Vbulletin Notification Application
 

Foreword:

This it to be the first publicly released Application (Ever) on vbulletin.org and as such is currently in Beta phase and I would like as many people to help test and give ideas for new features.

This application does not incorporate any Vbulletin Code and thus does not require any modification to existing forum software, it should work with 99.9% of Vbulletin Forums.

If you wish to tell your members about this application please do, if you can offer a mirror for this file for the casual user to better enjoy using your vbulletin forum; please send me a private message or email at Trigunflame@charter.net so this can offload some of the transfer from Vbulletin.org

On a further note, the creation of this application was to promote the growth of Vbulletin and expand its current userbase.

PS. Be On the lookout for a new Application (Vbulletin Control Center); this will allow administration of multiple forums within a single application providing speed, reliability and cross platform interoperability.


Summary:

The primary goal of this particular application is to provide a 'live' notification system for the user who would like updates on his/her desktop when they receive new PM's as well as New Posts to threads they are subscribed to at the Forums they wish.

This application being very small in size will quietly sit in your taskbar and notify you when your selected forums have new private messages waiting for you :)

Current Features

• Private Messages Notification
• Configuration Via Editing XML Configuration File

Planned Features

• Dialog Styles
• Modifying Notification Background Color
• Modifying Text Color
• Configure Checking Intervals
• Subscribed Threads Notification
• Complete Menu Based Forum Configuration
• Enable/Disable Particular Notification System and/or Forum
• Installer Program to Handle Installation/Uninstallation
• And more..

Compatibility:

• Windows
• Linux (In Progress)
• Mac OSX (In Progress)

Info:

• Primarily coded in C++ with come C library usage.
• Heavy usage of the C++ STL
• Uses the wxWidgets GUI Library
• Uses the Microsoft GRETA Regular Expression Library

Instructions:
Due to this being a testing phase, not all features are in a complete form; until such time the configuration file must be edited manually via text editor (vbnotify.config.xml).

1. Download Zip file, and extract contents to a directory.
2. Open the README.txt file and follow the instructions.

Run at Startup (Windows)
How-To by gio~logist


Changes:

• 3/2/2006:
  Updated: Page Retrieval; now pre-matches resulting in less resources and a faster notification.
  New: Now displays how many PM's are Unread at X forum.
  Progress: Still building Configuration Menus, and working on XML Saving.
  
  
• 2/27/2006:
  Updated: Receive Buffer Size
  Added: COOKIES.txt File
  
  
• 2/25/2006:
  Initial Alpha Release

In Progress:

• Working on Taskbar Menu Configuration Interface.

Safety:

This is an open-source project after all, and with this not being a PHP project some people might not like the idea of not having source code. I have a CVS server that I plan to keep updated with any changes made to the code which can be viewed here: http://bleach101.com/cvs/?&cvsrep=vbcp&file=vbnotify/


License:

You can view the license for this project in the included zip file or here:
(In The Process of Location a New CVS Server.)

To Summarize:

1. You are free to modify the source code and compile it for your own use.
2. You Cannot use this source and redistribute it as your own product, or attempt to sell it.

Donate:

If you enjoy the creation of this program and would like to see it further developed, feel free to help me out a little for my time that I am putting into this.
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2010/02/12.gif

This looks good, Ive been wanting something like this as have some of my members.

Wow. That is really a nice modification.

Excellent.

Thankyou, lots of stuff to be done yet.. mainly dealing with the configuration schemes.
Also trying to think of a better way for the casual user to easily retrieve their bbuserid/bbpassword cookies.

Question:
I'm assuming that interval is in minutes and shown is what exactly?

I'd appreciate it if you can post regarding the meanings of those variables. Thank you.

Those are for internal conifguration purposes; when the menu configuration tool is finished manual modification of the configuration file will not even be needed. And currently the dialog section does nothing as values are specified internally.

So regardless of what sais, it doesn't matter?

Meaning that i can't change the amount of time in between checks for PMs?

Also, how often is it set by default to check?

Currently 1 minute intervals, once I am out of alpha will prob set the minimum at 5 minutes.

Heya Trigun, seen ya in the irc chan.. anyways.. what an awsome idea. I am not much of a coder, but I do have questions..

I see it can notify you of PM;s ect.. what about certain forums?? based on the members usercp selection, is that how it can be controlled? or will this e a seperate appication one has to download..ect..

Gonna install this, and run next to you on this one, it has some nice potential.

I actually recommend that you leave it at 1, or atleast give users the option to change it i guess. As i like it at 1. The more precise the better :p. Thank you once again for a great modification.


I also recommend that you release this hack elsewhere or allow other users to do so (not sure if we can due to license), since this can be used by anyone.

Once you download the zip, just edit the .xml file accordingly. And read the txt file. It is really easy IMO.

It is a standalone application that sits in your taskbar, no "installation" to forums is needed, it should work with almost all vbulletin forums.

[high]Possible[/high] bug:
Does it automatically check the xml file for new sites while the application is running or do you have to close application and re open it?

I noticed that after adding a forum i had to close and reopen application to get it to update. However, i suppose it could have been me?

great installed

Its not a bug, that is the intended purpose (Remember Eventually All Configuration Will Be handled through the Taskbar Menu Interface).

wow, ok.. will give it a shot then.. thx fellas!

Ah i see. Very well then.

Awesome, installed to keep an update on when you release it for os x. :)

Server went down there for a few minutes :/

thx Trigun for the help tonite.. i'm not as fast as you gus are, but gonna set it up for my bbs and get back to you. thx!

Nice little tool here, got it installed without any trouble. :)

Now I can notified when I have a pm without even having my browser open! Thanks Trigun!

You rule dude, Thanks a lot.
Installed

I was planning to start working on this myself in a few weeks. Very nice! My users will love this.

The boards I tried it on that had the 3.5 or 3.0 versions of this hack:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...hreadid=102164

installed, this didn't work with. :(

Update:

Noticed your reply. If you have any more information ie. some examples of how the page with the hack looks, ie. url to the board that would help a lot.

I understand, I was mostly just posting it so others were aware. Since I ported it to 3.5 I'll look into fixing the hack itself.

looks VERY nice right now but i was thinking, why not include an option for admins to install a plugin that creates maybe an XML feed or something for logged in users to reduce the amount of downloading and parsing that the client does and also to allow for server-side query caching by the plugin.

Very nice work, you are making some really good hacks/mods for vbulletin. I'll let you know how this goes when i'm done.

thanks

is there away to make it only for your site.... for users to download etc??

own image on it etc?.

I would prefer Vbulletin provide an API with user access controlled through the GET protocol ie. u=username&p=plaintextpassword

As for XML feed; that wouldnt work. Query Caching? Redundant. It is no more intensive than loading the page in the browser yourself except the application does it at the stream level and only parses html code.

But I may implement some API for vbulletin administrators to allow them extended functionality IE. New Reported Post.

If you can compile it, then yes. Changing icon? No; no attempts may be made at disguising the product or its authors of which would violate the License under which this application has been placed.

Does this mean that if I have say 10,000 of my users all running this it would be like having 10,000 users online on my board reloading a page evey minute? I am worried about server load issues these days.

wow, this is amazing.
You are really good man, I think that job you mention in your signature would be perfect for you.
thx,
seba

This sounds very cool. :)

[high]* projectego clicks install[/high]

looking forwards for the updates
really nice modification

What would be great for you crazy coders ..is to invent the vbulletin icq/msn/gtalk application...where u basically enter ur vb login pass for some forums ..and check ur pms ...etc and chat with the people logged in to that forum ..

that's how i see this application's future :) it would be nice.

To get back to the subject : Really nice app !! thank you

this is really great !!!!

Yes but technically you would not experience the load of 10k users as long as the checks are not happening concurrently.

As a side effect however, it would provide your board with an exaggerated number of users online :)

And yes the interval will be adjustable in next version.