Integration with vBulletin - YAFB - Yay! Another Facebook Bridge

This is not just a "port" for vBulletin 4 of this modification, this is the next version of the modification which support both vBulletin 4 and vBulletin 3 family

IMPORTANT: FILE ISSUES HERE: http://code.google.com/p/vbulletinfacebook/issues/list (require a Google Account)

Yay! Another Facebook Bridge 3.3.2
Tested to work with vBulletin 3.7.x and 3.8.x (3.6.x requires some manual edit, contact me for detail instruction)
Tested to work with vBulletin 4.0 (use different .xml import file)
Please note: this product requires PHP5. If you get weird error messages, please check if you PHP version is still 4 (which is very old and you should change to PHP5 as soon as possible). Also, MySQL 5 is strongly recommended

[WHAT IS IT?]
There are many vBulletin - Facebook bridge out there but installing is always the problem for most of forum owner. So I decided to build this product from scratch and provide you the ability to install this Facebook Bridge into your forum in 10 minutes. The detail install instruction can be found below (under the Feature section). A few technical notes: This product uses Facebook Connect to maintance connection between vBulletin forums and complicated (and awesome) Facebook servers. All most everything is automatically done by the script, even the Administrators don't need to do any manual editing (yeah, I'm talking about manual templates editing, you WON'T need to edit templates each time you implement a new style). Once again, most of everything is options which can be enabled/disabled via AdminCP or UserCP interface. All possible type of caching is use to improve performance and reduce heavy PHP load on server side or javascript load on client side. Well, it's quite a long paragraph for introducing. Let's make it work!

[SEE IT IN ACTION]
Screencast:
1. Installation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ComjeipReE4
2. Connecting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7m85O_iX70
3. Posting and Notifications: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBwwiffLvJ8
Demo board:
vBulletin 3.8: http://daohoangson.com/vb38
vBulletin 4: http://daohoangson.com/vb40
Authentication Username: demo. Password: demo.

[MAIN FEATURE]
*** Damn easy to install!
1. Loaded with long list of actions/notifications: posting thread, posting reply, rating thread, sending pm, sending visitor message, uploading image (avatar/profile picture), uploading pictures, comment on pictures. This list are designed to be expandable easily later by me or other people who loves to develope this product (well, if you do, contact me right now!)
2. Ability to quick register with Facebook credential but Administrator can disable this function via AdminCP. Facebook proxied email addresses are handled completely and vBulletin can send email without any problems (of course, the member must grant the Email extend permission). There is a setting in AdminCP to disallow Facebook proxied email addresses also for boards that need email explicitly
3. Ability to auto login with Facebook session (Administrator can turn this on or off in AdminCP and members can enable or disable this feature on their accounts either)
4. Other abilities: Display a profile block on vBulletin member page. Display a wall tab/box on Facebook profile page. Synchronize avatar from Facebook.
5. [AdminCP] Administrator can "edit" template bundle easily. Actually the old template will be deactivated, the new template will be registered and then all action associated with the old template with be updated with the new template bundle id. Oops, why you need to care about all of it? I did it for you already! Just go the the editing page and click Edit. Yay! All done
6. [AdminCP] Staffs can manage connected users and see basic information about them (including granted permissions)
7. [AdminCP] Administrator can decide to: migrate connected users from other products to YAFB, restrict private forums from being posted to Facebook, view detail log of YAFB in action, send notifications to connected users
*. [Experimental] I have added a fun feature that generate the Fans List, the photo will be posted to new thread with friend tagged (if available). The main purpose of this bonus feature is to demostrate the ability of the bridge. If you have an idea, contact me and I will implement it if I can
*. [Experimental] Friend Inviting functionality is added. Access from UserCP > Facebook Bridge > Invite Friends

[CHANGE LOG]
Version 3.3.2 (released on Jun 10, 2010): Register On-the-fly issue with vBulletin 3.8.4 fixed
Version 3.3.1 (released on Jun 08, 2010): Bug fixes and Migration for vBulletin 4.0.3
Version 3.3 (released on Apr 06, 2010): Auto login related features added. User experience reached a new higher level!

[NEW INSTALLATION]
*. Upload all files/folders in folder "upload" into your forum root (Please upload before importing product)
1. Import Product:
1.1. Go to AdminCP
1.2. Plugins & Products ~> Manage Products ~> Add/Import Product:
1.2.1. Browse to the .xml file (use product-yafb.xml for vBulletin 3 and product-yafb_vb4.xml for vBulletin 4)
1.2.2. Click Import

2. Fill the settings:
2.1. Go to AdminCP
2.2. vBulletin Options ~> vBulletin Options ~> Yay! Another Facebook Bridge
2.2. Create a Facebook Application if you haven't had one for your forum. Refer to the Creating Facebook Application below if you don't know how to do it
2.3. Fill the API key and Secret into the approriate fields. You can leave the Template fields untouch (the will be filled automatically). If you want to use the Account Reclamation feature, please place http://domain.com/forums/register.php?do=fbb_reclaim into Account Reclamation URL field. With other fields, it's your decision to made
2.4. Click Save and you are done!

2.* Creating Facebook Application:
2.*.1. Go to Facebook Developer > Create Application page http://www.facebook.com/developers/createapp.php (login if you didn't)
2.*.2. Enter the Application Name. Suggestion: Put your forum name here. Don't forget to tick the Agree radiobox and then click Save Changes
2.*.3. Now you can get your API Key and Secret (that are needed in step 2.3)
2.*.4. And go to the Connect tab, fill your forum url into Connect URL, fill your domain into Base Domain.
2.*.5. You are done with required information. But you can go through other tab and enter more detail about your forum, your application. I suggest putting a nice icon, banner into it. Happy customizing!

[UPGRADING]
Just upload overwrite files/folders then reimport the xml file. Do not forget to check "Yes" under "Allow Overwrite" to upgrade

[CONFLICT]
Since this product interfere with the registration procedure, I have found some other plugins/products that conficts with this product. Below is the full list of known confict and action taken to resolve the issue
No Spam (Human Verification): Temporary disabled during Facebook registration
vMail (Email Verification): Temporary disabled during Facebook registration

[OTHER PLUGINS/PRODUCTS]
I have developed an easy to use options/permissions system that allow other plugins/products to add it's actions into this bridge and let the forum members experience a whole new era of connections. I did a small demostration with my kBank System (which is a money system with award/thank functionality and a useful hiding feature) and it runs pretty well. If you are interested in testing kBank in action with YAFB, contact me. If you are a developer who wants to integrate your plugins/products with this Bridge, contact me either! You are all welcome
*Also available: Publishing Blog (vBBlog) to Facebook [New! Updated on Jan 10th, 2010]


[KNOWN ISSUES]
FILE HERE: http://code.google.com/p/vbulletinfacebook/issues/list (require a Google Account)

[TPTP]

Read back a few pages.

[vbreal]

Originally Posted by mrpaint

Absolutely not
That would be an amazing news to vBulletin owners (and users) :up:

PS: Source please?

Edit: Got the news. All we need to do now is finding a way to migrating YAFB connected users to vBulletin new Facebook Connect implementation. Oh, I can't wait

Originally Posted by TPTP

Read back a few pages.

im guessing ur speaking of the above post.

not sure if i should upgrade to 3.3 and not sure if i should turn on the native fb connect for vb.

sigh

[vbreal]

curiosity was eating me up

you can't run both at the same time. well i couldn't.

i got the following error

PHP Code:

Fatal error:  Cannot redeclare class facebook in /home/trudail/public_html/fbb/fbplatform/facebook.php on line 37 


so i just turned off vb's fb connect.

[vbreal]

Auto Register On-the-fly
Enter patterns and the system will register new forum accounts right after fail auto-login attempt (requires Auto Login to be enabled, this will overlap the functionality of Auto Register).Allowed keys in patterns: [username] (the Facebook username), [uid] (the Facebook userid), [fname] (first name), [lname] (last name), [name] (full name). Patterns will be used from left to right, accept no space (use spaces to separate patterns). Example: "[username] [name] [fname]_[lname] facebook[uid]". Leave this field blank with no pattern will disable this feature

huh?

can someone provide an example and explain what this does.

i have an idea but want to be sure.

We need Facebook Permissions to the magic, below is the permissions list. You can grant any "Not Permitted" permission by clicking the status

• Connection Established - Granted
• Permission to Read Stream - Granted
• Permission to Publish Stream - Granted
• Permission to access your data when you are offline - Granted
• Sending Email via Facebook - Granted

this part stretches past my page's border

[AllinJac]

Originally Posted by TPTP

I'd say no. In just the few posts since it was released, there are obvious problems. In fact, it doesn't even work on the demo 3.8.x site.

Thanks for the reply I will be looking forward to Mr. Paint's answer on this...

I am sure they were small bugs and he is definitely on top of the game when it comes to updates, I just wanted to make sure we are an all go!

Thanks again

[kall]

Originally Posted by TPTP

I'd say no. In just the few posts since it was released, there are obvious problems. In fact, it doesn't even work on the demo 3.8.x site.

I'd say - read the entire thread. There have been people having issues with it forever.. because they didn't read the instructions, or had customized styles from long ago that missed the important hooks.

On the other hand, there are MANY people (like me) who have had very few issues whatsoever, and love this mod utterly.

[Mark.B]

Originally Posted by kall

I'd say - read the entire thread. There have been people having issues with it forever.. because they didn't read the instructions, or had customized styles from long ago that missed the important hooks.

On the other hand, there are MANY people (like me) who have had very few issues whatsoever, and love this mod utterly.

There is a definite problem with 3.8. One of the hook location (process_thread_complete) does not exist. Therefore the Javascript does not load into the footer.

This is nothing to do with not following instructions, a plugin is built on a non-existent hook, that hook only exists in 4.0 onwards.

I tried to make it work by plugging it into global_start but although the JS loads, it still throws up JS errors.

[robdawg]

KALL, you are definitely incorrect. We just need to find a new hook location to replace process_template_complete and apparently process_thread_complete.

I am going to attempt o just paste the JS in the footer and see if that fixes some of my problems in 3.8.4 and 3.8.5

[Mark.B]

Originally Posted by robdawg

KALL, you are definitely incorrect. We just need to find a new hook location to replace process_template_complete and apparently process_thread_complete.

I am going to attempt o just paste the JS in the footer and see if that fixes some of my problems in 3.8.4 and 3.8.5

That doesn't work because it needs to use TIMENOW.

You can get round that by setting a variable, but there is other code in that plugin that needs to run.

[kall]

Originally Posted by Mark.B

There is a definite problem with 3.8. One of the hook location (process_thread_complete) does not exist. Therefore the Javascript does not load into the footer.

In the 3.8 and 4.x versions I am looking at, the footer code is executed at global_complete.

Further, I'm unable to find reference to process_thread_complete in the .xml or the few php files in /fbb I have tried. Where are you seeing it?