vBulletin Taskbar Ticker

[Wayne Luke]

vBulletin Taskbar Ticker.

This is based on a hack at www.theforumz.com and written by Gutspiller. It is reposted here for the benefit of all licensed vBulletin Owners and their communities.

This add-on allows your users to see your most up-to-date topics in their Windows Taskbar (sorry Mac and Linux users). It has a scrolling display using the Marquee Tag. You can change the HTML to present anything you want really though.

Here are the features:

It now uses Global.php to connect to the database.
It now uses vBulletins database class to perform database operations.
It will show the latest topics to the user based on their vBulletin usergroup and the appropriate permissions. This allows you to hide private forums still.
All forum url's and titles are now pulled from the vBulletin Options.
All query and variable names fit in with vBulletin's naming scheme better.
All links reuse the same window.


One thing I haven't done yet is convert the whole thing to use templates though if I get the time I will do that because I hate having HTML in the code.

Installation

Edit ticker2.php and change the Title tag to represent what you want it to say.
Upload ticker.php to your website.

End User Installation
To install the ticker on your Windows 98 or higher computer (also works on Windows 95 with IE5+ installed) follow these instructions.

Right-click on your Taskbar and go to toolbars->new toolbar
Type "http://www.domain.com/forums/ticker2.php" without the quotes in the location box
Click OK

Make sure to change the domain so that it points to the proper location for them.

There is no support for this outside this thread but all you should have to do is upload it and create a new toolbar. It works on my machine and no there isn't a public demo yet. Anyway, Enjoy it.

[Bane]

Well done Bro :) Made some changes to the width and took off the username/replies and it fits right nice :)

[Scrooge]

Great idea, but I can't get mine to work correctly. It works when I load it in the browser, but doesn't work on the toolbar. On the toolbar the title shows up but nothing ever changes. Using Windows XP, any ideas?

[Wayne Luke]

Originally posted by Scrooge
Great idea, but I can't get mine to work correctly. It works when I load it in the browser, but doesn't work on the toolbar. On the toolbar the title shows up but nothing ever changes. Using Windows XP, any ideas?

Right Click on your Windows Task Bar (by the Start Button) and follow the End-User installation instructions above.

[atrl]

Does this use a lot of bandwidth?

[GameZilla]

hmm this is great but it would be sweet if someone could make something like this except it would be a ticker program. It gets installed when u sign yup for the forums.

[Scrooge]

Originally posted by wluke


Right Click on your Windows Task Bar (by the Start Button) and follow the End-User installation instructions above.

I'm slow but not that slow :) I did that part already.

While typing this I figured out my mistake. I had to "unlock" the toolbar and then resize it so that the display comes up. Anyone who gives this to your users might want to mention that to them too or they might assume it doesn't work and just turn it off.

[Bane]

Scrooge..

Rightclick your taskbar.
Make sure the Lock the Taskbar is unchecked.
Right Click the title.
Make sure that Show Title is unchecked.
Relock taskbar.

Alternatively you can drag the window open further and it will display both.

[TaP]

Does this mess up the cookies when a user visits the board? Like, say I viewed a topic in the toolbar ticker, then go to the board, does it say that that topic is new?

[Scrooge]

Thanks, taking off "show title" helped a lot. Now, how do I remove the poster and number of replies as someone mentioned above? With those included it takes up half of my taskbar to have it all displayed, and if you don't display it all the annoying scroll bar appears at the bottom and gets in the way.

[Streicher]

Hmm, i have logged in with my testuser and the posts in the private forums are still present.

[Streicher]

A small modificatons to link direct to the first unread post

Find:

$bburl/showthread.php?s=&threadid

Chance to:

$bburl/showthread.php?s=&goto=newpost&threadid

A second modification i have made is to save the same file under a new name (ticker.php) and upload it, too.

Before uploading find in both files ticker.php and ticker2.php:

ticker.php?off=true" target=_self>

and change it to:

ticker2.php?off=true" target=_self>

Remove in ticker2.php:

<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="180">

Then the page is not reloaded, until the user reactivate the ticker. And the user also disappears from "Who is online" after the cookie timeout.

[ptbyjason]

I uploaded an on and off image and put it in my folders, but they won't show up. Vbulletin's ticker's images won't show up either. Does anyone know why?

I really wish there was a way to put this in the IE progress bar at the bottom of the browser. I don't think that is possible, but that would be great. ;)

[Streicher]

You have to edit the path for the images:

Try http://www.domain.com/forum/images/on.gif

instead of: images/on.gif

[ptbyjason]

Worked great. Thanks man.

[andrew67]

It seems you need right click and hit refresh for it to update.. Is this correct?? otherwise its just the same 10 threads over & over again.. Is there a way to make it auto refresh??

[ptbyjason]

I might be wrong, but I think it refreshes every 3 minutes.

Does anyone know if it will work on Windows NT? I have a member who cannot get it to work. They said there is no place to select "Toolbars" when they right click.

[wot-Mike]

About the images, in ticker.php the path is set to "/images", which is wrong if your images folder is a subdir of your forumdir. It should be just "images", without the slash thing in front of it.

And it works in Windows 2000. It might not work with an older browser version

[ptbyjason]

If you view Who's Online it messes up the location of the user. Does anyone know a way to prevent the Who's Online to appear normal. I've attached the image of me using the ticker and viewing the Who's Online.

[CB_Tommy]

I think the hack is really usefull, but whats about



a way to change the mode for e.g. the desktop or the taskbar (mode=taskbar or mode=desktop)
a possibility to send the ticker into standby, because there isn't allways the need, that the ticker is runing
a way so that the user can change the text size (on high resulutions 8pt is somewhat small)


Just my ideas :)

[Mystics]

Originally posted by ptbyjason
If you view Who's Online it messes up the location of the user. Does anyone know a way to prevent the Who's Online to appear normal. I've attached the image of me using the ticker and viewing the Who's Online. If you want to remove showing the Ticker in "Who-is-online" completely, do this:

Open ticker2.php:

Search forerror_reporting(7);and add BELOW it$tickerstart=1;Open sessions.php:

Search forif ($templateversion > '2.0.1') { // Use location!and replace it withif ($templateversion > '2.0.1' AND $tickerstart==0) { // Use location!Then upload both files.

]

If you just want to show the correct location, do this:

Open online.php

Find this default:
$userinfo[activity] = 'unknown';
}BEFORE that, add this: case 'ticker2.php':
$userinfo[activity] = 'ticker';
break;
Then find this: default:
// Let's show the admin the location but put something false up for everyone else..
if ($bbuserinfo[usergroupid] == 6) {
$userinfo[location] = htmlspecialchars(stripslashes(replacesession($user info[location])));
$userinfo[where] = "<b>Unknown Location:</b> <a href=\"$userinfo[location]\">$userinfo[location]</a>";
} else {
// We were unable to parse the location
$userinfo[where] = "$bbtitle <a href='index.php?s=$session[sessionhash]'>Main Index</a>";;
}BEFORE that, add this: case 'ticker':
$userinfo[where] = "Watching the <a href='ticker2.php?s=$session[sessionhash]'>Ticker</a>";
break;

Greetingz,
Mystics

[andrew67]

Originally posted by ptbyjason
If you view Who's Online it messes up the location of the user. Does anyone know a way to prevent the Who's Online to appear normal. I've attached the image of me using the ticker and viewing the Who's Online.

I belive only Admin will see that message, everyone else see's the location as the user is browsing main page....

[Mystics]

Originally posted by andrew67


I belive only Admin will see that message, everyone else see's the location as the user is browsing main page.... Yeah, your are right, but nevertheless he should include my changes ('If you just want to show the correct location, do this: ')

Then the Admin and the users got the correct location shown in Who-is-online.

[DarkReaper]

Very cool. I just changed the refresh and fixed the images and it works wonderfully.

I'm concerned about what was said earlier though...if private forum posts are visible, that's not good :)

[ptbyjason]

Dark Reaper, mine only shows threads that the user has access to. If I am not logged in, I cannot see the moderator board posts. If I am logged in I can see all of the threads from all of the boards. There shouldn't be any problem with security on this.

Mystics, thank you. There is one problem with your script though. When I modify the ticker2.php and sessions.php, it still shows the same error. I modified the online.php and now it shows that the user is viewing the ticker. I don't know why it still won't show the exact location for the user. I use VB 2.03, could that have an effect on it?

andrew67, there is a very good reason why this needs to be corrected. If I am trying to track the location of a member, I need to know where they are if they have the ticker running or not. The way it is now, if someone has the ticker running, I lose the use of the Who's Online page.

Mystics and wluke, I think the modification should be added to the original hack.

[LuBi]

I once saw something similar to this used for on some SOF site with newspro. lovin it for vB :D

[Wayne Luke]

You are right.. I didn't think about Who is Online. Frankly because I don't use it because I don't need that much control over my users. They pretty much police themselves and everything stays in line.

I will work on adding the other features though as well as making it a template.

The session.php and other changes will most likely not work in versions before 2.2.0 because of changes in the code. This has not been tested on any version except 2.2.1. If you make those changes in a prior version you are on your own. Sorry.

[nuke]

Like I incorporate the Ticker on the Board on the head page: Source code favor as an example Large

Big Thx

[wot-Mike]

For those of you who have phpMyChat (integrated with the vB database!), this shows who's active in chat:

[voogru]

where do i get ticker.php?

[FWC]

Originally posted by voogru
where do i get ticker.php? It's attached to the first post in this thread.

[voogru]

No, thats ticker2.php. do i just copy ticker2.php and rename it to ticker.php?

Attachment: ticker2.php

[FWC]

I believe that's a typo. You only need the one file. You can call it ticker or ticker2. You just need to use the right name when you install it on your desktop.

[atrl]

Is there anyway I can only have the users I want to access it? Like Certain Usergroups or something?

[tester2]

First, I'd like to say great hack! I installed it earlier this week, and my users really like it. It works great! I changed some of the parameters to customize it based on the feedback I've received from some folks.

One thing I haven't been able to figure out:

How can I get rid of the vertical scroll bar on the right side of the ticker? I put a border around the marquee box (so that I could see how large it was and adjusted the height of the marquee box, but its still there. My taskbar is set at double height. If I increase the size of the taskbar, the scroll bar becomes grayed out, but its still there. Is there another bit of code I can add to ticker.php to remove the scroll bar (i.e. a no scroll tag)?

Thanks in advance for your help! :)

[Gutspiller]

Hey look what I found. Good job luke I am going to install this thing today. BTW thanks for the pimp. :D

Who said wluke wasn't an awesome hacker? ;) :D

[StarBuG]

Works great with some design modifications! THX!!

Ticker rewritten!
The scrolling is now one line moves from right to left!
This Version needs much less space in your taskbar!

Hope you enjoy it ;)

Greetings

StarBuG

[danielillo]

Please, any screenshot?

Thanks.

[Logtenberg]

Thanks for this hack!

Here's a suggestion I think everyone will love:

When the ticker is clicked off, how about having a private message notification feature?

This page can refresh every 10 minutes or so and notify the user when he/she has received a new private message. When the user clicks on the new private message link they are taken to the private message, or log-in page or whatever.


Has some potential don't you think? :p

[Gutspiller]

Originally posted by Logtenberg
Thanks for this hack!

Here's a suggestion I think everyone will love:

When the ticker is clicked off, how about having a private message notification feature?

This page can refresh every 10 minutes or so and notify the user when he/she has received a new private message. When the user clicks on the new private message link they are taken to the private message, or log-in page or whatever.


Has some potential don't you think? :p

I updated my version, with my own thinking.

http://www.theforumz.com/forumz/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3532

Somebody may want to improve their hack. Mine uses a latest threads hack by TubeDogg and it even works on active desktop too. :p

[JWB]

Very nice... I need to adjust the colors though..
Here's some screen shots:

http://allforums.net/step4.bmp

http://allforums.net/step6.bmp

Here is one using windows xp colors....
http://allforums.net/forum/xp.bmp

If you would like test out this ticker type in "http://www.allforms.net/forum/ticker3.php" as a new toolbar.

[Omero]

I did a modify to this hack, and now it works ALSO with "forumid", which lets you choose if displaying the last 10 posts from ALL board, or from a single forum

if you call it with ticker.php it gives full forum

if you call it with ticker.php?forumid=PUT_FORUM_ID_NUMBER_HERE then it will show latest posts only from that forum....

Check it out ;)

DISCLAIMER: use it at your own risk ( but it works ;) )

NOTE: change the colours, board name, etc... in the code, to suit your needs ;)

[danielillo]

Originally posted by tester2
How can I get rid of the vertical scroll bar on the right side of the ticker?

Hi Tester2,

I made this change:

Original:


<marquee id="threadticker" direction=up scrollAmount=1 style="width:400px;height:28px;border:0px solid black;padding:3px" onMouseover="this.scrollAmount=0" onMouseout="this.scrollAmount=1">


New:


<marquee id="threadticker" direction=up scrollAmount=1 style="width:400px;height:15px;border:0px solid black;padding:3px" onMouseover="this.scrollAmount=0" onMouseout="this.scrollAmount=1">


Just change 28 pixels height to 15 pixels height.

Very good hack ;)

Daniel.

[danielillo]

When Ticker is OFF, it is also reloaded every X minutes. Is there any way to change this?

Thanks again for this GREAT, GREAT hack.

Daniel.

[jiggle]

Great Hack !!
I would like to have also the time in the ticker. I mean the time for every posting. Is this possible ? If yes, what do I have to change ?

[redd]

I've installed this and it works great. However, it takes up too much room on my taskbar, using almost all of it. I've set the width of the marquee to 300, but it doesnt affect the actual size (it just cuts off part of the table) and I end up with a lot of blank space. I am using Win XP and my resolution is 10274x768.

Can anyone tell me how to make the toolbar smaller?

[Ninth Dimension]

What I've done is to put the ticker below the items on the task bar so that it can take up the whole stretch of the screen (i'm using a hybrid between ticker2 and ticker3.)

To do this, just grab the movey part of the ticker and pull it down, if you know what I mean?

Very good hack, and very useful for forum users that have some windows knowledge, but a little bit too fiddly for everyone else in my opinion.

[SamirDarji]

Has anyone tried this with vb3? I've tried it on vb3 Beta 7 and it gets a database error, which is kinda expected since the structures differ slightly between vb2 and vb3. But what to change so that it will work with vb3?

[Wayne Luke]

You can use something like Pluck RSS Reader (http://www.pluck.com/rssreader.aspx?GCID=C12286x010) or the RSS plugin for Trillian Pro to get similar functionality to this. Simply point your reader to:
http://www.yourdomain.com/forumpath/external.php?type=rss

To get a task bar scroller, you only need to decipher the array provided by:
http://www.yourdomain.com/forumpath/external.php?type=js

[direcx]

how can ii fix this? i am a neebe to all this.....

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: getpermissions() in /home/*****/public_html/forum/ticker2.php on line 39


then on line 39 i have this

$getperms=getpermissions($latestthread[forumid],$bbuserinfo[userid],$bbuserinfo[usergroupid]);

please someone help i like this, i will like to use it..... :disappointed:

[nimzie]

I get an undefined call to 'getpermissions' on line 39 as well. Noob in same boat. I uploaded it to the root of my forum if that makes any difference. VB 3.0.6

[nimzie]

This is a great hack and I'd really love to get it working in VB3 but haven't had any luck yet. I've tried to use Fetch_getPermissions or someting like that in the same way, but I haven't been able to make it work.
Please advise.

[nimzie]

I was wondering if anyone has come up with a VB3 compatible version of this most helpful hack?