vba CMPS: Smilie Creator
 

vBa CMPS: Smilie Creator v1.0.1

OVERVIEW: This is a conversion of an old VB2 hack (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=50450) by Kars10 to create new smilie faces on the fly. The original version acted as a pop-up box from within a BB code so that the new smilie would be inserted into your forum message posting. A BB code trick posted over at vbulletintemplates.com (http://www.vbulletintemplates.com/mo...ead.php?t=6671) really eliminates the need of having to do this hack anymore since you can accomplish nearly the same thing without having to do any code changes. I was still interested in this old hack though because there are times I'd like to be able to create a new smilie on the fly either for my own personal usage or for my site. So looking at it as a learning experience my goals were to change the hack to be a more generic approach and make it easy to integrate into a site so making it into a vBadvanced CMPS (http://www.vbadvanced.com) module seemed the obvious answer. The other added benefit of making it into a vBadvanced CMPS module is the fact that it could then be added to a web site without doing any code modifications at all but still being able to, for instance, block access to it from non-registered users. I emphasis.... the PHP code is by Kars10, my only change to it was to remove the file name from being hard-coded and instead I'm passing it in from the template in order to make it easier to add new smilies in the future.

REQUIREMENTS: Since the template and PHP are really generic you should be able to easily get it working with just about configuration. For my purposes thought it was intended for.....

• vBulletin 3.x.x
• vBadvanced CMPS
• A server that supports GD -- If you server is not running GD then it will not be able to create the new image.

INSTALLATION: Installation is really easy.....

1. Upload the fps_smilie_creator.php file to your /forums/modules directory (the folder where you keep your CMPS modules).
2. Upload the fps_smilie_creator folder to your /forums/images/smilies folder (the folder where you keep your VB smilies). The resulting path should then be /forums/images/smilies/fps_smilie_creator.
3. Copy & paste the contents of fps_smilie_creator_template.html into a new custom template named adv_portal_fps_smilie_creator (or whatever your prefer).
4. Create a new VBA CMPS page or module. This is really your choice. For my site I liked it better being a seperate page so when I created my page I used the Page Template option. If you add it as a module instead of a new page then do not include the PHP file in the new module, only include the template!

That's it, you're done! If you upload the PHP file to a folder other than your modules directory or if you upload the images to a folder other than ../images/smilies then you'll have to update the template path names.


UPDATES: Updates & changes....

• 2004-08-09: The problem with the right-mouse "Save Picture As..." in Microsoft Internet Explorer, where it would want to save it as a bitmap instead of a PNG, has been fixed. I also tweaked the template a little to no longer need the <div> tags.

TIPS & TRICKS: Some ways increase the functionality of your Smilie Creator....

• Encourage your visitors to register

REMINDER: To always be informed of updates & changes be sure to click the https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/ button. :classic:

Awesome! Thanks for sharing Pal!
*clicks install*

hhhmm strange thing. I added it as a page. In the Page Template:i added adv_portal_smilie_creator I have enabled ALL usergroups to see it BUT as an admin i can see the page and it all works BUT none of my members can at all :(

Any ideas?

I'm just thinking how cool it would be to be able to have it where maybe when viewing extra smilies there was another link to the smilie creator and then it brings up the window with the smilies. That's simple enough to put that link there.... But....What I'd like to see is the smilie to automatically be inserted into a message.

SnowBot, what's the URL to check it out? I was testing it as my account (admin' only), a test account (registered users only) and as not being logged in with no problems. The security issues are really a CMPS thing but I'll see what I can do to help you out.

Have you tried going to the page with a test account or not logged in yet?

Romeos Tune, check out the thread I mentioned over at VBT.com -- You can accomplish it through BB code alone. :nervous:

i don´t us CMPS, is there any way to use this hack without VBadvanced vBadvanced CMPS

Awesome! I found that! :) Hey, I'd like to show you something...... Sending you a pm..... I used to run ubbthreads and switched over and had a great program like this.... Take a look at your pms...... And thanks! :)

Snatch, you should be able to incorporate it into just about any page. There is a thread by Erwin I saw recently about using any HTML page from within VB -- To use this outside of CMPS you'd just have to reference the .html tempate and change your folder paths accordingly and then you should be good to go.

I've only got a few minutes right now but if you can't get it working outside of CMPS then give this thread a bump in the next day or so and I'll see what I can do.

Kevin

When I get back home tonight I'll check it out; the SO is waiting for me downstairs so I've only got a few minutes. Playing around with this is a 'learning project' for me so if I think I can tackle it I'll give just about anything a try. :nervous:

Sorry, the page is here

http://www.synergyforums.com/index.php?page=smilie

I can see it, some of my users can see it but others cant, dont know why :(

I just tried.... worked fine for me as unregistered and then again as registered (KW802, account created tonight). There is some javascript in the template, perhaps the users who are having problems are having issues with that? If the users who are having problems don't mind, could you find out what browser & version they are using? Also, do they see nothing at all, a blank page, or is just certain parts of the not working for them?

Thanks,
Kevin

Sounds good..... I think you'll like that thing alot..... Prolly be easy for someone like you to port it to VB.... :)

Will this hack work without CMPS?

Any fix for the .bmp problem!!

ranger2kxlt: It's just a generic HTML template that calls the PHP file so you should have no problems getting it working from any page. If you use it on a non-vBulletin page then you'll have to change the template for your colors, etcetra. The reason why I geared it towards CMPS was because it would allow you to take advantage of CMPS features like security control.

xug: I'm working on it. I haven't been around much this weekend because I'm working on stuff with the fiance (wedding in less than 90 days) but I'll have it resolved shortly. Please bear with me just a little bit longer (I'm hoping to have some time tonight to work on it; if not tonight my next time 'window' is Thursday night).

I am really starting to HATE Microsoft Internet Explorer! :mad:

The problem with the right-mouse "save picture as..." option in IE only occured if the text had spaces in it; if there was no spaces then it worked fine. Mozilla Firefox worked perfectly, it's only IE that was acting up.

To fix the problem find this code (line #23 in the original template)....... and change "+text+" to "+text.replace(/ /g,"%20")+".

I've also tweaked the code a bit so that the <div> tags are no longer required. I'll be repackaging the zip shortly with the above fix and the tweaks (the tweaks won't affect nothing, it's just to reduce some HTML code in the template).

Remember to click "Install" to be kept up-to-date on future fixes & updates.

Thank you. The fix worked nicely.

can i use this on my forums or do i need to have vba CMPS installed?

Works like a charm :-D love the hack...

question, why can't we link directly to the image? is there a way to do that? also what about making an add-on, so we can create images within our posts :-D

Thanks

yup, that would be nice ;)

You wouldn't want to link directly to the image because you'd really be linking to the PHP file that is generating the image on the fly. Just think about it.... if you have a 100 people viewing the same linked image then your server is doing 100 GD processes to create those images.

I put the message about no direct linking in there really for my benefit because I wouldn't want to kill my server. There is nothing stopping from you using the linked URL, but rather it's something you most likely wouldn't want to do.

In regards to inserting it directly into the posts, check out the link I gave for the VBT.com thread. The same end effect could be achieved without having to create a new image on the fly or even using GD at all. :)


If you guys/gals really want something that gets inserted directly into a post then let me know..... Romeo Tunes pointed me in the direction of something that most likely will be my next learning experiment that will do it but it will take a little bit of time for me to work on it.

not sure where this can be found...

I would love to have the images be made and inserted on the fly while in posting mode :-D

The VBT.com thread can be found here.

Hi all, I followed the instructions but I don't know how to be able to choose this mod option....
If I was a visitor and wanted to use this module, how would I do it..

And yes...I am a real noobe.

yeahhhhh We want we want! lol...... This'll be great when you get that thing working...... :)

The quick fix is a one word change on line #23 of the original template. Please see post #17 above (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....9&postcount=17) for the details.


For those not familiar with, or haven't come across it yet, the bitmap issue was....

Some people using IE were having problems when they went to right-click "Save Picture As..." on the new smilie. Instead of seeing the name "fps_smilie_creator" as the file name to be saved and PNG as the file type they would instead see "untitled" as the file name and "bitmap" as the file type. The file would still be saved and would work fine but by saving it as a bitmap instead of a PNG it wasn't saving the transparency of the graphic, instead the new smilie would appear with a white background. Because the file would still save some people didn't even realize that there was a problem and just assumed that the white background was normal.

To confuse matters even more not all IE users were experiencing it. I finally tracked it down to the fact it would only happen if there were spaces placed into the smilie message. In other words, an IE user creating a smilie with the message of "Cool!" would see "fps_smilie_creator" / PNG but an IE user creating a smilie with the message of "This is cool!" would see "untitled" / bitmap.

What was causing me frustration was the fact that only IE was experiencing the problem, Mozilla Firefox would always properly recognize both the file name and file type.

For people who already have it installed changing the one line I gave earlier (the part about "+text+") will fix the IE problem. Changing the one line will have no impact on either the template or the new smilie image, it'll just take care of the IE right-mouse issue.


I really do appreciate everybody's patience in dealing with the problem until I had a fix. Thanks, everybody! :D

:D Assuming that somebody else doesn't knock it out first it's the 2nd thing on my 'to do' list. The first thing on my list is that I'm trying to change the RSS Feed hack by VeloCD to hard-code some logic in the PHP to force all articles that contain a certain phrase into one particular forum regardless of what the original RSS Feed was or what forum that feed would normally be posted into. It's an ugly change, because it'd be hard-coded in the PHP instead of through the ACP menu, but for my site it'd be useful to do.

I think converting that UBB hack to be a VB hack would be another nice learning project so it's definitely something I'll be working on. I've looked at the code that you sent me and am currently seeing which code is for the actual function of the panel generator and which code is for the UBB functionality. Yeah, I'm a geek... I look at code for fun.

YLP1,

Good morning. OK, first question.... did you implement it as a CMPS add-on or as a seperate VB item? Assuming that you did it through CMPS, how did you do it? Did you create a new module, did you create a new page, or some other method?

Thanks,
Kevin

I'm confused on the VBT hack...how do users know about the other faces they can use? please explain how that works.

thanks

You'd have to ask Hoffi that one in the VBT.com thread; I can only assume you'd have to write up instructions for it somewhere. On my site I've only been playing around with the default one that he provided.

Hi Kevin,

I created a CMPS module named adv_portal_fps_smilie_creator and chose the fps_smile_creator.php as the file include.

I also created a Custom template names adv_portal_fps_smilie_creator.

If I enable the module for the smilies, I get this error on my pages:

Warning: imagecopy(): supplied argument is not a valid Image resource in d:\myisp\web\lpsforum\modules\fps_smilie_creator.p hp on line 102

Warning: imagecopy(): supplied argument is not a valid Image resource in d:\myisp\web\lpsforum\modules\fps_smilie_creator.p hp on line 103

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at d:\myisp\web\lpsforum\modules\fps_smilie_creator.p hp:102) in d:\myisp\web\lpsforum\modules\fps_smilie_creator.p hp on line 143
?PNG  IHDR?%?/?? PLTE???~Q?]
tRNS
7????IDATx???=?0 ?sI[r?T"?yHd???mJK??P?P\?q)?Ò?H3)'+? ?Zx????V?????;#] V?o??С??W?u?j=
????;=IEND?B`?
Warning: imagedestroy(): supplied argument is not a valid Image resource in d:\myisp\web\lpsforum\modules\fps_smilie_creator.p hp on line 146

Ah! Thank you for being specific, it made it much easier to figure out. :D

The problem is that you don't want to include the PHP file! In your module you only have to include the template, not the PHP file, since the template is what calls the PHP.

Change the "File to Include" value to "None" and then change the "Or Template to Include" value to be the name of the template (minus the "adv_portal_" part of course).

Try that and let me know how it goes. :classic:

bump, i had the vb2 version, not interested in the vb3 version but would like a straight answer (sorry for my abruptness)

Sabret00the, this issue has already been addressed in previous posts....

From post #1:From post #9:From post #16:As I've offered before, if anybody is trying to get this working on a non-CMPS page but is having problems just let me know how you're trying to use it (non-VB page, VB page but non-CMPS, etcetra) and I'll see what I can do to help out.

KW802, i'm using it now, on a vb-page but non-cmps, and works perfect :-D

http://www.thunderbirdnest.com/index...=smiliecreator

Thanks for the help :-D

Hi Kevin,

Ok that got rid of the error...now for the really hard part....how does one use this mod? LOL

I don't see how to use it....

Sorry for being a pain in the butt...

Kevin, can you explain so that I can understand better why the include was not used and how the template thingie works?

I'm new at VB and I can't seem to grasp when to use an include versus a page template (or where the templates come from like do I create it and if so why).

Thanks in advance for any insight...

PS: If you click here http://www.yourlincolnpark.com/lpsforum/lpsforum.php I see the module now but it has an error see the red X...and this box is too wide for my page and when you click create nuthin happens.

Also, this module doesn't appear on any of the other forum pages like for instance http://www.yourlincolnpark.com/lpsfo...read.php?t=332 or http://www.yourlincolnpark.com/lpsfo...splay.php?f=21

I have the portal installed actually they installed it for me LOL...told ya I was a noobe...

No problem, hopefully I can explain some of the vBa CMPS stuff without confusing anybody.... :D

With the vBa CMPS stuff the rule of thumb is that all modules need a template. The template is what produces the square box you see on the portal front page. A PHP file may or not be included based upon what the template is doing. A quick way of remembering which file is to be included is that you need to include whatever that which is doing the action. To clarify, let's take a look at a few example modules.

Example #1 -- A module that does nothing but says "Hello World!" in bold: For this we would create a new template named "adv_portal_hello_world" with nothing in it but "<strong>Hello World!</strong>" and then we would create a new module that includes the template (referenced by "hello_world"). We wouldn't include a PHP file because we aren't doing anything related to the PHP language, we just want to display a message in plain HTML. The "action" is taking place entirely in the template so we want to include just the template. Since we've already included the template we can leave the "Templates Used" value in the module blank. To summarize... the action is in the template so we'll include the template and leave the Templates Used value blank.

Example #2 -- A module that displays a random quote from table: Now for this module we need to get a little bit more complicated because we need to extract the results of a database query. To do the database query we'll write a small PHP file named "get_results.php" and put it in the /modules folder. The PHP file will grab the quote and create a variable called "$quote" that contains the value it grabbed from the database. OK, the PHP file file will get our random quote but we need to display it on the page yet. Going by our rule of thumb we need to create a template so we'll create one called "adv_portal_random_quote" and inside of the template will be nothing but "$quote" (the variable name from the PHP file). OK, we've got a PHP file and and a template so it's time for the module. Where is the "action" taking place? Inside of the PHP file so this time we'll include the PHP file instead of the template. But the PHP file uses a template for it's results so this time we'll fill in the "Templates Used" value in the module with the name of the template that's being used ("adv_portal_random_quote"). To summarize... the action is in the PHP file which is using a template so we'll include the PHP and insert the template name in the Templates Used value.

Example #3 -- This smilie creator: This vBa CMPS module is a little different from most vBa CMPS modules in that I had wanted to make it is as generic as possible so that people could use it on non-vBa pages. Even though I called it a "vba CMPS module" it is in fact a generic chunk of code that could be used just about anywhere with just some minor tweaking. Because I wanted to make it generic the action is taking place inside of the template; the template calls the PHP file which is exactly opposite of Example #2 above. Because the action is taking place inside of the template we'll create the module like we did in Example #1 by including the template & leaving the Templates Used value blank. To summarize... the action is in the template which is using a PHP file so we'll include the template and leave the Templates Used value blank.

So in a simplified nutshell... all modules need a template to be displayed on the portal page and the module should include the file that is doing the action. If the action is in the PHP file then include the PHP and fill in the Templates Used value but if the action is in the template then include the template and leave the Templates Used value blank.


OK, on to some of the other issues...... :D

The red X... are you sure that your server has GD enabled? "GD" is a function of the PHP language installed on server that allows images to be worked with. For example, the PHP file in this case uses GD to create the new smilie on the fly. If you're not sure a quick check would be to go into your Administrators Control Panel (ACP) then choose "Import & Maintenance" at the buttom of the left hand menu area and then choose "View PHP info". If you then scroll down the window you should see a section entitled "gd" and it will list whether it is enabled and also what version. You want to make sure that it is enabled with "PNG Support" enabled as well.

The box is too wide... Yeah, it's definitely too wide to be in a left or right column! :nervous: If you really want it displayed all of the time I'd recommend then moving it the bottom of your center column. You can do this by going into ACP --> vBa CMPS --> Edit Module --> (what ever module name you chose) and then use the "Move To" arrows to move the module to the center column & then changing the index number (the little box to the right of the module name) to a number that is higher than anything else in the center column.

The box doesn't appear anywhere else... Because it was added as a vBa CMPS module it will only appear on vBa CMPS pages. Your front-page is in vBa CMPS but once you switch to the forums, for example, then you're no longer in vBa CMPS. Now you can do some mojo to have your vBa CMPS modules appear in your forum but for now let's just concentrate on getting it working.

When you have a few minutes I'd ask that you check out your PHP info page to verify the GD settings and then also move the column from the right to the center at the bottom so that until we get it working it doesn't make your right column bigger than it needs to be. After we get it working (assuming that your GD is enabled & working, etc.) then I'd recommend you changing it from being on your home page to be on it's own seperate page (don't worry, it's easy.... when the time comes we can walk you through it).

Kevin

Hi Kevin,

WOW thanks for the explanation...I think I understand it!!

Here is what my gd says in PHP Info

gd
GD Support enabled
GD Version bundled (2.0 compatible)
FreeType Support enabled
FreeType Linkage with freetype
JPG Support enabled
PNG Support enabled
WBMP Support enabled