A little about me: I'm working on a hobby web site. It was going to have a forum, a few database-based applications I've written the back-end for, and in the process of deciding what should go on the front page, I figured I should start a blog too. I have a version of the site sort of written using phpBB as the the forum and the templating engine for the web apps, but it's very frustrating getting phpBB to do what I want it to do...you really can't do much without editing the core code. On the recommendation of a co-worker, I decided to check out WordPress/bbPress. I'm not sure WP/bbPress is the right solution, but I haven't found anything I like better....it seems like it's pretty easy to rearrange things on the page and add new elements as needed.
What I want: My forum should appear on the site similar to a Page. I don't think I need "deep integration"...I'm not terribly concerned about data integration, other than the fact that signing into WP should sign you into the forums and vice versa. I don't need the forum to be able to interact with other pages on the site...if I need data from my other apps in the forum, I'll just grab it from the database using a forum plugin. But I am concerned about appearance integration...I want the WP header and footer, including my logo and nav bar, to show up at the top of the forum page, and I want the forum theme to be similar to (if not identical to) the WP theme.
What's the safest way to make this happen? I'm very new to WP/bbPress, but I'm not afraid to write code...a certain major website pays me a good bit of money do so during the week :)
