How do users get to the forum?

Have you disabled the drupal forums? If you haven't I am pretty sure you could just disable the drupal module and the menu link will disappear. You could then make a new menu item that points to your smf forum install. If you look at the demo site you will see that they set up one of the primary links to point to the sites smf forum.

This is the page settings section of /admin/settings/smfforum (its towards the bottom)

SMF page settings

SMF display way:
In the same window
In frame inside Drupal page
In the new window

I think you would want it set to "in the same window" for what you need. I am have mine set the same way. When a user clicks on a forum link then the regular full smf page is show. This way I can theme the two systems separately.

If you dont see those settings then you might have an older version of the module. I started using the dev release of this module from the demo site a few weeks ago so I dont know what the original page settings look like.

I'm not seeing the page for SMF Page Settings. I just downloaded the dev version this morning...

Ok, looks like the dev version on Drupal isn't the same as the version on the dev site, updated almost one month ago. Why is that?

I downloaded the new version, now I see the page settings. But, what should the link look like to get the forum to open a frame in Drupal?? If I just go to domain.com/smf it opens without drupal present....

If I just go to domain.com/smf it opens without drupal present....

I am pretty sure it will only open in a frame when you navigate to the forum from your drupal install. e.g. from a link to your forum in your navigation block or header etc.

I played around with the frames a bit...it looks great and I appreciate the effort that went in to programming it..(check out the demo forum for some of the work they put into that feature) but its to easy to break out of the iframe(thats just the nature of iframes as far as I know) and not having a proper web address for forum posts makes it hard to bookmark them etc. I ended up learning the well documented smf template system and then matched my forum to look like the rest of my site.

I am pretty sure it will only open in a frame when you navigate to the forum from your drupal install. e.g. from a link to your forum in your navigation block or header etc.

It doesn't. You can try it if you like. the URL is http://infinitydaycamp.com You'll see the SMF link on the left side under Navigation.

I see..its not working at all.
Maybe because you were using the older dev version without the frame code?. Have you tried updating the module with the drupal update script?... I think I remember some else having the same problem on the demo site...if I can find the link I will post it..

You could also try enabling one of the new smf blocks.. and see if the links open up in a frame from them...its been a while for me since I played around with the frames..and I am not in front of my dev machine so I am sorry for the less then precise help :]

Tried the update script, didn't show anything there for SMF. But, the blocks use the path of smfforum, so it's apparently a hardcoded path one has to use. Looks like it's working. Another thing that needs fixing in the docs. ;)

I REALLY appreciate your help today, though!

Not a problem..its good for my memory to walk through the process and hopefully this kind of dialog can help other first time installers in the future...also... maybe better docs will appear a bit quicker :]