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

[Eddymvp]

for some reason I don't get the menu option on admincp and i allowed all the steps correctly.
How do I add the donations?

[DS MrSinister]

try this one

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=503

[MB Dreamz]

I've seen this question asked 2 or 3 times in this thread, but no one has really come up with a solution. It would be nice to upgrade the donor's usergroup after they donate, like to a special membership level, ie more privileges, etc. Can someone figure this out? Thanks.

[Synth]

That would be nice, you could just add them to a speacial group yourself

[Ncturnal]

Originally Posted by DanKao

I've seen this question asked 2 or 3 times in this thread, but no one has really come up with a solution. It would be nice to upgrade the donor's usergroup after they donate, like to a special membership level, ie more privileges, etc. Can someone figure this out? Thanks.

While I agree that would be nice, it's very unlikely to happen as there is no support for this hack. I'm sure it's feasible to do because the built-in subscription function in vBulletin will do it.

[Trana]

If this is an upgrade, why did it automatically delete all of my previous donor records (from 3.0.7).

Also, can anyone suggest what I should be checking if my CMPS module gives me a blank page whenever it is enabled?

Thanks!

[Mith]

It is one of the problems with the upgrade script, it actually does uninstall the tables you need.... ask the ever silent cloudrunner why it does that by design, we are still hoping there is some good coder out there that can update a few probs with the way he has done things.

Of course, you backed up your database before you upgraded... so its easy to restore your users goals and buttons to their former glory:

Read this thread which tells you which tables you need to restore:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost.php?p=861377&postcount=689

If you didn't backup your DB before your upgrade, well your a bit up the creek.

If you are getting a "white page" when you click on your donations link
Reinstall the templates (there is an option to reinstall templates, if you run the install script iirc)

The VBa CMPS module was only for 3.07. Cloudrunner did not include a new updated version for this newer version.

Another member however got the functionality to work,

it can be found here:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost.php?p=816754&postcount=370
You may need to go a bit back and forward from post #370, as i remember there were a couple of problems but all fixed around there.


the instructions for adding links to donations can be found here:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost.php?p=806309&postcount=310


The admincp not showing up:
Head to /forum/includes/xml and edit cpnav_paypal_donations.xml

Find:

 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?><navgroups product="vBulletin">

Replace with:

 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?><navgroups product="vbulletin">

For anyone installing for first time, I would reccomend installing the Plugin version of this hack, and doing the template changes manually.
(its much safer this way!)

See this thread:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost.php?p=762511&postcount=119

[Trana]

Thanks for the response!

OK, so I have a backup of the databases, I can restore them (I'm actually doing this on a test BB to work out all my 3.0.7-3.5.1 problems).

I am still having a problem with the CMPS module. I checked the settings, and repasted the templates as per post #370, but every time I enable the module I only get a blank screen. As an FYI, when I load donate.php I do get the script to run, so I know the script itself is not the problem, it just seems like CMPS is screwed up.

This is my first non-standard module for CMPS after upgrading to 3.5. Does anyone have any suggestions for what I should check? I have no idea how to troubleshoot CMPS module problems.

Thanks!

[Cork]

ok,,can someone tell where to donate please, i have paypal,,,,,,im new at this and still in vb diapers,but i belive in supporting,,,im on disability,,,,but i can send a few bucks.
after all,,i need all the help i can get on building my forum,,,,,lol please send me addy to send donation.:ermm:

[DS MrSinister]

Originally Posted by Trana

Thanks for the response!

OK, so I have a backup of the databases, I can restore them (I'm actually doing this on a test BB to work out all my 3.0.7-3.5.1 problems).

I am still having a problem with the CMPS module. I checked the settings, and repasted the templates as per post #370, but every time I enable the module I only get a blank screen. As an FYI, when I load donate.php I do get the script to run, so I know the script itself is not the problem, it just seems like CMPS is screwed up.

This is my first non-standard module for CMPS after upgrading to 3.5. Does anyone have any suggestions for what I should check? I have no idea how to troubleshoot CMPS module problems.

Thanks!

I have updated post 370. see if this helps at all..

Admincp > vBa CMPS > Add Module > PHP File

Module Title: Donations
Column: left or right
Display Order: Up to you.
Active: yes
File to Include: donate.php
Templates Used: adv_portal_donate, adv_portal_donate_goals, adv_portal_donate_goals_user