Private post viewable via email only
 

I have a private forum set up, so that each user only sees their threads/posts. We want them to be able to have the option to show threads or posts to people who aren't registered via email.

The email this page function is enabled. Of course, when you click on the link from the email it asks you to login, register or, if you're already logged in as a different user, tells you that you can't access the thread.

I'd like to know if there's a way that someone could access the private threads as read-only if it were transmitted to them via email? And again, that would be the only way that anyone other than the owner would be able to see the thread publicly -- via that email generated link.

Selectable threads or all threads from the owner to the non-registered user? Or do you actually mean posts?

This functionality is not built into vBulletin, nor have I seen a modification that can do this -- not that there isn't one. I am only trying to answer the question, "is it possible".

Selectable, correct. Not all of them. Posts would be sufficient, although we're trying to use the email this page feature. We don't NEED to use that. We just need to make it so a member can give temporary access to one of their private posts to a non-member and then that non-member can view it without registering.

Coding isn't my forte, but I noticed there's "referrerid" in the URL string generated from the system when you email someone a page. I was thinking that perhaps this could be used to write a condition that would allow the thread or post to be viewable to only the person who received that link via email?

Thinking about it quickly, what you could do, is give them a unique link to a post. It would not be completely private as anyone who knew the link could access the post. You might have to alter the permissions on this type of private forum, it would act more as a password'ed forum via the unique link. I will have to ponder this some more, but it will require someone familiar with vBulletin source, maybe. :)

It sounds like that would work. How would I generate this unique link?

I will think about it some more, to see if there is an easy way to handle it, but you will probably need a programmer for this one.

I have a programmer standing by. Just need to tell him what to do...

Anything else on this?

Sorry, I have not had the time to look into this subject any further. I am a bit surprised there are no other suggestions. :(

If he is a programmer he should know what to do

Now that is the best thing I have heard in awhile. :) :)

He's never worked with a forum like this, so I need to give him specific instructions. So, "Hey, you're a programmer, you know what to do" probably won't work. Great suggestion, though.

If he has no clue about coding for vB, our instructions will probably not be much help, either. It is highly adivsable to follow vB procedures when coding addons.

You could tell him to make a plugin that creates a unique hash when a thread is created and save it into a new field of the thread table. You need that hash because it is terribly easy to guess threadids, and that's all you need to access a thread via URL.

Next, he'd have to get that hash into the link that is being sent to the user, which would probably be in the showthread template. Of course, you need to make sure it's only present in forums where you want to use this.

Then tell him to create another plugin that changes the forum permission on the fly when that hash is present as an URL parameter (I have not tried whether that is possible or not; this may be the hardest part). Of course, you will have to make sure that the hash is passed across pages in multi-page threads, which may prove to be not trivial. Maybe it's possible to manipulate the posts per page setting on the fly, too, so you could push it up to, like, 500, to make sure all posts in a thread are being shown on one page. Again - this plugin needs to be active only for forums you actually want to use this, and checks need to be in place this can't be used to get around permissions for other restricted forums.

If you can't adequately change the forum permissions on the fly, you'd have to create a seperate page that shows the thread to the user, not implementing vB permissions and getting the data from the table yourself. If your programmer knows what he's doing, he could probably use the existing postbit templates.

That's all I can think of from the top of my head, and yes, for a programmer that has never worked with vB there are lots of pits to fall into.

I'm wondering if it would be possible to just send the content of the threads' post via email instead of sending the link to the thread?

That would serve my purpose and, I assume, be simpler.

I assume. It might be possible to hack into the send to friend function, but I have never looked into that. Else you could have that functionality written completely outside the vB Framework (since you have no need of permissions, then), grabbing the necessary data from the database directly. Of course BB-Code would not be rendered.

Anyway - may I ask what those people would do once they receive that E-Mail? They have no way of answering the thread.

It's actually just for a validated record -- that this person recorded this information on this date and time.