vbWiki Standard - vBulletin+MediaWiki integration
 

Update:

9/28/2007: vbWiki Std v1.3 RC5 is now available for download. This version adds compatibility with MW 1.11.0+

5/17/2007: vbWiki Std v1.3 RC4 is now available for download. This version is compatible with MW 1.10.0+ and vBulletin 3.6.6+

1/21/2007: vbWiki Std v1.0.2 RC3 is now available for download. This version fixes the 'session error' that used to happen on some installations of MediaWiki 1.9.x.

Description:

vbWiki Standard is the lite version of vbWiki Pro. vbWiki Standard allows the integration of vBulletin and MediaWiki user authentication.

(vbWiki Pro is a commercial product that, in addition to the functionality found in vbWiki Standard, provides full skin integration, enhanced user management, Admin CP, editing of wiki skin in vBulletin's Style Manager, among other features.)

Why should you add a wiki to your forums?

Forums are great for community building with their high level of interactivity. Successful forums have hundreds or thousand of concurrent users creating and replying to threads.

However due to this very reason the more your forums grow the more "collective knowledge" is scattered throughout the thousands (or hundreds or millions) of threads in your forums. Making it difficult for users to find and use.

A wiki is not that good at community building, but it is a great medium to centralize this 'collective knowledge'. Enabling you to create an 'ecosystem of information' (quoting pipin :)) maintained and contributed by your users.

The idea behind vbWiki (both Standard and Pro) is to enable the seamless integration between these two packages (vBulletin and MediaWiki) side-by-side in your community. You (and your users and community) get the best of both worlds.

Or so the theory goes... :)

Features:

• Single sign-on for vBulletin and MediaWiki (users log in only once)
• Supports mapping of vBulletin usergroups to MediaWiki user roles
• Users viewing wiki pages are shown in vBulletin's "What's going on?" section (both guests and registered users)
• Supports auto-authentication, users who choose to be "remembered" are logged in upon visiting the site to both vBulletin and MediaWiki.

Installation:

These installation instructions do not apply to vbWiki Pro. Refer to vbWiki Pro installation instructions for more information.

MediaWiki and vBulletin must be installed and properly working before installing vbWiki. MediaWiki can be downloaded here.

• Create a new directory in your forums directory named vbWiki.
• Upload the content of the installation package to this new directory.
• Rename the file vbWiki_Init.php-dist to vbWiki_Init.php
• Open the file LocalSettings.php found in your MediaWiki directory in a text editor and at the very end find the following line and remove it if present:

• Add the following code at the end of the file (entering the correct directory path):

Troubleshooting:

• Last installation step: Click Mark as Installed.. :D

If you run into any trouble installing vbWiki (blank page, logins not working, etc.), follow these instructions to temporarily turn on vbWiki's Diagnostic Tools.

Open vbWiki_Init.php (or vbWikiPro_Init.php) and find this line:

And change it for this:

Navigate to the wiki home page, and see the results.

Changes:

• 0 vBulletin files to Edit
• 1 MediaWiki file to Edit
• 10 vbWiki Files to Upload

Requirements:

• vBulletin v3.5.4 (version 3.6.x recommended)
• MediaWiki 1.6.8+ (recommended 1.7.x+).
• PHP4+

Uninstalling...

• To uninstall vbWiki Standard simply remove (or comment) the line added to LocalSettings.php.
• Optionally remove the directory vbWiki from your forums directory.

Resources:

• Installation instructions, what to expect, etc.
• Frequently Asked Questionss
• vbWiki Forums
• Demo Wiki
• Software running on demo.

I provided a link to our site's wiki. This wiki is running vbWiki Pro, but since vbWiki Pro reuses all of the code of vbWiki Standard, you can see the user authentication integration working there.. Feel free to register on the forums, and log in and out of the forums/wiki.

vbWiki's Usergroup Mapping
vbWiki (both Standard and Pro editions) has an option to synchronize vBulletin's usergroups into MediaWiki usergroups.

If group synchronization is on (it is on by default), then whenever a user logs on, his/her MW groups are synchronized with whatever groups he/she is in vBulletin.

(The following only applies to vbWiki Standard. In vbWiki Pro, this is configured through vBulletin's Admin CP > Usergroup Manager)

The setting that controls this mapping is named $g_vbWiki_Usergroup_Mapping, here is an example (and the default for this setting):

If you want to change this mapping, add these lines of code in vbWiki_Init.php, after the line that says 'CUSTOM SETTINGS START'.

In the example above all vBulletin users who are part of vBulletin's usergroup with id 6 (Administrators), will be added to the MW usergroups sysop and bureaucrat.

thanks for this cool hack

Wow thanks for the lite version! :D

Any previews?

I posted a link to our wiki in the first post.

There are no screenshots, etc. since vbWiki Standard only integrates the user authentication (user DBs). But you can see it in action, by following that link.

Hello,

I downloaded this to evaluate towards purchasing the full product for a website. However after following your instructions my Wiki doesn't work at all. I am using MediaWiki 1.9.0. The error I get is:
Please let me know what the issue is.

Hello Wayne,

Those errors are caused by some key changes introduced in MW 1.9.0.

I just uploaded a new version (RC2) that adds compatibility with MW 1.9.0.

Let me know if you have any other issues with this new version.

Thanks.

Excuse my ignorance, but what does this do that vB does not? It seems to be just another forum.

Bob

No excuse. You know Wikipedia which builds on Mediawiki?

This fine hack now bridges the login from your own wiki with vbulletin.

Thats one of the best and useful hacks if you have a community which is willing to build its own ecosystem of information.