMS application).

-- Jason