Paypal Donations (With Instant Payment Notification) -- RC1 (Public Testing)
 

This hack is obsolete, and is currently being ported to 3.0.7, and will be ported to 3.5 when it is allowed.

Thank you for your understanding.[b]

Version 0.9.5 is a major fix to a bug that was found by shortywz. Please download the new archive and overwrite your old files to upgrade to 0.9.5 if you are running 0.9.4, if you are running any version lower than 0.9.4 then after overwriting the old files run the installer

Paypal Donations for vBulletin

What it does:
Quite simply this hack provides you a way to receive donations from your website's users and provide them with the recognition deserving of a donating member of you community. It uses Paypal exclusively for the time being because of Paypal's "Instant Payment Notification" system. For more information on Paypal's IPN, please see the supplied manual for IPN located here in the docs directory. The file name is: "IPN.PDF".

The basics are this, your users goto your donations page where you have certain levels of donations available via hyperlinked "buttons". These buttons take your user to paypal's secure payment processing system where they pay you your donation. Once payment has been received, paypal sends your server a notification containing certain information pertaining to that specific transaction. Your server then repeats this information to the verification server (which is hardcoded into the system so that *spoofing* is rendered virtually impossible) which first checks to see if the information was sent by it, then checks the validity of the information. If everything checks out, it then sends your server a response of "VERIFIED". When this hack see that word after running the script it inserts all the information into your database so that you can see what was donated, who donated it, and where.

If the server returns a response of "INVALID" then this script drops the information into a separate table so that you can investigate the transaction further to detect fraud attempts. It also does this on any suspicious entries after a few checks. Once payment is verified and information has been inserted into the tables, the system then adds a few toys and items for the user to be recognized as a donating user. What you do with that recognition is up to you.

Features:

• You as the admin have the ability to show as little or as much as you want about what happens with your donations.
• Your users will only see what you want them to see.
• Can block other admins from seeing the actual payment information (you have to explicitly allow them access to that).
• Your members who have donated are recognized for doing so in the memberlist and their postbit.
• You can show your donation goals to the public and on your forumhome.
• Automatic updates EVERY time a user donates or retracts a donation.
• Postbit Awards for certain levels of donations that you decide on
• User has the ability to choose whether they receive the awards recognition
• Admin can customize the PM sent to donators thanking them for donating.
• Guest donations are now listed individually, sorted by IP(not displayed) on the Top Ten list, and within the database

**Coming Soon**

• Add a time-limited feature for the donation buttons
• Fix guest donations to show each indiviual guest's donations sorted uniquely
• Integration with Lesane's Store Hack
• The ability to verify Paypal's Secure Server ID and transfer the payment information via SSL if you have that enabled

Stuff you have to do:
Files to upload: 9
Files to modify: 7
Templates to modify: 4
Queries to run: (The install script does this for you, uninstallation is also provided as well)
Ease of install: Simple, but abit intensive with some file edits
Time of install: ~10 minutes

***REMEMBER! Add your email address that Paypal has on file in the ppfunc.php file. This step is not an option, your payments, although they may be valid, will all be considered invalid if you do not do this! Sign up for Paypal's Premiere Account (Business), and setup IPN.

Paypal Registration:
You will need to register with Paypal for a premiere account if you have not already, if you have, but your account is probably a personal account, you will need to upgrade the account to a premiere account. Assuming that you have a premiere account and have been verified, you then go into your profile at https://www.paypal.com and the select Instant Payment Notification. There will be a checkbox that you must check, and an inputbox where you will need to place your script file. Simply place your entire URL to the paypal.php file there.

On most systems it will be either:

http://www.yourdomain.com/paypal.php

or

http://www.yourdomain.com/forum/paypal.php

That's all there is to setting up Paypal to work with your site!

Install:
Upload the following files to your $ROOT/forum directory:

paypal.php
ppverify.php
ppfunc.php

Upload the following files to your $ROOT/forum/admin directory:

paypal_admin.php
paypal_donations_install.php

Upload the following files to your $ROOT/forum/images directory:

donate.gif
donate2.gif
donate3.gif
donate4.gif

Run the provided install file, after installation, DELETE THE FILE!

This will usually be:

http://www.yourdomain.com/forum/admi...ns_install.php

or

http://www.yourdomain.com/admin/payp...ns_install.php

Upgrading:
Upload the following files to your $ROOT/forum directory overwriting the old files:

paypal.php
ppverify.php
ppfunc.php

Upload the following files to your $ROOT/forum/admin directory:

paypal_admin.php
paypal_donations_install.php

Upload the following files to your $ROOT/forum/images directory:

donate.gif
donate2.gif
donate3.gif
donate4.gif

Run the provided install file and follow the upgrade instructions, after upgrading, DELETE THE FILE!

This will usually be:

http://www.yourdomain.com/forum/admi...ns_install.php

or

http://www.yourdomain.com/admin/payp...ns_install.php

After Install:
You will need to add a link somewhere in your navigation system for vBulletin pointing your users to the donations page.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
I sincerely hope that you enjoy this hack.

This thread is specifically for the use of bugs reporting and feature suggestions.

You are allowed to hack the crap outta this here script for your own personal use, BUT, if you do, I will not be able to provide you with support for the system if the base code has been changed! Also, if we find another hack that interferes with this one, I will do my best to provide a work around for it, but I will not garuantee that to occur!

For those of you who have been alpha testing this for me, THANK YOU! To upgrade from Alpha to Beta, you will have to do a complete uninstall (including file modifications) and reinstall. This is due to the extensive redo of code in vb resident pages. I hope you can understand.

Thank you!

)O( Cloudrunner )O(

P.s. --> I you want to be notified whenever I updated the Paypal Donations System, I suggest that you push that little button up top and down below that says install, It's especially useful to you to do so, cus when a New Version comes out, I can simply update and anyone who has it installed will be notified.....Just a suggestion...

A special thank goes out to ap0c for keeping me on my toes during Alpha testing...dude can find some bugs, lemme tell ya! And thanks for the suggestions as well bro! I added all of em.

Attached is the full release which includes screenshots and the manuals from Paypal for IPN and Donations for those of you who really want to play with the code for reference. Warning, the file is large!

If you want a smaller file, then look here. The archive in that post is the smaller of the two at ~30K compared to ~1M. It does NOT contain the manuals OR the screens (as requested by gmarik).

Enjoy

(with the addition of the manuals and screens, the archive is too big to attach. If you want these, pm me and I'll send it them too you, or simply download the screens archive a few posts down, and then download the manuals from Paypal.)

Have a question about paypals IPN. I have IPN on, and the Instant Payment Notification (IPN) URL filled in. It is used for another subscription hack. Is it possible to have 2 IPN's? If not, how would I go about using your paypal donations hack with the other subscriptions hack I am using now?

Hope that makes sense....

Unfortunately Paypal only allows one IPN per email address on file. The only thing you could do is to setup and verify another account with them, and then setup the IPN for that account deal with this hack.

The catch with this...is not only will you need to have another email with which to register, but to verify that account, you'll need another checking account with them to verify yourself as a legit user.

Here's the updated screens for the beta release.

Enjoy!

No point in installing my system on my board now. I love this one :)!

I'm glad we're finally out of Alpha. :D Great hack you've got here.

will this hack work with the new 3.0?

No it won't, cus 3.0 hacks have not been released, nor will they be until VB3 goes at least RC.

ap0c found a misscode on my part in the installer. If you try to install the code will break when inserting the default settings into the awards table. I've updated the archive to reflect the change that I did with the installer. To fix it, simply go into the installer and uninstall. This will remove the corrupted table, then reinstall, and all should be good.

Thanks, keep the bugs coming, and please post any bugs or feedback directly here as I don't often check my PMs.

)O( Cloudrunner )O(

Another misscode found, Thank you ap0c:

During the last template edit for the template postbit you are told to input the variable This should be:This will be fixed in the next update, but for now simply edit your postbit and make the change or you will end up with two(2) avatars in each user's postbit ;).

edit: This has been fixed, update is in the archive.

installed and running fine...

note to self,no more pms';)

ADDED FEATURE:

A user on my forums actually asked for this feature, so I did it. Anyways, It allows your users to choose whether or not their donations award is displayed on the postbit and memberlist. Also I fixed that other misscode ap0c found.

To upgrade, upload all files, overwriting the old files on the server, then run the installer again, this time choosing the upgrade option.

The archive has been updated with the new release...

Enjoy, Let me know if any problems arise!

)O( Cloudrunner )O(

Why is the zip so big?
Can you make an archive without screenshots?!

done...

but it's not the screens that take up most of the room, it's the IPN and Donations manuals that paypal provides. I've provided them for reference for those who want to play with the code.

This one doesn't contain the screens or the manuals, so it's about 30 Kb in size....enjoy

)O( Cloudrunner )O(

edit: check the bottom of the first post

Any chance you could change this so you can add a time frame for which the donation expires in. This is one of the features i had on my system. Also i had it so it sent users a PM on their donation being excepted and when it expired. The user the PM came from, the title and content was all customizable through options.

But definately i think you should have timed donation periods so they automatically expire :)

Sound good?

- miSt

Cloudrunner,

Thanks. And yes, as Mist noticed, if if would PM them
you're code would be out of comments, get what I mean?!

I can see what I can come up with, shouldn't be too hard ;)

Mist, can you PM me with more details on that so we don't bog the thread down? Thanks.

I'll get right on the auto PM, prolly be added before I go to bed tonight.

Come in the IRC chat sometime. I'm in their most of the time now that i have finished my exams :).

We'll talk in private there ?

- miSt

Will this work with non-forum members as well? For example if someone were to donate that wasn't a member of the forums, what would be processed then?

Absolutely! Even guests can donate, I've not made that a feature to turn off guest donations yet in the adminCP. But yes, guest users can donate, and it will be processed, it just won't show up on the memberlist or postbits.

Ah ok, great. It will still show up in the "Contributors" list though, correct? That's excellent, I can replace my current (static) donations page with this much better one. Thanks very much for writing this!

no problem, I'm still trying to figure out the best way to sort the guest contributors uniquely. I'll probably have that figured out by the end of the week and I'll do another update. More than likely I'll be sorting them by IP address. But for now, it just updates the guest donations (1 guest for them all). I'll have this fixed soon though.

ADDED FEATURES:

PM automatically sent to registered users after donation has been accepted and verified by the script. This feature is customizable within the AdminCP. Thank you mist for this suggestion. This portion of the hack is using a modified version of Sparkz's Pm on registration hack

Changed the database and some code to allow guest donators to be listed individually within the database and the Top Ten Listing.Thank you Crazy Pete for this suggestion

To update, simply upload all files again, overwriting the old ones, and run the provided installer, upgrading in sequence from your version of the hack.

The new version is in the first post.

Enjoy!

)O( Cloudrunner )O(

Hey that rocks Cloudrunner, there aren't any file changes from 0.9.2 to 0.9.3? (According to the upgrade script there aren't.) Sweet! Thanks for using one of my suggestions, too. I feel the love.

Well, the files have been recoded that are included with the archive (which is why I always have you reupload at upgrade, but as far as file edits, on resident VB files, there are none this time round ;)

Ps. You gonna install or what? :lick:

Ahh whoops, forgot to hit that button. ;)

LOL

fair nuff, just don't wantcha to miss an update if you've truly installed it.

Well seeing as I'm never around when you are my friend, let's just go into details here...

What exactly are you looking for in a time-delimited donation?

I.e. you have a row on the add a donation type page where it has an input where you enter some numerical data. And next to it is a dropdown with day(s), week(s), month(s), year(s)..

Just so that the donations last that amount of time and then they automatically expire and the features people make themselves and limit to donators are then revoked...

- miSt

I understand the other stuff, but with this, you are meaning that the buttons only display for x number of days, weeks, whatever?

No the user is only classed as a donator for this period of time.... I.e. all their privilges go :)

- miSt

ahh!!!

Another award mod! I can do that LOL

Take me abit it might, but I'll get that in then!

edit---I made mist mad....sorry, I thought it was funny :P!

Just commenting...

You can only have 1 personal and 1 business account at PayPal. In order to have IPN you have to have a business account.

If you try and register another account, with a different checking account, they'll probably catch it and flag it and restrict your account.

Trust me, to get it unrestricted, its a royal pain in the arse to do it.

Just a thought... ;)

that I did not know ;)
thank you for the information. I'll contact em and see what they say, cus that has me bugged, because I've three legit businesses that use them, and they all run different accounts, but same name for me, and the business name is different....

Don't tell them that you have 3 different business accounts... they might just pull the plug on spot. (Never know with them).

I wish they had the ability to run more than one IPN for one account. I have 4 different sites that need IPN, and I have to figure out what to do because of it. Drives me crazy.

As their User Agreement states:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/ua

Very nice hack ~ clicks install

Thank you Insanctus :)

Well we have a conundrum then, how to get multiple accounts legally with Paypal....will have to think on this.

hmmm...

Maybe through a girlfriend/spouse, parent, friend ??

Just suggestions... dunno

ADDED FEATURE:

Well folks, ask and ye shall receive...

I've added an option to show the awards only for a limited amount of time. After you update you MUST redo your options for the donations hack or it will default to show the award for only 30 days. thank you Mist for the suggestion


Anyway, same old same...Upload, overwrite all file, then run the installer to upgrade sequentially.

Let me know of ANY problems! The update is in the first post.

)O( Cloudrunner )O(

Well done :) - however i wanted it so the admin could set the amount of time... in either days, months or years that the donation lasts... and it's not a fixed amount :)

Also your attachment was a little inappropriate with the obscene words. Please don't post such material again :)

Thanks

- miSt