vbWiki Standard - vBulletin+MediaWiki integration
 

Update:

9/28/2007: vbWiki Std v1.3 RC5 is now available for download. This version adds compatibility with MW 1.11.0+

5/17/2007: vbWiki Std v1.3 RC4 is now available for download. This version is compatible with MW 1.10.0+ and vBulletin 3.6.6+

1/21/2007: vbWiki Std v1.0.2 RC3 is now available for download. This version fixes the 'session error' that used to happen on some installations of MediaWiki 1.9.x.

Description:

vbWiki Standard is the lite version of vbWiki Pro. vbWiki Standard allows the integration of vBulletin and MediaWiki user authentication.

(vbWiki Pro is a commercial product that, in addition to the functionality found in vbWiki Standard, provides full skin integration, enhanced user management, Admin CP, editing of wiki skin in vBulletin's Style Manager, among other features.)

Why should you add a wiki to your forums?

Forums are great for community building with their high level of interactivity. Successful forums have hundreds or thousand of concurrent users creating and replying to threads.

However due to this very reason the more your forums grow the more "collective knowledge" is scattered throughout the thousands (or hundreds or millions) of threads in your forums. Making it difficult for users to find and use.

A wiki is not that good at community building, but it is a great medium to centralize this 'collective knowledge'. Enabling you to create an 'ecosystem of information' (quoting pipin :)) maintained and contributed by your users.

The idea behind vbWiki (both Standard and Pro) is to enable the seamless integration between these two packages (vBulletin and MediaWiki) side-by-side in your community. You (and your users and community) get the best of both worlds.

Or so the theory goes... :)

Features:

• Single sign-on for vBulletin and MediaWiki (users log in only once)
• Supports mapping of vBulletin usergroups to MediaWiki user roles
• Users viewing wiki pages are shown in vBulletin's "What's going on?" section (both guests and registered users)
• Supports auto-authentication, users who choose to be "remembered" are logged in upon visiting the site to both vBulletin and MediaWiki.

Installation:

These installation instructions do not apply to vbWiki Pro. Refer to vbWiki Pro installation instructions for more information.

MediaWiki and vBulletin must be installed and properly working before installing vbWiki. MediaWiki can be downloaded here.

• Create a new directory in your forums directory named vbWiki.
• Upload the content of the installation package to this new directory.
• Rename the file vbWiki_Init.php-dist to vbWiki_Init.php
• Open the file LocalSettings.php found in your MediaWiki directory in a text editor and at the very end find the following line and remove it if present:

• Add the following code at the end of the file (entering the correct directory path):

Troubleshooting:

• Last installation step: Click Mark as Installed.. :D

If you run into any trouble installing vbWiki (blank page, logins not working, etc.), follow these instructions to temporarily turn on vbWiki's Diagnostic Tools.

Open vbWiki_Init.php (or vbWikiPro_Init.php) and find this line:

And change it for this:

Navigate to the wiki home page, and see the results.

Changes:

• 0 vBulletin files to Edit
• 1 MediaWiki file to Edit
• 10 vbWiki Files to Upload

Requirements:

• vBulletin v3.5.4 (version 3.6.x recommended)
• MediaWiki 1.6.8+ (recommended 1.7.x+).
• PHP4+

Uninstalling...

• To uninstall vbWiki Standard simply remove (or comment) the line added to LocalSettings.php.
• Optionally remove the directory vbWiki from your forums directory.

Resources:

• Installation instructions, what to expect, etc.
• Frequently Asked Questionss
• vbWiki Forums
• Demo Wiki
• Software running on demo.

I provided a link to our site's wiki. This wiki is running vbWiki Pro, but since vbWiki Pro reuses all of the code of vbWiki Standard, you can see the user authentication integration working there.. Feel free to register on the forums, and log in and out of the forums/wiki.

vbWiki's Usergroup Mapping
vbWiki (both Standard and Pro editions) has an option to synchronize vBulletin's usergroups into MediaWiki usergroups.

If group synchronization is on (it is on by default), then whenever a user logs on, his/her MW groups are synchronized with whatever groups he/she is in vBulletin.

(The following only applies to vbWiki Standard. In vbWiki Pro, this is configured through vBulletin's Admin CP > Usergroup Manager)

The setting that controls this mapping is named $g_vbWiki_Usergroup_Mapping, here is an example (and the default for this setting):

If you want to change this mapping, add these lines of code in vbWiki_Init.php, after the line that says 'CUSTOM SETTINGS START'.

In the example above all vBulletin users who are part of vBulletin's usergroup with id 6 (Administrators), will be added to the MW usergroups sysop and bureaucrat.

thanks for this cool hack

Wow thanks for the lite version! :D

Any previews?

I posted a link to our wiki in the first post.

There are no screenshots, etc. since vbWiki Standard only integrates the user authentication (user DBs). But you can see it in action, by following that link.

Hello,

I downloaded this to evaluate towards purchasing the full product for a website. However after following your instructions my Wiki doesn't work at all. I am using MediaWiki 1.9.0. The error I get is:
Please let me know what the issue is.

Hello Wayne,

Those errors are caused by some key changes introduced in MW 1.9.0.

I just uploaded a new version (RC2) that adds compatibility with MW 1.9.0.

Let me know if you have any other issues with this new version.

Thanks.

Excuse my ignorance, but what does this do that vB does not? It seems to be just another forum.

Bob

No excuse. You know Wikipedia which builds on Mediawiki?

This fine hack now bridges the login from your own wiki with vbulletin.

Thats one of the best and useful hacks if you have a community which is willing to build its own ecosystem of information.

Heya, Very nice product thanks! I integrated it and it works fine, .. it shows that im logged in etc. etc. but when I want to edit a wiki page, I get: Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data. Please try again. If it still doesn't work, try logging out and logging back in.

Wiki Version: 1.9.0
VB Version: 3.6.3
www.6thsense.eu

Thanks for the RC2 update. I was having the same errors with MW 1.9 and this. Works now. :)

I am getting the same session issue as above though I am using 3.6.4. The initial login seems to take though.

If you disable vbWiki does the 'session error' go away?

(To disable vbWiki simply comment the line added to LocalSettings.php)

We used to have the 'session error' back on version 0.7.4 several months ago.

If the error still happens when vbWiki is disabled then refer to this thread: http://www.nuhit.com/forums/vbwiki/2...tegration.html.

If the error doesn't happen with vbWiki disabled, then we have to look into it and fix it... :rolleyes:

Bob, forums are great for community building with their high level of interactivity.

However due to this very reason the more your forums grow the more "collective knowledge" is scattered throughout the thousands (or hundreds or millions) of threads in your forums. Making it difficult for users to find and use.

A wiki is not that good at community building, but it is great medium to centralize this 'collective knowledge'. Enabling you to create an 'ecosystem of information' (quoting pipin :) )

The idea behind vbWiki (both Standard and Pro) is to enable the seamless integration between these two packages (vBulletin and MediaWiki) side-by-side in your community. You (and your users and community) get the best of both worlds.

Or so the theory goes... :)

I'll add a 'Why you may want a wiki' section to my original post for others.

I like the idea about this hack :D

Thanks for the reply, when we disable vbWiki, then we do not get the session error anymore, so seems to be a prob related to vbWiki :)

Could you PM a link to your wiki? Thanks.

The error does not occur when I disable vbWiki.

Interesting. Could you PM a link to your wiki? Thanks.

After consulting with my rabbit, I still plan to buy the Pro version :)

I've had a good experience with the Pro version so far. I have 1.0.2 RC1 files installed, running off the old 0.9.7 RC1 (just haven't gotten around to running the new product file yet). Using MW 1.6.8 on vB 3.6.4.

No issues right now, we just upgraded to a PHP 5 server, so I'm going to make the move to MW 1.9 shortly. Hopefully this session error gets sorted out by the time I fit the update into the site's schedule.

After your debate with cheesegrits, I can now understand this comment... :)

Regarding the session error, we haven't been able to duplicate this error. I need a link to a wiki exhibiting this error... :rolleyes:

www.6thsense.eu/wiki

I just bought the Pro Edition and have submitted tickets in the Support Area :)

Thanks. We got your tickets and link. Replying now... :)

I just wanted to say that my community has been using this Wiki Bridge for afew months now , and it works very well. Its one of the best mods iv installed on my boards and its come along way in updates also :) Good work Elfmage.

Thanks Dankness, glad to hear it is being working for your community.

I really want to buy the Pro, but I am using VB with Subdreamer with skin integration, so I am worried that it won't work with this great mod. My site is using php 4. I will buy it right away if I know it will work OK, including skin integration of all 3. Basically my VB forum is being skinned by Subdreamer, and membership, posts etc are based on VB.

Is there any trial use?

I would need to take a look at the Subdreamer integration. If it is using vBulletin Template system (just like vbAdvanced, vbPortal, etc, use) then vbWiki Pro will work fine.

Given the complexity of vBulletin, I would guess this to be the case. However, they may have hacked it.

Regarding the trial version it is difficult, since we give away all the PHP source code when you buy a vbWiki Pro license.

Internally, for the trial, we are thinking on either using an encoder like ionCube, or sporting a 15-30 days money back guarantee. But this is still in the works...

Anyways, I just sent you a PM.

<a href="http://www.ridersofconquest.org/wiki/" target="_blank">http://www.ridersofconquest.org/wiki/</a>

That is my wiki. Fairly stock implementation. I have the vBulletin integration commented out right now though so I can start adding content to the site today and tomorrow.

Thanks. It seems that this issue happens with MW 1.9.0, which is why our users have not reported it before (MW 1.9.0 was released 4 days ago).

We are in the process of fixing this, and as soon as we have a solution, we'll post an updated version. In the mean time, if you would prefer to test the integration before we post the new version, you could try MW 1.8.3.

I have vb 3.6.4, wiki 1.6.8 and instaled vbwiki standard and the first time I go to wiki it logs me in automatically from the forum but if I click on Main Page I just get a blank page and any other attempts to try and get to wiki show the blank page.

Hello westpak.

Please follow the instructions outlined in the FAQ labeled 'Blank page when visiting wiki' found in this link. And PM or e-mail me the error you get. Thanks.

You could also enable the vbWiki's diagnostic tools to verify that all paths are properly set. Instructions for this are also found in this FAQ.

Great - clicked install and buyed Pro-Version! :D

What does this hack do, when a VBulletin username has a space or underscore? If I remember correctly, MediaWiki allows neither in usernames...

vbWiki solves this issue by doing an internal translation and mapping of names with special characters (with no additional overhead.)

For instance if a user's name is [Elf]Mage, vbWiki internally creates a wiki user name: ElfMage-45, removing all special characters and adding the user id at the end.

Regardless of whether the user is logging in from vBulletin and MediaWiki, he/she always uses [Elf]Mage.

Hello all, I just uploaded vbWiki Std v1.0.2 RC3. This new version fixes the error shown when editing pages on some MW 1.9.0 installations.

This issue only occured when using MediaWiki 1.9.0 on servers that had 'magic_quotes_gpc' enabled.

Let me know if you encounter any issues with this new version. Thanks.

I've just installed the latest version on my wiki setup (without fancy short url because I had problem implementing it), and there is an odd problem going on:

Using MediaWiki 1.9.0
Using vBulletin 3.6.4

When I log in from the wiki, I also log in and STAY logged in the forums, but after the "login is successful" message from the wiki, I am no longer logged in. I check the forums and I am still logged in there.

Trying to log in from the forums do not make me log in the wiki automatically.

What could be the problem?

Hello Iseran, this is most likely caused by having your wiki and forums installed in different sub-domains.

You may need to adjust your cookie domain and cookie path settings in both vBulletin and MediaWiki. Refer to the FAQ titled 'Wiki and Forum installed on different subdomains' located at http://www.nuhit.com/faq

If this is not the case please enable vbWiki Diagnostic tools on your wiki (you can limit it to a specific IP), and send me a PM with the results of the diagnostic.

(For information on how to enable Diagnostic Mode, refer to the same link listed above).

Thanks.

That is odd, wiki and forums are not installed in different sub-domains.

Wiki is installed under local home document root/wiki
Forum is installed under local home document root/forums

I will try running Diagnostic Mode and see what I get.

Thanks for the reply!