Miscellaneous Hacks - Activity Modification

This is the vB3.7/vB3.8 version of this modification.

Description
This hack adds an activity metric for users to your forum; this metric takes into account a variable number of weeks. Also provided is a Junior/Normal/Senior member system based on this metric, and a longevity metric (user registered time as a percent of the amount of time the first user has been registered).

Visiting each day and posting the configured amount of times per day for the configured number of weeks will yeild 100% activity. Posts are checked individually for each day, so days cannot be skipped then spammed up afterwards. The weight of visiting for the day relative to posting is configurable. Weeks are weighted so the most recent has a bigger impact on the activity percent than the most distant.

When a user logs in with activity above the configured threshold, they are promoted from Junior Member to Member. When they log in with the configured amount of time as Member, they are promoted to Senior Member. You can configure the mod to also add secondary usergroups when these promotions happen.

Complexity
This modification requires 1 XML import, uploading of images, and the addition of some CSS, depending on what options you choose

Technical
This hack adds 1 query to showthread for each user who posts in that page (or only 1 for the logged in user by configuration). In addition, the first time a member's post or profile is accessed during a day (GMT), 3 queries are performed to find that user's activity. By configuration, 1 query may be added to each page load to find the logged in user's "activity today". By configuration, 1 query may be added to each member profile view to find that member's "activity today".

Upgradability
This modification will import your settings and data from the 3.0/hack version
This modification will import your settings and data from the 3.5/3.6 mod version

Frequently Asked Questions

• I don't see the Activity Settings section or Activity Maintenance link on the AdminCP navbar
  You're probably seeing a cached (old) copy of the navbar. Try pressing Ctrl-F5 in IE or FF, or whatever your browser requires to force it to load the current version of the page.
• I installed this mod and nothing shows up
  First, go to AdminCP|Activity Settings|Display and make sure the dropdown settings are not set to None. If they aren't set to none, the most likely cause is using an old style which does not have template hooks; verify this by creating a new style without a parent and checking to see if the mod displays on it (the images probably won't load, though). If the mod displays on the default style but not your normal one, you need to add template hooks, otherwise post here for help.
• I installed this mod using the Download/Upload Plugin page and there was an error/it doesn't seem to work
  To install this mod, you need to use the Add/Import Product link on the Manage Products page
• I just installed and everyone's activity seems low
  1. Part of the activity calculation is what days users visited on. This information isn't collected before the mod is installed, so no user can have 100% activity untill you've been running the mod for the full period of time you have it set to monitor
  2. Please realize that there is no "roll over" for activity; if you have it set to look at 4 posts per day, your users must post 4 posts on each individual day to obtain 100%.
• I founded this forum, but I don't have 100% longevity
  Somehow a user's join date has been set before yours. When you install, the mod looks for the earliest join date to use to find longevity, but you can change the baseline date. To change the "Start of board" time, go to Maintenance>Activity Maintenance>Set Start of Board, enter your user number in the text field, then click Set Start of Board
• Why don't the images don't show up?/Why does the postcount have 's's in front of it?
  Be sure to upload one of the activity directories from activityimages.zip to the misc directory for each of your styles. To find a style's misc directory, goto the Style Manager, then from the dropdown next to the style, choose Stylevars. The setting Miscellaneous Images Folder contains the path to that style's misc directory, where you need to upload the activity directory
• Can I use activity for promotions?
  The project to build a full-blown promotion hack for use with this mod has been cancelled, after losing all of my work, however a much simpler system that adds secondary groups based on two thresholds has been added to the main hack.
• Can you make X number get split up into digits?
  I understand where you're coming from with this one, but I just can't figure out a way to work this that would be simple to use.
• The tooltips don't wrap and get cut off with FireFox
  The same thing happens to other vB tooltips (the thumbnail ones, for example). If you know a way to add line breaks to FF tooltips without scripting, please let me know.

Change log

Note: To upgrade, with the old version still installed, go to the Add/Import Product link on the Manage Products page, select the XML file for the new version, choose Yes for overwrite, then click Import.

Update 3.03 release

• Fixed a PHP error that some people were having

Update 3.01 release

• Fixed a PHP warning that did not break anything. It should no longer be added to your error logs.

Update 3.00 release
No changes

Update 3.00 beta 3

• Fixed template to use correct forumhome location
• Separated text-version stat block into its own template
• Moved settings into their own navigation group on the left (refresh AdminCP page after upgrading)
• Added new customization reference page to install zip

Update 3.00 beta 2

• Fixed a bug which prevented the postbit display option from working
• Fixed a bug where the Top Activity link could be in the navbar without the Top Activity page being enabled
• Fixed a bug where certain users have postcount of 'n/a' in Top Activity
• Added diagnostic screen
• Set minimum forum version

Version 3 (3.00 beta 1) vs Version 2 (2.80)

• Added template hook and DOM based styling; manual template modification no longer needed
• Split the options page into four options pages
• Added many options to control the style of the mod
• Added "Countdown to 100%" feature in the Top Activity page
• All new profile page display for vB3.7

Support

Please click the install link if you install this hack
I will support this hack in this thread on about a weekly basis.

[DJDynasty239]

It is installed and working properly and awesome, however I want to get rid of the "Today" and "Posts" part of them, they are turned off in the Display Settings, but still appear...any suggestions?

edit : I got rid of them in the "activity_statblock" ...so I believe I did that right.

My problem now is, I just ran through and did about 50 posts as a test, and the activity hasn't reflected that at all, I am not sure if I made an error when removing the 2 sections, or if it takes a full 24 hours to reflect.

Also, I am a member on boxden.com which I am sure is using your mod because they have the same thing there, however the "Longevity" was renamed to "Dope Meter" and the meter reflects the user reputation, are you aware of anyway to tie those two in together?

Thanks for the great mod, and the help bud

[WetWired]

Originally Posted by adamskiii

the graphics are not showing up. I copied all the images to my misc folder and this is what I get:



any help?

thanks

From the opening post:

Why don't the images don't show up?/Why does the postcount have 's's in front of it?
Be sure to upload one of the activity directories from activityimages.zip to the misc directory for each of your styles. To find a style's misc directory, goto the Style Manager, then from the dropdown next to the style, choose Stylevars. The setting Miscellaneous Images Folder contains the path to that style's misc directory, where you need to upload the activity directory

You need an activity directory within the misc directory, and it needs to be the correct misc directory for the style. If you right click the alt-text for the images and select properties, your browser should tell you where it's looking for the images, which is where you should put them.

[WetWired]

Originally Posted by DJDynasty239

It is installed and working properly and awesome, however I want to get rid of the "Today" and "Posts" part of them, they are turned off in the Display Settings, but still appear...any suggestions?

edit : I got rid of them in the "activity_statblock" ...so I believe I did that right.

My problem now is, I just ran through and did about 50 posts as a test, and the activity hasn't reflected that at all, I am not sure if I made an error when removing the 2 sections, or if it takes a full 24 hours to reflect.

Also, I am a member on boxden.com which I am sure is using your mod because they have the same thing there, however the "Longevity" was renamed to "Dope Meter" and the meter reflects the user reputation, are you aware of anyway to tie those two in together?

Thanks for the great mod, and the help bud

The today bar fills up until the midnight you have set in the activity settings, then it dumps into the main activity. The reason the today bar exists is to clarify when a user has reached the maximum contribution to their activity bar for the day.
As for the reputation, I don't know how they did it, though there's many possibilities, I'm sure.

[ndut]

cool...

[adamskiii]

Originally Posted by WetWired

From the opening post:

You need an activity directory within the misc directory, and it needs to be the correct misc directory for the style. If you right click the alt-text for the images and select properties, your browser should tell you where it's looking for the images, which is where you should put them.

thanks man. its working

Just one thing, how would I change the position of the mod so its at the bottom of everything, for example, my thanks mod is at the top and this mod is at the bottom. How do I make it so the mod shows up under the thanks?

thanks

[WetWired]

Well, the mod purposely tries to get close to the top, so you'd need to manually edit the postbit. There are instructions for doing this in the activity customization info file in the zip(you'd want to put the insert for the stats lower in the postbit than the instructions say to). Be sure to turn off automatic postbit modification in the display settings if you manually modify the postbit.

[puregraf]

my site is still very slow when your plugin is enabled. memory goes up instantly to over 80% on my dedicated server, and also server load goes from normal under 5.00 to crazy over 55% used up.

any thoughts? the old version for the older vbulletin did not cause this problem

[WetWired]

What settings are you using? There are many settings that will increase your load, especially "activity today" settings.

Have you tried enabling the mod at a low activity time and seeing how it reacts when activity rises? (because if you have a lot of users, activity must be calculated as posts are viewed authored by users whose activity hasn't been calculated yet for the day; you can "schedule" this load increase to happen when load in general is low) If this is effective, you can set the "midnight offset" setting to keep this schedule. (changing the setting, however, invalidates all activity calculated to that point since the setting effects the calculation)

A load average of 5.00 indicates 100% utilization (for a 1 to 5 core server), so 55% would be a load decrease...

When you say the old version for the older vbulletin, you are refering to vB3.0 or vB3.5?

[NikosN]

Thank you

[DJDynasty239]

If you are able to tell me, what font did you use for the text on "Activity" and "Longevity"?