Unsupported Styles Dirs
 

Purpose of this product
vBulletin supports the ability to use multiple styles or 'skins' for your web site. As long as all of the styles use the same basic color schemes, this is great, but what happens if you want to have several drastically different color schemes? Now you've got problems, because the various icons that are used either have harsh edges because they aren't anti-aliased into the background color properly, or else they have ugly looking edges for the same reason. vBulletin allows you to handle this to a degree by allowing you to specify different folders for the item status and attachment icons, the text editor controls, and the miscellaneous , polls, ratings, reputations, and buttons images in the StyleVars settings for each style. However, there is no provision for setting style specific folders for the rank or smilie icons, or icons that come from the 'icons' folder. In addition, although you can specify a title image for each Style, if you are like most sites, your title is actually composed of several images pasted together. This pasting of images requires you to make fundamentally the same change in every style even though the only thing that changes in each style is simply the path to the stored image, again, based on the style that you are using.

Capabilities
UnsupportedStylesDir now gives you the ability to have rank, smilie, and icon images per style. It also adds a new global variable ($USDHeaderImageStylePath) that you can use in your templates to set the path to your title graphics. Now you have the capability to have multiple styles with vastly different color schemes that can all inherit the same base template; no more template modifications to support what are essentially trivial changes.

Where Can I See It In Action?
The current version is running at www.aoaforums.com, if you want to see it. I hope you find it useful. As this is freeware, I cannot be expected to provide on-demand support. However, if you have a problem or need something added, I will do my best to try to help.

It was developed on vBulletin 3.5.1, and should work on newer versions (we are currently on 3.5.4)

Usage
To use, simply install the product from the AdminCP Plugins|Manage Products menu, then find the USD_INIT plugin from the AdminCP Plugins|Plugin Manager menu. Edit the plugin code, find the section near the top with the comment "User Configurables" and change your settings as necessary. The comments in the code should make everything clear (I hope).

Upgrade Instructions
To upgrade from a previous version, you'll need to go the the USD_INIT plugin, and copy everything between the
/*******************User configurables****************/

and the

/****************** End User Configurables**************/

markers. Once you've done that, import the updated product, go to the USD_INIT plugin, and paste what you copied from the old plugin back to this plugin, in the same spot.

Update History
1.0.5 - Initial Public Release
1.0.6 - Fixed minor bug with arguments to strncmp function
If you don't want to go through the upgrade process, go to the USD_INIT plugin and find the line with the strncmp statement, which will look like this:
and replace it with this:
1.0.7 - Added style support for message editor icons

Ta! The first one to install... thanks! :D

Cool! Let me know how it works for you.

i dont get it,

I thought you could change the path to different sets in the Style options?

As I mentioned above, most you can, but a few you cannot. In particular (and the reason I wrote this), the Ranks, Smilies, and certain of the general icons (such as the ones used for threads) do not give you the ability to change paths for different sets.

Now i got this;)

Installed

Cheers :)

Great! I hope it works for you! :D

Where does it add the new dir options?

You have to edit the USD_INIT plugin code. The comments contained in the code explain how to set the variables.

I though about adding a configuration setting in the AdminCP, and I may still do that.

thanks for explaining, i was just a little confused :D

That would probably be easier. ;)

Thanks though. Installing... :)

EDIT: Sorry for the double post, but I'm not sure if you know about this:

When making a new thread, or posting a new post, the icons/smilies still show the default images rather than following the new directory. It appears as it should everywhere else though.

v3.5.3

I also get the following errors when viewing a thread:

Warning: Wrong parameter count for strncmp() in /global.php(349) : eval()'d code on line 180

Warning: Wrong parameter count for strncmp() in /global.php(349) : eval()'d code on line 180

My apologies; I only just now looked at my e-mail (I'm a bad boy :) ). I'll look into this. Thanks for the feedback!

Can you give me some more details on this? When I tested it, I went to an existing thread and posted a new message, and the icons showed properly.

Are you using your forum default style, or a user-selected style? Is there anything special you are doing when you post? Any other details you can give me would be helpful.

BTW, I found the strncmp bug. Turns out to be quite harmless, but I've got it fixed. Once we get to the bottom of this issue, I'll post up the patched code.

Of course. :D

I was doing this with both custom skins and the default one; when making a new thread or post (not the quick reply or something) but viewing the actual newreply.php and newthread.php pages, the images (in the Icons section and in the Smilie box) I see still come from the default images rather than the ones in the new directory they should be coming from.

I am unable to reproduce your problem. Perhaps my little bug caused more issues than I thought. Could you download the updated code and apply to your system?

Alternatively, you could go to the USD_INIT plugin and find the line with the strncmp statement, which will look like this:
and replace it with this:
and then let me know how that affects your issue?

Well, you were right on the first thing; bug fixed and no more error.

As for the second issue I'm having... Could it be cause by the fact I do not have my other skin images within the images folder, but rather elsewhere (ie, images, skin_1, skin_2, etc vs. images/*, images/skin_1, images/skin_2, etc)? I doubt that's it, since the icon replacement works elsewhere as it should except on the posting screen.

I've uploaded an image to point out exactly what I mean:

Oh! You're talking about in the editor ToolBar!

USD doesn't currently handle the icons in the editor toolbar, but I'll tell you what; give me a couple of days and it will. :up:

Oh, well in that case your plugin works great! :D Sorry for the confusion, heh.

Thanks for this making this though. It's been very helpful (already using it on one site; planning on installing it on two more). Keep up the good work. :)

Ok. Added support for the message editor icons.

To upgrade, you'll need to go the the USD_INIT plugin, and copy everything between the /*******************User configurables****************/

and the

/****************** End User Configurables**************/

markers. Once you've done that, import then updated product, go to the USD_INIT plugin, and paste what you copied from the old plugin back to this plugin, in the same spot.

I'll try to make it configurable from the AdminCP on the next rev. ;)

Just upgraded my system to vb 3.6.7 PL1.

For the curious, I can confirm that this plugin appears to work just fine with vb 3.6.xxx