Geek Article System 2.0 (lite)
 

This hack is a simple and effective (but lighter) version of the very popular Geek Article System 3.0 .
This is actually the first Geek Article System which I still support as it offers people who dont need all the whistles and bells of the larger version (multipage, sidebar, bylines) in a far simpler nutshell.

The key reason for me crating GAS was that I wanted my articles (I also use them as tutorials) to be searchable and reside within the Froums. So I made this simple hack. It may not be all singing and dancing, but I think it can moonwalk with the best of them.

Difficulty to install: A cinch
Time to install: ~5 minutes (if that)
Installer: yup

UPDATE v.2c (17/01/2004)
Fixed rouge phrase that didnt install right.

UPDATE v.2 (04/01/2004)
Removed some left over html in geek_postbit_article that was for my style. The extra HTML that was in there may wack out your layout a touch.
Added a missing phrase (geek_articles_rate_this_article)
Installs either English or French phrases (thanks to cclaerhout)

UPDATE V. 2 (03/01/2004)
Added 2 more templates: showthread and forumdisplay variants (though these are much more subtle... mostly phrase changes
Added a couple of buttons (comments and new article)
Grouped phrases into their own lot

UPDATE V. 1.5 (14/12/2004)
Creted a Zip file with installer and ReadMe
Phrased the postbit.
Thats about it.


nJoy

Great hack! I don't suppose there's a way to copy existing articles from vb3 articles or do the authors have to re-post them in the new forum? Also, can this hack be applied to an existing forum instead of creating a new forum?

Thanks Snow!
Sadly, there is no import facility from vB3 Articles.

And yes, you can apply this to any existing forum. You do not have to create a new forum ;)

nJoy

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/html/includes/sessions.php on line 476

Unable to add cookies, header already sent.
File: /var/www/html/includes/sessions.php
Line: 476

*G* Cool Demo hihi

? where are you getting that error ? There is no way this could produce that error!

can the articles be transformed to rss or xml?

Did you use the cPanel editor to edit the files? It sometimes adds extra spaces at the end of the file which can cause that "unable to add cookies" error.

Thanks :) I've got it working fine. I've just got a very minor problem which hopefully you could help me with. Because the background of the article title is dark and the usernames are using the colours defined for the usergroups, the usernames aren't showing up very well (see first screenshot). I tried adding color: #FFFFFF; to the span tag but a second span tag is being added with the username e.g. . Is there a way to get the username in white text as in the vb3 articles hack (2nd screenshot)?

Mycates: Just as much as any other forum can be (all it is is just a standard show thread with a substitute postbit to change the layout).

Snow: Huh, that table inherits the thead class from an encapulating <td> a few lines above. It looks like your thead css is that purple colour. You can either wrap your <span> in a new or different class, or the TD that the table resides in.

Not sure if this helps?!?

Would it be possible to convert existing (regular) Threads?

You dont need to convert anything. You can apply this to any existing forum (or a new one) without any type of conversion. When you put the forum #'s in the phpinclude_start function, it will swap the standard layout of showthread to the article version. Dont like it on that forum? Just take the forum # out of the phpinclude_start and it goes back to normal.

Hope this helps!

It worked fine on my existing forums and the threads within. It just converts the first post into the article and the replies into comments, e.g.this article was a regular thread prior to installing this hack.


Thanks I'll play around with the styles a bit to see if I can sort this out. :)

Hey very nice, thanks for your answers.

Some of my members are getting this error:

But i'm not?

whats your phpinclude_start addition say? i.e. $geek_article_forums = array(x,y,z)

nope it says

oh, its ok, this one guy was using the wrong style. Its only installed on one style. I should have removed the old style. Thanks

What a nice and clever hacks : looks like V3articles but much easier to install and to use ! Congratulations and thank you. :up: :banana:

Thanks for sharing... I have tons of articles on v3articles... I wish I could bring them to this system... have a great day...

I am getting the same too.

can you give me a link?

sorry, I uninstalled it

crap, am curious to see how an array check in showthread.php would wig out sessions.php?

Did you see this post? ->https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....76&postcount=7 it seems to make the most sense to me.

I am not using cpanel. I was having the error on all showthread pages.

are you using a mac to edit your files?

I am using notepad

I don't see how this is any different than the exiting postbit (Other than the "Written By"). Can you spell it out for me? When posting a new article, do we get the option to put in the Article's author (in case we are posting somebody elses article)???

See the demo-> http://www.thenailgeek.com/showthread.php?t=8801

The first post and subsequent posts are all changed. No, you can't put in someone elses name. All this does is substitute the postbits for first and susequent posts in forums you specify in phpinclude_start

I cant see the Demo:

duh. Sorry bout that guys.

I noticed that the 3 people who got this error were from Germany. When I looked into it I just installed this language detecting hack-> https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=59564 but didnt put in the correct language ID for german. :(

Anyway... apologies... should work now. http://www.thenailgeek.com/showthread.php?t=8801

I am in america...

OK, I looked at the demo again. I still fail to see why this is better than the way the postbit is now. If I use this mod, it will imply that all articles that I post were written by me. This is not always the case.

Very true bitg. It is more of a cosmetic thing I suppose. Saying that, isnt there some hack around here that lets you post as another user? If so... there you go. Marry the two together and live happily ever after ;)

Have you tried vbarticles? Not sure but that may do what you are after.

vb3articles is the same problem. Yours is much better. I just want another field that a user has to fill out when posting an article. The field is "Article Author". That is it. Then your modification would be perfect for me.

Then when the article is displayed, it would say "Article contributor" (which is the person uploading it) and "Article Author" (which is the person who wrote it). Granted, I could add this manually to the top of each article, but it would be nice if it were part of the system.

It distinguishes the official articles/tutorials from the standard threads.
on my forum at least, the "written by" states the article author not me. :confused:

Ah, I see what you mean. I will look into it however off the top of my head it means either altering the threads table to add another column (ugly IMO) or adding another table with this info (much better and easier). It then means either selecting from that table or changing the SQL that pulls the posts to join and include this outside table.

The other thing of course would be that newpost.php would have to be tweaked to accomidate.

Its all doable... but I dont know when I would have the time to do it.

Just as a thought: could this do the trick? I just browsed through it and it looks like it adds a text field to a new thread. If thats the case, it should be super easy to simply use that as the text field your after.

Sorry it isnt as perfect of a solution. Let me know how you crack on with it.

eh? Im going to get a large dent in the centre of my forehead over this. The seesions.php error is in regards to the 'auto selecting language' hack I put on the other day. Are you certain it still isnt working?

What about if you look at Snows? http://www.aboho.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2433

(hope you dont mind me posting the URL Snow). Can you see that Lionel. If so, then it is that other hack I installed recently (going to have to find a way tofix it). However if you CANT see it and get the same error, then there is a veryvery freaky bug hanging about in vB3 as a whole!

My Maney is on the language hack I did ;)

Let me know Lionel.

Cheers

no prob. ;)

Hello,

Can somebody explain what this hack does? Thanks

It turns the threads of a chosen forum into articles...

Nailgeek: thanks a lot!! flawless install!! Great hack!!