This is the first time hearing about it where it wasn't cleared up with a reinstall... One site is hard to identify or isolate (i.e. there are endless possible conflicts) but for several, absolutely, bugs are no good :eek:

The attached version of PRF removes the activity stream section without impacting any other functions.

For those who were having issues with the system, please give it a try and we will proceed from there developing further fixes to bring that back.

I'm not the only person who has a problem with this mod breaking the activity stream, there are a few others in this thread. So it's definitely not just one site.

I'll try reinstalling the mod again like you suggested. If that doesn't work I'll use the version you provided that doesn't use the activity stream.

Also, there isn't really a need for the updated xml you provided because so long as the mod doesn't insert anything into the activity feed it's fine. And you already have an option in the current mod to turn that off. I tested it just now the activity feed works fine so long as the mod doesn't create entries for it. specifically, replies/review entries in the activity stream from the product forum dont break it, just the 'new thread' entries. It's the new thread entries in the activity feed that cause it to break, not replies or reviews.

We've had a few mentions but as far as I can tell, all resolved (from a reinstall , option changes, or the person moved on and thus we couldn't track it down). Now that there are two of you reporting a problem actively, we can call it a bug.

The activity stream is not really designed to be bolted on top of, at least not in a graceful way, which means errors become significant impacting more than just the mod.

Sites using older vB versions are prone to these sorts of collisions and not something we can stop but if there's a problem impacting new installs, we consider it reason to remove the feature and revisit it, if there's even demand to do so.

Assuming everything else works right for you and the other site reporting this in the activity-stream free version we'll change our standard download and take it from there.

Thanks for the report & follow up!

Also (sorry for so many replies lol), how do I choose which fields are and aren't required? I know you mentioned I can edit the templates but what if I want to remove some required fields or add new ones, how do I do that?

You can add new fields for reviews through the ACP (there's a manger tool under the PRF group).

Other fields would require hacking the hack (templates to capture the data, table fields to hold it, queries to show it) although we'd be glad to add a few more hook locations if you want to make it more modular.

Hi Ted, I just reuploaded that xml above and everything seems to be looking REAl good, cheers

Thanks dear

Just for my information, how could I clear the system stuff?
Because I tried to uninstall another mod and I faced the same problem. I don't want to run (upgrade.php) everytime when I remove a mod.

Sorry to ask here.

FEATURE REQUESTS

1 - An options panel to edit required and custom fields for product submissions.

2 - The thumbnail image used on the productdisplay page should have the option to use the main image resized, probably via a script instead of having to upload a separate image.

Found another bug.

My other administrators can't access the product forums control panel via the admincp, they get a no permission message.

Try running the rebuild processes (which depends on what the mod does... ie this mod edits threads & posts).

Not a bug... they'll need access to edit posts to use the mod (as it impacts posts).

This already exists if your setup supports image resizing via GD.

Awesome!

Yeah, between you, Michael and Christos we have a real cool way of selling reviewing and marketing on a few different levels.

As most mod makers here know I have gone overboard in trying all the best, and worst mods, and quite clearly got myself a bit TOO modified.

BUT it seems I'm one of the few sites that is trying to flesh out the CMS, as a publishing suite.

Marketing wise, if you don't own a vB site, and if you do and don't know or use vb.org, no one would know about these wonderful mods you guys make.

I think a lot more people would start building with vB4 particularly if they could have a decent, understandable way of seeing the mods in action. MOST mods I want to see in action are either dead links or something displayed in the default template.

The bigger mobs are getting their act together, this isn't another go at you Ted...lol...just an observation, and seem to be co opting the best mods into their various systems. I get freaked out just thinking of VHS vs Beta still, :erm: this issue of incompatibility.

To that end I offered vBSocial an opp to promote their products live on my site so that people can see them working. For their mods its a certain as they are not content providing mods, more familiarisation mods for vB.

Whereas yours, Christos and Michael's, and many others are proactive modules that a lot of site builders would only dream of, and I think if more widely put out there and branded for vB and the Mod maker could only enhance vB's potential.

But seriously most of this crew are Forum builders and don't even use the cms, or just use it cold as is, the Blogs and calendars are probably the MOST important parts of the suite as I need it and are totally overlooked.

Sorry for the rave Ted

...having said that Ted I'm a dyed in the wool forumite, starting from getting banned in yahoo and establishing what is the largest Oz lawn bowls forum Bowlsworld around 10 years ago and long term member of a vB 3.6 site www.bowlsblog.com, the second largest, and part of the biggest www.julianhainesbowls.co.uk. I came out of forums but AM a publisher. I would plead to you and all mod builders to think CMS and Blog as the worlds reality in media shifts around

I've uploaded an attachment showing the admin permissions. There is no 'manage posts' permission option in the 4.2.1 admin permissions it doesn't seem.

Any other way to solve this?

How do I turn GD on or off? I'm pretty sure I have it though because I use the Damn Comp Member Map mod which requires that, and that mod works fine.

No problem and I totally agree.

I started releasing mods way back when vB was new (and before it on UBB) because it came apparent that there just wasn't any sort of marketing / ux approach to the software. Not that I have all the answers but work in digital marketing for enough years and you start to see things from a different perspective. That's gotten better over the years but if you look at something like the registration page in 4/5 it's clear there's still a huge miss...

These days we try and turn a few features into reality when we think it helps the community but of course free mods for a widely used system are inherently limited in their scope and scale.

As such it's my belief that any site which really wants to scale (and even bigger boards who want to improve value / traffic / use) should be investing heavily in custom development or at least extending mods. To think that a skin, couple of basic mods and particular setting choices will make a forum ideally meet an industry is really missing the point.

Of course we don't actually do any such work so it's sort of a half baked remark :D

With vB5 looming we're not planing much of anything at this time but will do, if & when we build something new :)

Hrmm...

You can comment out

From admincp/productforums.php although checking for some access level would be a good idea.

We will of course switch this around in the next release.


GD is installed at the server level.

Have you used the image uploader (on the edit screen) / bulk importer?

No I have been using the product submission form, this section of the forum will run almost entirely off products submitted by members so this feature likely won't be used at all.

Also, if (!can_administer('canadminposts')) does not show up in the productforums.php file I have. I narrowed it down to canadminposts for a search in the file and it doesn't exist.

Another question, is there anyway you can write up a quick plug-in that hooks into showthread somewhere that registers the {vb:raw product.productid} variable for use in the showthread template of my product forums?

The reason for this is I've already added a custom 'write a review' button elsewhere on that page, a big blatant one, but I need to be able to append the product ID to the URL so it works and goes to the write a review page when it's clicked.

Ahh!

If members input urls just run the bulk script and it should resize them for you.

Are you looking in the admincp folder version? It's line 33 in my version.

Try editing the hook showthread_post_start and adding

$thread['productid'] = $product['productid'];

Right after $show['largereplybutton'] = false;

This will make the variable thread.productid

When I run the sync external images script I get the following error.

I checked the folder I set up for these images in the core settings with my FTP software and the images are in fact being created in this folder.

The thumbnails are not showing up on the productforums.php display page. Folder permissions are at 755. :(

Other than that it's going great though, that hook edit you mentioned worked perfectly this is all in all a great mod.

Either the path is wrong or the server is unable to write to it.

Alright, I'm pretty sure the path is right because the files are being created and written to the correct place, and the view image url in my core settings is the same of coarse just a shortened version of the full url.

Other than that what do you suppose would cause the server to be unable to read/write that folder or the images?

\

I think I'm missing something...

The files (full and thumbnail) are being created, are in the folder specified, load up (if downloaded via ftp) but don't show on the site?

Yes the thumbnail isn't showing on the productforums.php page, in addition to the error I pasted above when I run the sync images script which is strange because the images DO seem to be getting created and stored in the folder, I've attached an image.

Hrm....

Perhaps the script is erroring before the database gets updated... Do any of the mainphoto or thumb values exist in the table prf?

There is no prf table, they're all pf_ , but I looked in the pf_product table and I believe the values are not there, (assuming I'm looking in the right place).

Looks like a bug in the bulk script...

Please try removing all the existing thumbnail / smaller versions and running it with the attached version of admincp/productforums.php

I'm using an older version (can't upgrade due to changes I made which I can no longer remember).

Anyhow it has been working for ages as far as I'm aware, however I just went to post a review on the front end of the site but got this -

Oh great, you had to go and press THAT button. There goes the whole site. Just kidding...

We had an issue posting your review, please try again or contact support and use code 164251-E.

That error indicates an issue with making the post for the review.

How you go about fixing it is of course difficult if you're not willing to upgrade but in many cases these errors are due to other settings (like requiring prefixes) that we've since build workarounds for).

If you search productforums.php for that error code you can find the section that triggers it and force a hard error (i.e. see the exact problem) by adding the code echo $errors; die; before the eval code.

I have removed this mod as it did not get used.. sadly the admin menus are still in place how do i remove them?

Thanks

Zapiy, I don't think members will generally get it, best used as a shop I reckon

You need to delete all of the files uploaded as uninstalling can not do this for you.

Ted, do you see any reason why this mod would not work in a mobile theme? The prodforum_* templates did not exist in the mobile skin, so we manually created them all there but the links are not clicking from the review forum and when we manually go to a review thread, it's not showing the product information at the top of the thread - it just looks like a regular vb mobile thread display.

Are the right hooks in your mobile theme to pull the templates in?

Perhaps the best bet is to add a couple "echo" statements around the xml file for a quick test to see if it's a problem with the mod getting called up or the templates showing up.

Ted, sent you a PM about it. Thanks!