Advanced Guest Posting & Registration - Get more members!
 

Advanced Guest Posting & Registration allows guests to post a reply or a new thread in the forums, then register to publish their reply. This system encourages participation by calling on the user to write something before the option of registering even enters their mind.

Similar modifications have been made previously, but none as feature packed as this that are sure to bring new registrations to your forum. With the modification installed on cellphoneforums.net there was a 9% increase of new registrations (Results will vary depending on your traffic and subject matter).

Features:

• Compatible with vBulletin 4.1.4 +
• Works with quickreply & advanced reply
• Settings to change which editor is displayed, including a basic text box (without loading large CKEditor files) to cut down on page load time for guests
• E-mail verification compatibility
• When guest post is published (before or after e-mail verification)
• Human Verification on/off for quick/advanced reply & post
• User is only asked to enter one Human Verification/CAPTCHA - they will not have to enter another one on the register page
• Default subscription options for quick reply, or the option they pick on the new thread/reply is saved automatically
• Works with Facebook registration
• Compatible with the default vbulletin mobile style
• Message after user registration to tell them their post has been posted with a link, or that it has been put in the moderation queue if determined to be spam by a spam system (akismet)
• If a user posts, creating new posts is disabled until they register - notification of this is in the header
• Guest posts are saved in the moderation queue under 'unregistered' until the system automatically removes (admin setting) the post or the user registers. This allows admins/moderators to see what is being posted.
• Header message to users that they have a 'saved post', even if they come back later (cookie based)
• (Pro Only) Reporting feature that tracks total posts / replies, abandonment (guest creates a post but never registers), posts marked as spam, and successful posts / replies (register)

Some sites that have this installed:

• cellphoneforums.net
• nikonites.com

Installation

• Unzip the package
• Upload all files in the upload directory to your forum root
• Install the product.xml
• You'll see a new admincp menu item for the modification - click it to choose your options

Notes:

• New threads or replies posted by guests will be seen by admins and moderators as moderated posts - they should not approve these posts if you do not want them to potentially be removed by the system if the user does not register.
• A message is added above the message editor "If you are already a member, please login above." - If you find that your logged out members are getting confused you may want to edit the phrases "vbpagr_if_member_logic_above" & "vbpagr_if_you_are_a_member" to stand out more in order to prevent confusion.

Release Log

• 1.2.1 - 6/21/14 - initial release
• 1.2.2 - 6/24/14 - fixed "Post Pending Post/Thread..." not saving - only a reimport of product xml required

This modification adds a link to ForumSetup.net in the footer of thread pages only. If you wish to remove this link and get the reporting feature, please see this page for details.

looking good
i will check soon

Let everyone know what you think! :up:

Is this working for anyone running 4.2.2? When I tried I got an error saying the username was already taken.

It's running on cellphoneforums.net & nikonites.com which are both running 4.2.2. You're getting the error on the registration page? The plugin doesn't modify the functionality of the registration itself. Have you tried different usernames, and you're sure the username isn't actually taken?

So I logged out and tried to post as guest but there was no username field, just title and post...

Could this be a caching issue? Or should flush cookies to test properly?

Once you click post the register page is loaded so the guest can register...

You need to fix line 455 also if you pick After e-mail is confirmed then save it does not keep that option shown

Like I said there's no Username field for guests to chose. Could this be a custom style issue?

this should be good. gonna wait to see if people get on well with it first before trying it

Thanks for the heads up. There were some extra tab characters in there for some reason. Will be fixed shortly.

It could very well be a custom style issue or interference from another modification (in particular one that does something with the register page). Did you try with the default layout? Also try disabling any plugins that do something with the register page.

Sounds good :)

1.2.2 has been posted to fix the "Post Pending Post/Thread..." not saving. Reimport the product xml if you need the fix. Nothing else has changed.

Looks promising. How hard would it be to allow regular members to post in Premium (paid subscribers) areas of a forum and get the same kind of result?

You would be looking at replacing the registration with the payments system, which isn't easy.

Either yes or no, don't use this thread as a way to solicit paid work.

no prob - edited...

Much appreciated, thanks. :)

I use BoP5's change registration page URL mod. Can I easily modify this to go to the new registration page URL?

I'm not familiar with how that mod works. You'll have to try it. If anything it may just be a matter of changing when certain hooks execute.

It just renames register.php and changes a bunch of links to it to point to the new filename. Reduces spam registrations which automatically access register.php on vbulletin forums. So if this redirects to register.php, it isn't compatible with that mod, sadly.

I imagine you just go through the files and look for register.php and change it to whatever you changed the filename to

Yes - in particular in the hooks directory - newreply_post_complete, newreply_start, newthread_post_complete, newthread_start

I installed the mod on V4.2.2 and really like it. Everything worked fine as far as I could tell.

Only one issue I had though which is important to me and perhaps will be for others:

On our site the first 5 posts a new member makes go into moderation for approval. Using this mod, all a new member has to do is post, register as directed and the post they made is posted by-passing the moderation requirement. If they make a second post that one goes to moderation for approval. It is just whatever someone types as a first post is automatically posted which in our case opens the door to trolls. Otherwise, very nice mod and I hope you can fix this issue.

Glad you like it! Are new users put into a different usergroup other then registered that has new posts set to moderate or is another mod doing this?

After signing up, newbies are placed in a group titled "New Members". The permissions in that group are set to require all posts being moderated. After 5 posts they are auto promoted to the group "Registered Members" where posts are not moderated. - Thanks.

I see - Is the ID of the "New Members" group 4? See what happens if you set "Follow Forum Moderation Rules" to No for "Unregistered / Not Logged In"

Actually I use group 2 for "New Members". Both that and "Unregistered/Not Logged In" are set to No for follow forum moderation rules. So that isn't working... hmmmm

oops, I meant 2 not 4. But yeah, I just checked and the mod isn't accounting for that moderation setting. It only places posts into the moderation queue after registration if the post is detected as spam by the stock system. Maybe in a future version I'll account for that setting.

For the people that have it installed, what do you think so far?

Just installed and tried it. After hitting submit no a etst thread while not logged in I get this error:

Submit on posting a thread or registering? Do you have any other modifications installed that modify the register form?

This looks very promising - unfortunately on my 4.1.9 installation it breaks showthread.php - when I turn it on only a blank page is rendered in all threads (with absolutely no html upon source inspection).

Other mods installed that modify showthread? What version of PHP? You should see something in your error logs if you're getting a white screen.

PHP Version 5.3.3.

It's most likely some change I've made to showthread.php - I've heavily modified it myself (which is why I'm still on 4.1.19), as well having a few plug ins. The white page happens on both logged in and logged out showthread.php. I'll start hoking through trying to find where my php logs are and maybe do a bit of trial and error disabling other custom plugins.

Thanks for your help.

ah, got an error

any ideas?

On posting the thread. No other mods to modify reg form, except BoP's register.php rename, but it never makes it as far as register.php.

Do you have the suite?


Hrm, It uses register.php, so it may be throwing that error because it's not finding it.

I changed all the references to register.php as you said earlier.

Ah, never mind. I'm not planning on turning this into additional work. Nothing to see here. :)

Yes, I do.