PayPal Donations For vBulletin 3.5.0

Sorry Guys...I have disappeared from vB coding completely for the time being...RL is paying me $35/hour to ignore it lol. Hope you understand why I haven't been around...

Paypal Donations For vBulletin 3.5
Version 2.02b

Hack Provided and coded by )O( Cloudrunner )O( of The Noble Pagan.
Release version: 2.02b
Release Date: 03 July 2005

Change Log

Paypal Donations 2.02

• Fixed Bug introduced with the installer for the tables from 2.01
• Added Who's Online Support Plugins For Donations Script

Paypal Donations 2.01

• Fixed a small bug in the display of the top / last donors on the donate page.

Paypal Donations 2.00

• Ported system over to vBulletin 3.50
• Added ability for the installer to install template edits automatically
• System installs plugins automatically
• Fixed some minor bugs that were present in 1.07 of the 3.0.7 vBulletin donations system.

Special Thanks

Special Thanks goes to the following people, without their support, this would never have happened:

dsboyce8624
guvner
SLeeeper
And all of the Alpha Testers that helped out with this Hack!

I couldn't have done it without you all, Thank you!

)O( Cloudrunner )O(

What Paypal Donations Is:

Paypal Donations is a complete system that controls donations and how they are received via backend interfacing between your vBulletin server and Paypal's payment gateway server. The beauty of this marriage of servers is quite simply automation of the donation process as well as security of the transactions for both you, the administrator, and your users. With the Paypal donations system installed on your forums, you will be able to bring in that much needed income to not only keep your forums alive, but also to help defer costs of doing so to the users of your site without having to bug everyone and beg for money.

This seamless integration of Paypal as your backend payment processor not only provides your user with a well known and safe payment processor, but you are saved the hassle of opening a merchant account with your banking institution as well as saves you time in the process as it takes only a few short minutes to sign up with Paypal if you are not already an account holder there.

System Requirements

OS: vBulletin 3.5 (if you are running this already, then your server has the required installation, GD libraries are required, as well as CURL capabilities for this system to work)

Things To Do Before Installation

Direct File Edits To vB Resident Files: 1 (needed to group templates in AdminCP)
File Uploads: 34 (Of which 18 will be deleted after installation, leaving a total of 16 Files on your server)
Direct Database Queries: None, the installer does these for you
Direct Plugin Installation: None, the installer does these for you
Direct Template Modification: None, the installer installs all new templates, and modifies the resident templates as needed

The uninstaller will remove all modifications (to include the templates) should you decide to remove the system from your server.

How To Install / Upgrade Paypal Donations

Installation and Upgrading are as easy as a human like me could make it. Simply upload all the files from the archive to your server keeping the folder hierarchy intact and then point your browser to the installation file. On most servers it will be one of the following:

• http://www.yourdomain.com/admincp/donations_install.php
• http://www.yourdomain.com/forum/admi...ns_install.php

Just follow the prompts from there folks, the installer does all the database, template, plugin, phrasing, and settings automatically for you!

If you ever decide to remove the system, just upload the install files and folder again and run the installer and choose uninstall. The uninstaller will remove any and all modifications that it did to your files, database, and templates automatically as well. Its as easy as you can get!

Time to install: less than five minutes depending on your upload speed.

Steps To Perform After Installation

1. You must make sure that you have either a Business or Premiere account with Paypal.
   1. If you do not, then you will need to upgrade your Paypal account to that level before this system will work.
2. You must have Paypal's IPN (Instant Payment Notification) turned on in your Paypal Profile.
   1. You do not need to have it pointing at any particular file for this system to work as the system will tell Paypal where to send the IPN to credit your users and notify you of the transaction.
3. You will need to run through the donations settings at the end of the installer and make sure that you have all the required information in there.
4. Please note that this system can be placed into test mode (default setting is ON when system is first installed).
   1. This setting tells the system whether to speak with the real Paypal Server for transactions or with Paypal's Sandbox (testing) server. If you wish to test the system before going live you will need to have access to Paypal's Sandbox server, you can sign up for access there at: http://developer.paypal.com.
5. You will need to input your Paypal Account Email into the settings
6. You will need to input the full URL to your donate.php file so that your users can make it back to your site after payment
7. You will need to input the full URL to your ppverify.php file so that Paypal can send your IPNs to you and your system can process the information and give your users credit for the donation

License

Originally Posted by Brandon J. Briggs aka. Cloudrunner

As the original author of the Paypal Hacks for vBulletin 3.0.x and 3.5.x I give full authorization to modify, recode, compile and/or reverse engineer the paypal donation hacks to any and all fully licensed members of vBulletin.org. I also give permission to fully distribute any derivative works that are created due to this authorization without need of providing credit or other means of recompense.

I am releasing this authorization in the hopes that someone will be able to carry on the work that was begun.

Final words

You will need to add a link somewhere in your navigation system for vBulletin pointing your users to the donations page (if you installed the vBadvanced Module then you have a link on the home page, but you might want to add one in the nav bar as well), as well as setting up your paypal account to give IPN responses to you, you can do this in your Paypal Profile under Instant Payment Notification.

To play in PayPal's Sandbox you will need to be registered with their developer network and setup a few sandbox accounts to play with the sandbox properly. I have throughly tested the sandbox functionality, and it is working until they decide to change coding standards again.

I sincerely hope that you enjoy this hack, Please feel free to send feedback to tnp@noblepagan.com !

Thank you!

)O( Cloudrunner )O(

P.s. Should you feel the need to donate to me in thanks, I will not stop you , in fact I will say thank you and that your support is greatly appreciated. If you do donate to me for this hack, I will give the recognition here as well as on The Noble Pagan. You can find my donations page here (also works as a demo site should you feel the need to check it out):

The Noble Pagan Donation Page

[wcbryant]

Upgrading vBulletin from RC2 to RC3. Whenever I run donations_install.php, it only gives me the option to do a fresh install. No 'upgrade', 'uninstall' or any other options despite it currently being installed. I don't want to do the fresh install because I have a live fundraiser going, and it (for whatever reason, and without asking) dumps all the old data.

Looking at the install functions, I tried ?do=phrases, and templates (or temponly), forget which, and that got it all back online -- but now when I go into admincp (already changed the XML), I can't modify the settings which have been reset. I just get an empty options page.

Here's exactly the process I went through;

Upgraded vB from RC2 to RC3
Re-uploaded *all* the files from the .zip for this mod to their proper directories.
Did the file edits (including the XML)
ran the installer , and only got the fresh install option.
backed up the db
went fresh install (concerned there were no other options, hoping it would be smart enough to recognize the old install and data)
restored the db after realizing that it nuked everything
tried do?=phrases, do?=plugins, do?=templates -- that at least had the pages working again, but with default settings meaning any donation attempts go to sandbox.

Confused as to why I didn't get other options besides fresh install. Not sure what to do at this point to get this working again. Any ideas would be appreciated. At the very least, if I can just get the settings fields to come up in admincp (again, the buttons and links are there because I fixed the XML, but settings doesn't come up), then I can update all of that and this should be working again.

Installed 2.0.2b originally, using that again now.

--edit--

To clarity a bit, it's the admincp/options.php?dogroup=donations that's not working. Does anyone know how I can get that to bring the options page up? Near as I can tell, that's all that's not working at the moment, but since I can't change the default settings it stuck into my db, no one can make donations at the peak of an active drive.

I saw a note on Cloudrunner's forum that he's out of town for a few weeks related to Katrina -- so if *anyone* has a suggestion, I'd greatly appreciate it.

[wcbryant]

Managed to reinstall settings with;

admincp/donations_install.php?do=install&install=settings

Not sure why the installer doesn't/didn't recognize that I've already installed. But finally have everything working again.

[Jenta]

has anyone figured out why upgrading vbulletin wipes out the donation settings and settingsgroup tables?

[JirQUEST]

Originally Posted by Jenta

has anyone figured out why upgrading vbulletin wipes out the donation settings and settingsgroup tables?

not sure why. but if u follow wcbryant's move, u cant go wrong. u might wanna take a look at the previous page about changing the xml file as well for the admincp navigation menu.

[dartworth]

Has anyone seen this error messge:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: build_datastore() in /home/admin/public_html/forums/donation_install/donation_install_plugins.php on line 34

[MissKalunji]

how do i set my donation goal?

[MissKalunji]

Originally Posted by Omega Prime

For whatever reason, vB doesn't like products with the name "vBulletin", so you'll need to edit the xml file and change it to "vbulletin" to get it working

not working anything else?

[MissKalunji]

Originally Posted by KirbyDE

As this was apparently released under GPL, I've repackaged it as a Product for those interested.

To install it this way, upload the Files from the Attached ZIP, import the Product XML and make the Template Edits.
I left the original HTML File for reference, so don't wonder that it mentions Files that do not exist, File Edits (no File Edits are required), etc.

i dont know if its me but the xml doesnt work?!?!

[Xplorer4x4]

Cloudrunner, no support needed here, but I am curious of something. I assume you offer a subcription service as well? If so does anyone actually use the donation hack?

[Cloudrunner]

Hey folks, sorry bout the lag off on my part, it's due mostly to personal issues as well as being on the disaster recovery team with my employer, so I've spent quite alot of time "Down South" over the last month or so...

Anyway, they have given me a reprieve from travelling for awhile, and I've recently upgraded to RC3, However, I've decided to hold off from further development of this release until VB goes GOLD on 3.5. I'll still be working on it as we progress, but I'm not going to release anything, nor support the hack until I make the next release.

With the next release the system will pull in all previous information, but it will be a complete redo of it from ground zero again, as there are some pretty heinous bugs in the old system with the RC of vB.

I will update everyone when PPD is ready for release again.

I apologize in advance for any inconvenience that this decision may cause, but with everything that is going on, I cannot promise that I won't be on a flight tomorrow to recover and rebuild hospitals in Texas, Louisiana again as I have been over the last month.

I will keep you updated on progress better though.

)O( Cloudrunner )O(