Askbot can be used both as as dedicated site and as an application within a larger site. There are still issues to resolve to make askbot a truly reusable app, but some are already solved.
This page is a guide for using askbot as an independent app and it is somewhat technical.
If you already have a django site with users, after adding askbot to your project, run a management command just once:
python manage.py add_missing_subscriptions
Note
This only applies to users registered before the installation of Askbot. Newer users will have default subscription records created automatically, by the Django’s post_save signal.
The email subscription settings are also created automatically when certain pages are visited and when send_email_alerts command is run, so it is not mandatory to run add_missing_subscriptions.
Askbot has a bundled application for user login and registration, but it can be replaced with any other. Just remove 'askbot.deps.django_authopenid' from the INSTALLED_APPS, remove 'askbot.deps.django_authopenid.backends.AuthBackend' from the AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS, install another registration app and modify LOGIN_URL and LOGOUT_URL accordingly.
If you are adding Askbot to a django site that already has registered users, please see this section.
There are two caveats.
Firstly, if you are using some other login/registration app, please disable feature “settings”->”data entry and display”->”allow posting before logging in”.
This may be fixed in the future by adding a snippet of code to run right after the user logs in - please ask at askbot forum if you are interested.
Secondly, disable setting “settings”->”user settings”->”allow add and remove login methods”. This one is specific to the builtin login application which allows more than one login method per user account.