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

[Forsak3n1]

Originally Posted by MissKalunji

did you put the cpanel xml inside the includes/xml ?

in your admin control panel
you sould see paypal donation then a bunch of settings

I actually did copy/install all of the included files, keeping the hierarchy of the folders in the zip. However, I never did see a control panel menu for the donations. :ermm:

The only reference I ever saw inside of the admin panel, was under the Plugin System > Manage Plugins. I believe it was WOL references, if I remember correctly. So I'm not sure what exactly I did (or didn't do).

[djmac]

Originally Posted by Forsak3n1

I actually did copy/install all of the included files, keeping the hierarchy of the folders in the zip. However, I never did see a control panel menu for the donations. :ermm:

The only reference I ever saw inside of the admin panel, was under the Plugin System > Manage Plugins. I believe it was WOL references, if I remember correctly. So I'm not sure what exactly I did (or didn't do).

The only place I have seen the donations setup is in the Admin vBulletin Options all the way at the bottom. For all intense and purposes when the fields are filled in it should work. But there is no button for Donation. I too feel I did something wrong here.

Confused
Don

[djmac]

Originally Posted by Forsak3n1

I actually did copy/install all of the included files, keeping the hierarchy of the folders in the zip. However, I never did see a control panel menu for the donations. :ermm:

The only reference I ever saw inside of the admin panel, was under the Plugin System > Manage Plugins. I believe it was WOL references, if I remember correctly. So I'm not sure what exactly I did (or didn't do).

OK Fellow Brother I think I have it. At least it works anyway. Here is what you do.

In the AdminCP select Styles & Templates, then select Style Manager. Now you should see a window listing the styles you are using. Drop down the box on the first one and select Edit Templates. Another window will pop up, double click on Navigation/ Breadcrumbs Templates, now select and highlite NAVBAR, either the Customize or edit button will be available. Click either one.

In the FIND box look for this:

a href="login.php?

it will show you this:

<td class="vbmenu_control"><a href="login.php?$session[sessionurl]do=logout&amp;logouthash=$bbuserinfo[logouthash]" onclick="return log_out()">$vbphrase[log_out]</a></td>

Paste this just above it:

<td class="vbmenu_control"><a href="http://www.yourdomain.com/bbs/upload/donate.php"
target="donate">Donate</a></td>

Make sure the URL to your doante.php is correct.

I hope this helps

Regards
Don

[JoeWho]

Originally Posted by djmac

OK Fellow Brother I think I have it. At least it works anyway. Here is what you do.

In the AdminCP select Styles & Templates, then select Style Manager. Now you should see a window listing the styles you are using. Drop down the box on the first one and select Edit Templates. Another window will pop up, double click on Navigation/ Breadcrumbs Templates, now select and highlite NAVBAR, either the Customize or edit button will be available. Click either one.

In the FIND box look for this: it will show you this:

Paste this just above it:

Make sure the URL to your doante.php is correct.

I hope this helps

Regards
Don

Don,
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!

I'm new to VB and I do not know where to find all the things they are talking about, that will change in time, I hope... LOL

I did not know how to add that button to the NAV bar, so thanks you this info!
JoeWho

[jluerken]

I have a simple question.
I installed the hack and it 'seems' working as far as I could test it actually.

I have seen that it is modifying templates but cause I have modified very much templates heavily on my own the installer passed some templates.

Is there a html file available where all template changes are in?
I think I have to do some of them manually.

[imported_magjr]

Originally Posted by Forsak3n1

First, thanks for assuming that I'm either illiterate or didn't bother reading through the last 17 pages. I may be new to vB and how to edit the coding, but I'm not a complete tool.

Does that mean that it must not work, if I can't get it to install like the "[other] 100 people?" you describe? No. It means somewhere along the line I screwed up, or forgot to perform a crucial step... which is quite likely since I am a novice vB user. Never did I say that this mod was garbage or didn't work at all. Go back and read my post, before you try getting smart with someone next time.

If you have further issues with me, or someone else who obviously doesn't possess the competency to complete this install with zero issues, please take it to PM. I don't want to clutter this thread with senseless bickering when all I was originally trying to do was relate my problems to someone who was having the exact issue.

:up: :up: :up:

Excellent retort. Said in a much better way then I would have said it heh.

For the record, three other people are having the same problem as me and the same problem has gone unanswered.

ASSumptions suck Iguana

[djmac]

I went on the Authors site under the donations URL he has posted and unless I am as dumb as a fence post I can't see how to make a donation on his site either....

Like others here I have gone over the installation 5 or 6 times and I keep getting the same result. Sure I can get the donation page but there is no link to "MAKE" a donation.

I was jsut informed what I was really missing. Now I belong to the elite few. The PayPal Donations option in the AdminCP. That's why it doesn't work

Back to my original question:
Can Cloudrunner or anyone else like to weigh in, please tell me what I am doing wrong. :tired:

Regards
Don

[djmac]

I just read a small post at

PayPal Option link


It seems that cpnav_paypal_donations.xml does not like the word vBulletin found in the begining of the script.

Open cpnav_paypal_donations.xml in a text editor and in the second line from the top find:

<navgroups product="vBulletin">

and lower case the B so it looks like this....

<navgroups product="vbulletin">

Now I have a working donation button.

It took me 2 times reading through 18 pages of post to find it. If laguna or whatever your name was or is, if you knew there was a fix on the system why didn't you point us to it.

I want to personaly thank Omega Prime the individual who posted this VERY helpful fix.

Regards
Don

[djmac]

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

Thank you very much for making this observation. Lower case B fixes it all. Now I and I am sure a few others will now have a working paypal system. Thank you very much.

BTW I reposted the fix on page 18.

Regards
Don

[Forsak3n1]

Originally Posted by djmac

I just read a small post at

PayPal Option link


It seems that cpnav_paypal_donations.xml does not like the word vBulletin found in the begining of the script.

Open cpnav_paypal_donations.xml in a text editor and in the second line from the top find:



and lower case the B so it looks like this....

You know... I looked at that specific post at least a dozen times, and it never clicked. I was assuming, through an older version, that the actual xml file once had "vBulletin" in the name of it... so therefore was not relevant anymore, with the current name. I never actually thought to open the current xml file to see if that string was in there.

Wow.

Thanks for replacing that dimly lit lightbulb above my head. :nervous: