Forum Display Enhancements - GLA - Geographic Location Awareness for vBulletin

*** Staff note: The author of this modification has passed away in a diving accident. We wish his family all strength in dealing with this traggic issue. ***

GLA - Geographic Location Awareness for vBulletin

What does this do?

GLA adds an additional layer of information into your vBulletin site (visitors' country name). GLA doesn't output anything to the user, or change any display on your forum, it simply adds additional information which is then available to other programs or mods.

But what can I use it for?

There are many applications, but the main idea is that this mod enables other mod writers to very easily add location awareness functions into their own mods. If you were thinking of writing a mod to display a person's registration country in the postbit, it's now very easy to do.

Why should I download and install this?

Unless you are also going to install one of the other mods which requires GLA, there isn't much point. If you are a developer, you might install this to add functionality to your own mods.

How will I update this?

Easy - you can update the database used for matching country names to IP addresses yourself - it's very easy. Full instructions are provided in the install.txt file inside the zip file.

How do I install?

Download the zip file and look for install.txt. But basically it's easy - upload the contents of the upload folder to your forum directory, and import the enclosed .xml file. That's it.

How do I know if it is working?

A test script is provided that will test every aspect of your GLA installation to inform you of any potential problems. Please see the installation instructions for information about this test script.

What about flags?

This includes flags, meaning that other mods won't have to package flags. You can change the flags if you like, instructions are provided.



How about a quick summary of features?

• Fast - GLA adds almost no overhead. This is important for big sites. Only a single query is executed each time a session is created
• Transparent - new variables are automatically available to any part of your site
• Updateable - you can update the database yourself
• Free - a free database is used
• Accurate - the database provider claims 98% accuracy
• Configuration - absolutely nothing to configure for this mod (since it just provides data to other mods)
• Extendible - GLA may encourage other mod developers to add location features. Why not ask the author of your favourite mod to use GLA? Were you thinking of making a mod which uses location data, but didn't know how? GLA solves the problem for you - now all you need to do is read a variable
• Easy developer information - hints and tips are provided with the zip file to make life easier for developers

Is there a list of mods that currently use GLA?



Yes, a list will be maintained here. Please let me know if you find a mod which requires GLA that isn't listed, so I can add it. The current list of GLA mods is as follows:

• Country Display for Who's Online
• Check Proxy RBL on Registration (unsupported, hack for an existing mod)

Before posting on this thread:

Please post on this thread only for issues relating to GLA itself. If you have an issue that concerns a mod that uses GLA, please post on the appropriate thread for that mod. If you have an issue which concerns the underlying functionality of GLA itself, then post here.

Even though this is a required mod from another mod and may be fairly boring, please click install if you are using it. Support requests from people who have not clicked install may not be answered.

No screen shots for this mod, since there's nothing to see.

Version history
1.0 (07.07.07) Initial version

[lamb8068]

i have an error.HOw can i fix it .thanks

[mfyvie]

Originally Posted by lamb8068

i have an error.HOw can i fix it .thanks

You have more than error, you also have a suggestion from the test script about what steps you should take next to fix the error. I'm guessing that you've already followed the advice given in the big red box about how to possibly resolve that error? I can make no other suggestion other than the ones I programmed into that test script.

So if you look inside the session table, were the extra columns added? Did you try to uninstall it and reinstall it?

[lamb8068]

Originally Posted by mfyvie

You have more than error, you also have a suggestion from the test script about what steps you should take next to fix the error. I'm guessing that you've already followed the advice given in the big red box about how to possibly resolve that error? I can make no other suggestion other than the ones I programmed into that test script.

So if you look inside the session table, were the extra columns added? Did you try to uninstall it and reinstall it?

I don't know how to uninstall it...can you help me?

[mfyvie]

Originally Posted by lamb8068

I don't know how to uninstall it...can you help me?

You uninstall it the same way you uninstall any other product - with the uninstall option. Please refer to the vbulletin manual here:
http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/product_manager

[yaoren]

Thank you

**Installed**

[Nathan2006]

Thank you mfyvie

Installed

[military-space]

I installed this mod to be able to use the Country Display for Who's Online mod.

When I access the gla_test.php page, it shows one flag for my themes, but not the other. ALL flags are in their respective folders and are web accessable.

The error I get shows:
Testing to see if the flag from country "ad" is present: Failed - Flag file not found in http://**mysite**/images/misc/flags/
Testing to see if the flag from country "zw" is present: Failed - Flag file not found in http://**mysite**/images/misc/flags/
Visual check - two flags should be visible: Andorra Zimbabwe

The zw.png flag shows up, but the text still says it failed. I can open the urls to any of the flags in the browser and display them. Any suggestions?

[mfyvie]

Military-space,

I can't think what your issue would be (unless there is something you overlooked). You are telling me that the files exist, and you can reach them through your browser directly, but the test script complains that they don't exist? Please view the HTML source of the output of the test script and double check that the paths are correct to the files which don't show.

If you still can't work it out, then please send me a screenshot of the problem via PM, as well as a copy of the HTML source that generated it.

[meissenation]

Any chance of this coming to postbit?

[mfyvie]

Originally Posted by meissenation

Any chance of this coming to postbit?

At the top of this page in post 46 I said:

Originally Posted by mfyvie

The accuracy issue will become even more important when I release the flag in the postbit mod that I've just finished writing.

However, it will have to wait until I'm 100% happy with GLA 1.1. Could take a couple of weeks.