Private Message Workbench: Read, Search, Delete, Report and more
 

PM Workbench v1.00 Beta 5

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Hack: PM Workbench
Version: 1.00 Beta 5
Author: MarcoH64
vB Version: vBulletin 3.5.0. RC2
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Important Notice:
Depending on the modules installed, a privacy statement might be added to your board.
This Privacy Statement can not be removed or hidden by any means. Failure to comply would be against the TOS
of this hack, and you would not be allowed to use it.

If your board already has a Privacy Notice covering reading Private Messages by Administrators, you can PM me a link to that statement on your board (provide test login if needed) and your email address, and i will mail a Plugin to remove the Privacy link.


What is this hack?
PM Workbench offers you a variety of tools for working with or extending the standard vBulletin Private Message System.
It is a Modular System that will allow you to add those functions that you need for your board. New Modules might be added later.
The system is fully phrased and options can be set in vBulletin Options.
Permissions to use Modules are given using the includes/config.php for increased security.
Currently no file or template edits are needed.

More modules might be added later. For some i am waiting for new hooks to be implemented in RC3.



Donations are always welcomed to PayPal: marcoh64 AT gmail.com

Currently Supported Modules:

PM Workbench - Report PM

This Module adds a Report PM icon to the postbit when users are reading a PM. The reports and send to the PM Folder of the
userid defined to receive them. Administrators who are given access can read the reports, the original PM, and add notes to them.

Features:
- Access to the PM Reports is controlled in your config.php for added security
- Add report button to PM's, no template edit needed.
- Usersw can give a reason for the report.
- Reported PM's can be seen without modifications to them (PM's are not forwarded, but just added to the inbox of the report userid).
- PM's are fully parsed
- Notes can be added to reports.


PM Workbench - Read/Search Private Messages

This Module let administrators who are given permission, search and read PM's

Features:
- Access to the PM's is controlled in your config.php for added security
- PM's can be searched for:
- Keyword (title and/or body)
- Username (sender/receiver/both, optional exact match)
- Send date after
- Send date before
- With a simple click read the PM and see who still have it in their folders.


PM Workbench - Performance Pack

Add extra indexes to the pmtext table for faster searching.


Known limitations:
The 'Report PM' module might not work on some heavily modified Styles. I will be (hopefully) posting another (beta) hack for that tomorrow.

If your are linked to this post because you clicked a Privacy Statement on a borad that you where visiting, this means that the Administrators of your board have installed the PM Workbench.

Please consult your administration team on how the privacy implications of this are handled at your baord.

This system is modular and will give the administrators the following options, depending on the letter-code you saw in the link you have clicked (the codes within the paranthesis).

These codes have the following meaning:
S - Search/Read PM's installed. Administrators on your board might have the option to search for and read Private Messages.
R - Your board have a Report PM functionality installed. Administrators can read reported Private Messages.

More screenshots:

You are my hero. *installs*

Nice. I also thought of implementing a report PM function, and I think I still will have to do so as unfortunately I can't use your Hack - the enforced backlink to here is not acceptable to me :(

Worked a treat, danke!

What about making the PM box an email box? As in if you send an email to user@yourdomain.com it shows up in their vB PM box?

That would probably require polling each members mailbox. As long as it is local on the same server it could be done.

I am planning (or already in progress) a lot more Modules.

I agree. It is not vbulletin.org's concern on what I do with the information of my users. :ermm:

I already tell my members that their pms may be viewed. It's stated in the rules document. I also would like to use this hack so that I can search MY Private messages because vbulletin doesn't support it, but I don't think I should be forced to link back. too bad. :( What's really stupid is you can read pms without any special software - it's right there in the mysql database. Also there are other addons that let you read PMS if you need to.

Yeah, it's clearly stated in the TOS for our forum. If they don't agree, they are obligated to not register.

Anyways, chill guys, it's Marco's hack. If he wants a link back, then so be it... Though I cannot use this unless I don't have to link back because I don't find that acceptable...

Oh well nice hack to bad there is a forced link back to here.

Maybe Kirby will release one that does not require the backlinkl :)

It would be good if the ALT text for report.gif was "Report Bad PM (or Private Message)" instead of "Report Bad Post"

It got nothing to do with vb.org, it is something that i want if someone is using my hack.
If you (or someone else) pm me the link to their rules or board privacy note, where this is clearly stated, i will sent you a plugin to remove the link, please include a mail address.
I am working on a module for members to search their pm's, but i am waiting for RC3 because i need some new hooks.
Notes, will change in next update.

why i rated it one star
not to fond of his requirement

What requirement you mean, the link to the privacy explanation? Well if you think that is a good reason to rate it 1 star, that is your choice. I would prefer if people to rate it for the quality of the hack though.

I like it, and I like the idea behind the privacy statement, it should be more clear to all members in any board using any kind of reading others PM's hack...

Keep up the good work Marco

Thank you.

I thought about installing this. But the forced link put me off. You may want to reconsider this forced link if you want people to use your hack.
I'll just wait until someone releases another version of this..

Thanks for the response uae.

I am anyway happy to see that this thread hasn't turned into a big discussion if a hack like this is against morals or not. That is the main reason why i require some privacy statement to be present (personally i also think you should have a privacy statement if you read PM's).

Like i have posted before, PM me a link to your boards privacy statement that covers reading PM's, and i will email a plugin to remove the link.

Marco did e-mail me the plugin to remove the link when I proved to him that my board already informs members their pms may be read. I just thought everyone should know. I will install the workbench now when I get the opportunity. Thanks Marco.

Your welcome, please click Install once you have it running (that should be in 2 minutes from now ;))

Marco, have a stray thought/question that your hack got me thinking about. Not sure if it's in the scope of what you're doing here, or if I should be posting in mod requests, but I'll start here.

One of the things my users ask for most frequently is more email-like handling of the to and from fields. Particularly in the case of multiple recipients.

Ideally, if I send to 5 different people, it's an open conversation with these folks, and in order for them to respond to the group, I have to start the PM with "to: user1, user2, user3, user4, user5" so they might copy that on the response.

In a perfect world, if I put 5 people in the to field, then all 5 see the other 4 names as well, and of course myself as the sender. Then they have the option to reply, or reply to all. This would create a need for a bcc field of course, in the event you want some or all not to see who else is being PMed, but that would really only function the standard way vB handles this (hiding everyone else but the sender and recipient), so I assume it wouldn't require any new code.

A step up functionally speaking to that would be being able to PM to usergroup (primary or secondary) as well, effectively enabling closed discussion groups between different project teams (I have a community driven site), and the like.

Is this practical? Is it a potential feature of your workbench? Or *gulp* are these features available in another hack I've simply managed to overlook?

As long as I had it all fresh in my head, wanted to ask here. Mostly because the notion of one complete workbench that overhauls PM functionality seems personally more appealing than several different little ones that might overlap and/or conflict.

Another notion I had that sort of speaks to the privacy issue, is affording users the option of encrypting PMs. Giving another layer of privacy and protection would make it a lot easier to have some userbases digest the reality (with this hack) that admins can read their PMs. Obviously that would mean admins having 'content' on their site that they have zero access to, but it could be an optional feature.

I suspect I'm way off base talking about these here, as your modification seems to speak more to the administrative side of things than the user experience, but wanted to give it a shot. ;)

Thank you for your feedback, all suggestions are welcome and i must say i really like the CC/BCC handling. (Actually vB = BCC, you want to add CC). I will give it some thoughts and if possible i will add it.

Closed discussion groups i am not so sure about yet.

Encryption is a different thing. Since 2 (or more) members must be able to encode/decode it, some encryption keys must be exchanged, that could be intercepted by the admin again, and thus given false sense of security. There have been more threads about encrypting/obfuscating private message.

PM Report is both User/Admin, i am planning to make a User Search PM function, but the needed hooks where not available in RC2. So i am still planning on having a go at that too. More might follow.

Appreciate your receptiveness and responses. I see your point on encryption. I suppose if users were savvy enough, and really wanted to, they could use something like GnuPG to encrypt and decrypt in text windows on their own machines. Not something that needs server-side support, and frankly, if they need that much privacy, better to take it to email, or OTR-enabled GAIM, etc. Something off-site.

The to/cc/bcc stuff would be a dream come true. More than half the emails I send are to multiple recipients, where the ongoing discussion is something we all want the others in the loop for. Invariably, someone forgets to include everyone else, so the convo fragments, and it gets difficult to keep things linear.

Perhaps instead of PMing usergroups, people (admins) could set PM aliases for groups? Something like 'game_preview_team' is defined as 'user1, user2, user34, user765', where any PMs sent to 'game_preview_team' goes to all those people (I run a college athletics site). Although I suppose functionally speaking, that might be no different than mailing usergroups, and might require users to be created for each alias? I have no idea, not a coder at all. :)

The big thing was definitely the cc/bcc stuff, and I'm ecstatic that it's something you might consider.

Outstanding, Users being able to search their own PM folder would be a terrific feature. I just switched over to fulltext searching down to 2 character terms on my forums, and everyone is loving that. Extending it to PMs would really save some time.

How 'bout something like Erwin's vB mail checker? Have members input server info, and just use the username as a forward (unless you actually have an account on my site, like sovereign @ alliancemodding.com then you could turn forwarding off). Cool hack! Keeping updated on this one...

Report does not work. It gets me a no permission error when I click on the report button on PMs.

Could you provide me with a test account and a link please.

I'm PMing it to you right nooow.

Ok i see what is your problem. The problem is that i am doing template edits 'on the fly' your Styles ar so heavy modificated, that the string i am trying to replace (to change the standard report post link into a link to my report pm function) can not be found anymore.

BUMP. This is an awesome hack/concept. Any news?

This is the same as spyware to me.

There won't be an update for at least 2 weeks i think, i am over my ears in RL stuff (work and family) until at least thursday. I doubt however that the email feature will be the first thing i will add, must do some research before i will start that.
And that is a very unasked for remark, and a very strange comparison. Spyware is spying on you without you informaing about it. With my hack there must always be a privacy notice that will inform members that PM's can be read.

The priivacy thing is OK, it's probably good cause if someone doesn't like it then they can't sic the ACLU on you because you told them already...

Mmm... I would add one simple thing : You don't like it, don't use it ? Whats the big deal with discussion privacy etc. ? You have a choice, do you ?

Just adding my opinion, for what it's worth, that I would never install this hack with those requirements. Appreciate the effort but as I know I am far from the only one who feels this way I fear it's mostly going to waste.

What requirements you are talking about? That i want either the standard privacy notice as supplie by the hack to be shown, or a paragraph in your board policies to cover reading PM's?

If both are a problem to you, then yes, this is not the hack for you.

I agree with Marco. It is his perrogative as to what requirements he wants in exchange for using his hack. You should respect that, even if you don't agree with it.

I do respect that, and I appreciate his work. That has nothing to do with the issue at hand - as a coder, I would think he would appreciate feedback on his hack good or bad as long as it is constructive and not mere message board flaming. My opinion is that these requirements - either linking back here or having an existing privacy policy that in the sole opinion of the coder, who is not an attorney, is an acceptable substitute is not acceptable to me. I feel this entire "read members private messages" debate is net-lawyerism at it's worst and this kind of requirement is reacting too far in the other direction to it.

That said, it's my own opinion, and the coder can do what he or she wishes. I'm not implying he should change his hack because of it - that's an informed decision only he can make.