Article System
 

Alright, here's my Beta... Do not even touch this unless you know what you're doing! To upgrade to future versions you WILL have to have a fair amount of knowledge about templates and other things.

I need help with an installer and any feedback and suggestions on things to add/do

An example of it can be found running here.

All code made and testing on VB 3.0.0 and shouldn't have any issues with 3.0.1 or any future releases. This doesn't relay on any Vbulletin templates. The only vbulletin functions it uses is basic template and DB connectivity.

The support on this will be VERY limited. I only need people that know enough to be helpful in tracking down bugs that they may find. I'm very busy during the week. You'll want to edit index.php and add links to any of the admin functions you want.

I covered alot here

NEW STUFF:
Hialls is helping me with the installer and helping add some things that will help you guys use and install this alot easier.

Go ahead and check this system out and tell me what needs to be added and I'll see about adding it to my additions list ;)

Use htl to make one for you

If you give me the required templates and any file modes ill make it in htl for you

Thanks! Currently there's 0 file mods and only the templates which are in that .zip file in instructions.txt

I haven't even installed HTL yet LOL I probably should....

I love it BUT there is no instructions.txt :squareeyed:

Sorry i don't find the instructions file if you upload that ill make you an installer

A hack without instructions....


He is cruel and he likes to be it :rolleyes:

I don't object to finding out some things myself but all I get is a white screen of death. :)

Edit: I realized why it's a blank page. Do NOT install this hack until the author replies to this thread: it is not working until he updates the file. I checked the code and there appear to be references to 'new' templates which are probably installed by creating them from the instuctions.txt... however, there is no instructions.txt yet! So wait until that is included in the package...

Regards,

Tom

"I'm heading to bed, it's after midnight..."

Poor man. Hope he sleeps well.

But, I also hope he doesn't hit the snooze button!

I'm back, and included the instructions.txt file in this one. Sorry about that, I live in the eastern timezone and it was like midnight I was doing this.

new .zip file I'm starting to get to know the HTL system so I may have some easy instructions later today. I've gotta take care of business first.

Krohnathlonman, i've used htl to install the script do you want the htl installer?

It works correctly, thanks! However, I don't know how to succesfully add it to a category? What do I specify?

EDIT: Also, you forgot to add the printer.php?

Can you upload the htl installer? I'll upload the one with the printer file now... It's one of the files I haven't converted to Vbulletin yet. Sorry about that.

The printer file works, thanks! Two things.

1) Categories? I updated the category names in the Templates, but I can't figure out how to add an article to a certain category. Inputting the names in the category field doesn't yield a result, what do I do? How do people know which files to access to add / edit / remove articles? You should provide some instruction as to what the files do, at least.

2) Paragraphs? After adding an article all my paragraphs were gone?

I just noticed in articles.php

require_once('./global.php');
require("config.php");

the require("config.php"); part is old and obsoleted. Might as well have the display quit opening that file.


Currently the categories are handled with ID numbers. When adding articles just enter 1 for anything in the first category. I haven't improved the categories side of things yet. It's something I have planned.

You will have to use HTML in all of the fields. That would be why your paragraphs are gone. It doesn't do ANY formatting. it's best to insert HTML in here. Use some sense when using those fields, Don't insert all the HTML header garbage. the first part should be something like "<p>After slipstreaming my SP2 CD I decided to take..." do NOT put the /body and /html tags in either. this will end the html page!

Also to change the Title on the articles list page look here:

//Default Page title
$home['pagetitle'] = 'Articles List';
}


I do plan on setting some global variables at the top of the file, but haven't gotten around to it.... Some people wanted to see where I was at on this so it's a BETA that needs quite a bit of work to make it a full release.

Ok but before i upload maybe i should wait for all the files?

I'm working on a new version of printer.php that is completely integrated with VB so there'll probably be at least 1 more template when I get that done.

#########UPDATE#################
I'm currently in the process of setting up settings, i.e. turn sidebar on/off also making the article system fully in vbuletin phrases

alright! finally got it huh? im going to download this in a few hours when i get time to install everything... good job :)

I'm doing a bit more testing but the HTL installer should be released soon

Hi all hope you are well

I cant wait for this to be a full release, when do you think it will move out of beta

Regards

Chet

well, some people will have to test the installer when it's completed and I have to finish making the admin side of things fully VB integrated.

This thing will be a BETA until I finish with all the functions I'm planning on adding. After I have all the functions completed I'll port everything over to having a NEWS page too! It's rather easy to grab data from a specified news forum.

We are all very appreciative to you for all of your work and for sharing it with us.

I've nearly eliminated the need for a seperate config.php file :) I nearly have all of the admin panel integrated with VB enough to grab the DB info.

I've got somebody else working on a new way of handling the categories.

Darnit! You beat me to it! Mine's in private beta.

I like your layout better. However, I have integrated the excellent open-source HTMLArea WYSIWYG editor into mine. I've fixed it up so it supports the Word document import (so you can paste in Word for Windows docs while having all the useless Word formatting crap stripped out and replaced with XHTML formatting code) a pretty good image upload/insert system, and a Spell Checker.

Would you be interested in working this into your hack? I only have very basic templates and such done; as I said, yours is better. But I can give you the code to make HTMLArea work. That would solve your article entry issues; writers won't need to input raw HTML now.

Email/PM me if you are interested.

yeah I'm interested.... You can help develop parts of this system If you're interested in helping out. If you can think of an easy way of putting the WYSIWYG editor into my system let me know! I'm certainly interested in it. I've currenly been sticking with plain HTML since I format everything properly in HTML anyway. I write my articles in Dreamweaver :)

How on earth would a person go about handling multiple pages with a WYSIWYG editor like that? If nothing else I could do something like Iframe that editor in and just tell people to view the source and paste it into the forum field. I know it'll be a PITA to get 10 instances of that editor working together properly.

It looks like hialls will be handling mainly the installer part while I'm writing most of the core stuff.

I'm about to upload some of the updates to the first post here.

As to when this thing exits Beta, It may never :) by time I am satisfied enough with the article system code to no longer classify it as beta then I'll be adding the news system in :) The first official release MAY be a true portal. The current hacks called portals aren't really what I would call a portal.

Krohnathlonman, check your PM's.:)

I don't see anything :)

can someone finish this and release it?

Like I said in previous posts "I really can not wait for this release", if I was to install this now in beta, how much of a change to you think there will be in the RC version, the reason I ask is because I totally no good at modifications at all so would like to keep is as minimal as possible.

Regards

Chet

I Did release it.... If you're wanting "finished" code it'll never come. The version available on the first post is really quite good. There'll be a couple more steps taken to make the install process easier, but if you need to so bad it's right there ;)

Everything I did yesterday had 0 effect on templates.

Currently the upgrade path doesn't look like it'll be anymore than template mods and overwriting some of my old files. This system isn't even using any of Vbulletin's templates :) I'm NOT even having you guys do any hacking of the VB files. Except that admincp/index.php but that's optional just to put the links in your admin panel.

i just downloaded it finally... just got free time.

i noticed: You mean the Printer.php? or config... because i dont have a config file... :\

so should i wait until you get that? or is that going to take a while?

just curious...

The integrated admin panel is done...

the missing config.php tells me you're using that version I was talking about.....

Hialls is working on the installer right now while I work on some additional features. He's also going to do some more admincp related stuff.

I still have to write a categories administration. This possibly won't be around until I hit a milestone with my categories handling.

I've just uploaded a templates.xml for you to be able to merge it with your current style to easily get the template part of the install done.

Don't expect to see another updated file until probably Monday. I have paying projects that I need to spend time on. Plus I take Sundays off. I have to finish writing a new article for my site IANAG as well.

Also an update on the WYSIWYG editor. If anybody knows a way to have something like a checkbox to go to the HTML view Let me know! I can't posibly integrate that editor without it.

Could you clarify this? I'm not sure what you mean.

In the WYSIWYG editor.. HTMLArea Basically enable a Checkbox that switches to the HTML view. Instead of the WYSIWYG view. Say paste the stuff into the editor... Hit a box and you see all of the HTML. OR paste in HTML and check the box and go to the WYSIWYG environment.

Without that I will not do anymore work on integrating this editor. i did manage to make multiple instances of this load....

Well, then, it's your lucky day, because that is already IN HTMLArea :)

Load up an instance of it. See that icon that looks like <> ? Click it, and you switch into raw html mode. Problem solved.

I don't doubt you got multiple instances of it going but - and I mean no offense, this is a really nice hack and you did better work on the output than I did - the way you do it (the add/edit articles) is really inefficent. Rather than load up ten text areas in one edit page - which looks cluttered already and is going to look really cluttered with HTMLArea loaded - you should really have a "next page" button that submits the first page and takes you to a new page to add. That's one of two ways I have usually seen multipage stuff done, as I explained in the PM, and this way wouldn't be too hard.

If you are too busy to do it I'll be happy to once you upload your next version with the fixes you mentioned a little earlier and the HTL installer is done (so there's no backtracking involved).

Also, there should really be at least an option to include the authors forum name automatically, along with having PHP automatically generate the date for you.

Like I said, don't get me wrong, I think you did a great job. I want to make this hack even better, just like the other one I am helping with, VB-Bugs.

Whats the best way to handle a multi page submission like that? just have say 2 pages at a time and post them into hidden form elements?

I wrote this completely with the display end speed in mind. I had to make sure it could handle 150k+ pageviews a day because my site spikes up there often enough that I have to worry about it. I don't want my server crawling from it. In the next release you'll see in the admin panel where it's real easy to turn features off. I'm also writing some global variables for you guys to define!

Thanks for point that <> out... I overlooked it! I'll start testing it after I get my feature list taken care of ;) Something that big will be one of the last things I do! I want to make sure everythings stable and working great before I throw something as big as that into the mix.

one thing i dont get about the instructions...

Where do i import them from and to??? may sound stupid - but i just want to be safe!

it's a .sql file.... go into phpmyadmin or command line it...

Import that into your forums DB