Cyb - Auto Birthday Greeter
 

Info:
This hack automatically creates a birthday thread in the forum you select. Only members that allow their date of birth to be displayed will be listed, and age will be shown only for those who has choosen that. Members are shown in colors defined in usergroup settings. You can choose to exclude inactive members. Several users can be set as greeters (used randomly when posting). Thread will be created first time when someone loads forumhome after midnight.

Note:
-This executes 1 very simple query on forumhome.

Installation:
-Import XML file (as product) through AdminCP: Plugin System > Manage Products > [Add/Import Product]

To set options:
Go to: vBulletin Options > Cyb - Auto Birthday Greeter

Versions:
v1.0 - Aug 26. 2007.
-Initial release
v1.1 - Aug 27. 2007.
-New: Option to exclude members with post count lower than X
-Fixed bug where several threads are posted for the same birthday
-Shortcut to "Age" phrase added to the list on settings page
v1.2 - Aug 28. 2007.
-Date format follows your forum acp settings
-New: Option to exclude members joined in last X days
-Another fix for duplicate birthday threads on some forums
v1.3 - Aug 31. 2007.
-Option to synchronize hack with forum time to avoid situations where birthday thread is created too early or too late
v1.4 - May 03. 2008.
-Compatible with vBulletin 3.7
-Minor bugs fixed

Mark as INSTALLED to get support and updates.

installed, will feedback later

thank you for your excellent haxs :)

Thank you for this hack-it works beautifully for us.

I do have a feature request for a future version-the ability to set so each birthday member can get their own thread. That would work better for us, where we traditionally made a new thread for each person...

Regardless, thanks for this (and all) your mods. I use several of yours. :)

Is there a way you can set it so if you have a few people who are auto generated as the author do not author their own birthday thread. ;)

This would be a fantastic way of doing it. Would make it appear that little bit more personal.

+1 for that

How can i find out what my forumtime is? I have it set to my time zone of course, and want to see what time it would show the thread - it may not work for us as we're +12 - so might post at like lunch time, by which time someone would have already manually done it.

Anyone?

mum, i would just try it and see what i got. you can always edit an poorly timed post or two, or you could set it to test by posting in a private forum first and checking the time.

thanks, installed.. :)

Great mod thanks :up:

One small issue with the timing of the post creation and Daylight Saving Time, in that I'm finding the new thread post is an hour late.

When I check the forum time, it is correctly displayed, i.e it's currently showing correctly as 00:15 which is British Summer Time. Indeed the time display on the bottom of the server is showing as GMT +1, i.e. Daylight Saving Time.

It seems however, that despite the forum time being correct, the thread is being posted on GMT rather than BST :confused:

go into your vb options for this mod and adjust the time, then, as there is a setting for this.

I have adjusted the time, currently set to default, i.e. the time of the forum which would be correct.

It's weird. One thread was created at forum time of 01:05. The next thread got created at 00:38 :confused:

Thanks !

the only other thing i could think to check is when your cron jobs are set to run, and how many other ones are scheduled to go at the same time as this one...is it possible that it's being delayed by email batches or something that other scheduled jobs are doing? for me, a difference of a few minutes here or there either way is perfectly acceptable, but if it concerns you, that's where i would look.

well, the thing i noticed is that i have my active user cutoff date set to a year and it can make it feel a little weird. (with my forum, people sometimes come back after long periods of absence, just the nature of it.)

so sometimes, we'll have a birthday thread for more than one user, one is very active and one is not. and it just feels off to post a personal message in the thread to one but not the other birthday person. but if the inactive user hasn't been there for 6 months, 9 months, or seldom posts, they simply won't get the same responses as someone who is active. that's certainly reasonable, but if they are mentioned IN the thread, it does tend to stand out if they do come around.

that is part of the reason i installed this mod to begin with. with people creating the birthday threads, it was usually only for the more active users, but some folks got missed even if they were around. i thought it might help allieviate hurt feelings, and i did notice some folks really seem to like the threads a lot and appreciate theirs.

No cron jobs here.

Thread will be created first time when someone loads forumhome after midnight. So it can be 00:00, or 01:00, or any other time during the day when forums are active.

ohhhh. so it's most likely a function of visitors then. gotcha. missed that and hadn't looked at the code. to me, doesn't matter much the exact time so i never looked for it.

Hi,
installed your mod and enabled, but no thread is created even if there have been birthdays in the past 2 days... What could it be the reason?

what can I do to recreate the bd thread for any member that had bd shown before I installed this hack?

possibly they are past the active user cutoff date? check your mod settings in the admincp.

manually do it? ;)

no.. I've disabled the active members option.. so evary birthday should be listed..
I'm noticing that the cyb_birthdaythread template doesn't exist. SHouldn't it automatically created from the plugin? Why do you think it is not created?
Any suggestion how can I solve this problem? may be creating the template manually?

thanks

My server time is 3 hours behind forum time. So I set the time to +3. The thread was created after midnight forum time (the 27th, which was great) but in the thread it said that the birthday was one day earlier, the 26th (the date of the server). The user's birthday is actually the 27th. Does this mean I'm forced to use server time/date in order to avoid all birthday threads posting a date that is one day earlier??

I have a small issue and it may be because of one of the other mods used? I use HTML Markup on all my usergroups except, banned, awaiting & guests. My reg users use this : . It shows up as the example but the whole thing is a link and the words username here is being shown on the post. Once I add the " " around the word black all is well but can get tiring to edit in time.

charlie-first of all, you'll need two closing span tags for your markup instead of one. i assume you do have it set up that way for your markup?

but rather than do this in two spans, i'd do one span, set it as a style, and add it to your css. so something like this -

and in the additional css for your style in the admincp -

perhaps that will help?

I'll look into this in a bit. Thanks.

thanks, I might add this to my forum :)

goddess_dix can you please see my post 23?
thanks

sorry...don't have anything else to offer if you're certian you're config is correct in there. i don't know what templates this installs; i didn't see the one you mentioned in my setup, but didn't look extensively, either. kinda swamped at the momemnt...mine's working just fine. if it were me, i might try uninstalling and reinstalling, but i have no idea if it will help you or not...

question... in the usergroup management, the "Viewable on Show Groups" MUST be set on "yes" in order for this hack to work? Or it doesn't matter either it is yes or no?

It doesn't matter how you set that option.

k thanks

Thanks ^^

dont work for me, o nthe bottom it shows someone is having a birthday today but it didnt make a thread anywhere

Ciao Cyb,

this hack works perfectly on 371 ty.

just the date have an issue.

unfortunatelly with this mod I have an issue with languages setting.

Note : % solution on date format was suggested by you for another hack (stats)
i have inserted in time/date format the trailing % (eg. %d-%....) and for that specific hack is the only way to let it work properly but some others your hacks wont interpreter the correct format.

any hint?

regards

ciao

I am having the same issue, any thoughts/suggestions.

Be noted that:
- only members that allow their date of birth to be displayed will be listed
- inactive members are excluded by default

Check hack settings...

Just chang in the XML :

Replace by :

one question: how can i make it so, that it creates a new post in an exsting thread and not a new thread ?