CommBull (Community Bulletin)

vb3.5 Commbull
vb3.6 Commbull

Note:
The 3.6 version is a commercial product, any queries on it should be submitted to: vb3.6 Support Site

THIS THREAD IS FOR SUPPORT FOR 3.0 VERSIONS ONLY. PLEASE VISIT THE APPROPRIATE FORUMS (links above) FOR THEIR SUPPORT

[valid point]
it's been brought to my attention that not everyone knows what this is ... fair enough: This hack is considered a "weekly newsletter" by the fact that it will email members (only sent by an admin) who have opted to receive it new posts, hot threads, etc ... basically a summary of what has been going on since the last time the newsletter was sent out. However there is a vast number of options, and I won't go into detail of all of them ... you can view the the images that I've attached, but u will only get a full idea by installing it.
I would say that there is 0 risk of this installation doing any damage to your current install as these are the changes that it does (manually and automatically):
- change profile.php and admincp/index.php
- add a couple columns to user table (receivebulletin and receivebulletin_type)
- add some phrases to phrase table (receive_email_from_commbull, type_email_from_commbull, newsletterformat, commbul)
- add a row to datastore table (commbull)
- add some html to nav template for admin side
So, if you are unhappy with the install. you can just ignore that it's there and it'll never cause any problems ... your next upgrade will overwrite any changes to the index and profile pages and the extra columns in the DB won't be an issue

[mods that i've added from vB2 version]
- to change languages, comment/uncomment line 22 and 23 to switch from English to German
- save prefs (option)
- skip to page X in case of mailout freeze
- auto redirect to next page (option)
- adding personalized text to top of newsletter w/out searching through the two text & html fields ... u'll c what i mean :ermm:

[INSTALL]
drop the 3 files into the admincp directory and then go to admincp/commbull.php ... follow the instructions and you are good to go.
If you find that the option isn't showing up on the control panel after the install, then it's because you aren't using the default phrases. Go into phrase manager, search for 'commbull' and update the fields appropriately.

If something goes wrong, don't worry .. it checks for already completed updates to the database to avoid redundancy ... enjoy!!

[grandeur_69]

no, the user table can't be altered twice, so once u have done the installation, u will always get that message. I suppose I could add a select to select the fields ... but, i'm not At any rate, the only reason that I can think that it's not working is that you don't have a valid email address for your administrator (so sendmail balks when trying to send it out) or ur sendmail just isn't functioning ... or, it's also possible that whatever SPAM setup u have is blocking it as the sending address and reply-to address are different ... funny enough, that server setup is to AVOID SPAM, but when sending out mailings using PHP, it's one of ur only options.

[adhari_com]

Is the article include feature still under development?
as I can see it's just commented out!

Please advice.

[trainer]

strange, must be missing something here because i can't seem to get the /$username or $username to work properly. the "/" show up but nothing else?

any suggestions? am i missing or didn't do something correctly?

[konstance]

I don't know if it matters or not, but I use "\" instead of "/" and it works just fine.

[armani1072]

Great Hack! just a few questions. Is it possible to edit the table size of the email being sent? or is that dependent on the forums settings.

in the extra info box $username and \$username do not output the users name just a blank.

any help would be appreciated thanks

[TTG]

Clicks install .. very useful tool .. thanks grandeur_69

Installed nice and easy .. no errors on a well hacked forum.

[Highlander]

is tehre a possibility to make an user option for the users, so they can choose between daily newsletter and weekly newsletter or for example every monday, wednesday and friday?

it would be really a great future, cause many users dont want a daily newsletter .. and also many users dont want receive old news with the newsletter..
cause our forums is using it for game news wich should be nearly daily to be almost actual...

anyway user would have a great option for this newsletter

[Mr. Brian]

Great piece of work!

*Mr. Brian clicked install*

[heynurse]

wonderful, clicked install!

[Holidazed]

I installed this, but I had to create the "combull" phrase myself. Your install did not do it and your instructions did not mention it.

1. Question: How do I know who is subscribed?
2. Question: How does one subscribe to the bulletin?