Refer Friends!
 

First off, I need to thank c-pr0mpt's template driven pages hack for helping me with the online bit and template help.

Second, I must add a disclaimer. I am NOT fluent in PHP and this is my first publicly released hack. This may not be perfectly coded or the most efficient, but I have tested this numerous times on fresh vB's as well as hacked vB's and installation went smoothly every time, so I hope it works for you. I tried my best to make this hack as compatible as possible but I am sure I could have messed up somewhere. This is mostly an addon but optional integration is also supplied in the hack. If installation gets messed up it's not hard to revert, but it never hurts to backup your database first.

Now onto the details of the hack. This hack creates a new page for members that will send out emails to people of their choice with their referral links in them. It's a great way to get your members to promote your site. You could also start a referral contest and grant special prizes, like a custom title or avatar, to whomever gets the most referrals. You do not have to have referrals on, but it would help if you wanted to keep track of who has referred the most members. :)

Features:

1) Only registered members can use the referral page, guests will get an error page.
2) An error will also occur if a required field is left blank
3) Users can refer 3 friends at a time
4) Users can edit the title and message of their outgoing referral email
5) The user's referral link is in the email message by default (index.php?s=&referrerid=xxx)
6) Default title and message can be edited in the refer.php page
7) "Referring Friends" link appears in the who's online page when a member is referring people

Only 1 file edit (optional)
Only 1 template edit (optional)
3 new templates
1 new PHP file

4 screenshots in my next posts.

Support will be given, but as I said before, I am not fluent in PHP or MySQL, so I can't guarantee that I can make every addon or fix every error.

UPDATE: If you get a bug that sends you straight to the error page, install version 2.0. If the hack is already working for you, do not install version 2.0. This is just a bug fix, a patch, and is only needed if you can't get the original hack to work properly.

Enjoy.

-Marcus

Main referral page.

Successfully sent

Error

In the online page...

Very nice, adding right now. :)

*clicks install button* :)

Maybe I'm missing something. But, when I click on Refer Friends, I go directly to the error page. What could be wrong?

Check the link and make sure it is pointing to "refer.php?s=$session[sessionhash]"

Also make sure you're logged in. I tried linking directly to &action=compose and it took me directly to the error page too. When I took it out, it worked. If it still doesn't work try removing ?s=$session[sessionhash] too.

interesting :D

Good job, i'll install it after a good 'ol game of B-Ball i'm in. Be back in 3 hours! :D

Tried all of the above to no avail. :ermm:

Works great. Nice job. :install:

Hmm. Can I get a link to your site so I can see if I can find out what's wrong?

just installed, no problems easy as cake to install :D Great Hack my friend!

I just installed this. Now where do I find the "refer friends" link on my page? I can't see it anywhere....

If you did the optional steps it should be in your footer. See the screenshots. It can be moved though, put it wherever you want. :)

<a href="refer.php">Refer Friends</a>

Doesn't have to be in any specific template or anything. :)

I've been looking for a good way to promote referrals -- I'll be installing this shortly. Thanks!

I would also be interested in hearing about ideas for promotions related to referrals. Since my site is based on ancient coins and antiquities, I expect I'll give away ancient coins for the top three referrers over some period. Is 90 days too long? Other ideas?

Bill

90 days sounds good to me. Since I don't have anything to offer I just give away custom titles and avatars...Not much but at least it's some kind of motivation.

the hack looks awesome, i want to install it but I would need some button icons for the refer link. can anyone help me?

http://www.ryanmcbain.com/forums

Ryan,

Have you looked at this: vButtonPro

Makes buttons a piece of cake, as long as you have PhotoShop 7.

Bill

Works great! Last question, I swear.

Where do I go to see who referred who?

i dont have photoshop 7 lol

I'm not much of a button maker myself, so I can't help you. I'd ask whoever made your other buttons to make you another custom one, or just put a text link in the footer.

This requires more hacking. It's very small though. I have it added on my forum as well.

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showt...325#post152325

In a members profile it will say something like

Referrals: 2 (username1, username2)

Or you can use FireFly's "Full List of Referrers and Referrals" hack :)

VBstats hack shows top referrers etc

I don't believe it shows an entire list though. I don't use it so I'm not familiar with it.

Okay, I added the Firefly referreal hack. It works :)

Is there anywhere to go to find a "top referrers" link or do I have to click on everyones profile to see who was the top referrer?

The last link I posted does exactly that. FireFly's Top Referrers list. See one in action here (slightly modified):

http://moacsupreme.com/forum/reflist.php

VERY nice :) its running on my site

http://www.darkforum.com/darkforum

I'm having the same problem - clicking the Refer Friends link brings up the error page straight away, even though I'm logged in.

I tried removing the sessionhash bit from the link, but the error page still came up.

Any ideas?

Hmm, try this:

in refer.php, find

and change it to

then find

and delete it all. This will give guests access to the page, but I think it will fix your problem, I removed it from my site and haven't gotten any error reports. Let me know if that works.

Still getting the error page.

Odd....Are you linking to refer.php or refer.php?action=compose? If one doesn't work try the other....

would it run with 2.2.1 also ???

Yes, it should run fine on 2.2.1.

Unknown ... great hack and thank you!

I installed it on my test forum and it worked perfectly but when I tried doing the same on my live forum (same server), I am going directly to the error page! :( I tried the suggestions already provided, as well as going back through the steps several times. I can't see what is causing it to respond differently.

Destee

I have no idea why it works on some servers and not on others. Your situation is even more strange considering that it's the same server. I don't know what else there is to do, maybe try an uninstall and re-install? Also, did you do the optional steps? If so, which ones? Maybe that has something to do with it...

Unknown ... thanks for your response. Yes, my experience is really weird and very frustrating because I know this hack works and I want it on my forum!

I've uninstalled / reinstalled, all of that, and can't get it to work properly on my live forum. I even tried editing the file(s), putting the refer template content into the refer_error template (since that is the one it gets), but it didn't include any of the default text (email heading, body, userid, etc.) only the blank form, which worked but looked too much like a spammer's heaven for me to leave this way. I'm not familiar enough w/php to be twisting things like this ... so I'm going to look jealously at those who are using this as I think of something to replace my new and never used Refer Your Friends link.

Thanks Again.

Destee

ps ... I didn't do any of the optional steps.

Ok, try installing this new version 2.0. Erwin found out the problem and this should fix it. Upload the two new files (overwrite refer.php if you still have it uploaded) and copy/paste the new "refer" template. The other two templates are unchanged. Hope it works!

Thank You Very Much Unknown and Erwin!

It works perfectly for me now !!!!

:cool:

Destee