Add-On Releases - vBExperience

vBExperience 3.8 (aka xPerience)

Created by Marius Czyz aka Phalynx.

Winner of the "Mod of the Month"-Award (March 2008) on vBulletin.org.


Description
vBExperience is your feature packaged solution for motivation and satisfying your users. vBExperience is an advanced Level/Promotion and Activity System with Shop, Awards and Activities. It will calculate an activity and experience score for every user based on their activites on the forum. Now your users will see how their level is increasing by participating on your forum.

This mod was developed by me because I was never satisfied with the post count. Communities are not only defined by post count, they need much more parameters: Are the postings the user creates helpful? Are his threads frequently read? Does the user participate on the community by posting pictures, attachments, leaving visitor messages, tagging threads? All this can be answered with this mod.

Comments, suggestions, translations, bugs, etc... are very welcome! Support is only given to people who have clicked Mark as Installed.


Compatibility
This mod will work with vBulletin 3.7.x and 3.8.x. For vBulletin 3.6 you will need vBExperience 3.7



Demo:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience.php?langid=5

Demo Profile:
http://www.insideearth.net/member.php?u=1&langid=5

Demo Rankings:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience.php?langid=5

Demo Awards:
http://www.insidesupcom.de/xperience...wards&langid=1

Demo Promotions:
http://www.insidesupcom.de/xperience...=shop&langid=1

Demo Shop:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience...=shop&langid=5

Demo Stats:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience...stats&langid=5

Demo Earn Points:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience...=earn&langid=5

Other Demo Site:
http://www.insidesupcom.de/xperience.php?langid=1


There are mainly four things visible for the users: The users score, his level, his next level up in %/points and his activity in %.


Calculation of the score
Taken into calculation are these things:
Threads
- Created threads
- Thread views of own threads
- Thread replies of own threads
- Thread votes of own threads
- Thread tags
- Replies to own threads
- Sticky threads
- Socialgroup Discussions (Discussions, Posts)

Posts
- Created posts
- Views on attachments

User
- Days since registration
- Average posts per Day (for users who are on forum for at least seven days)
- Referrals
- Received infractions
- Reputation / Use of reputation system
- Visitor messages on profiles
- Members of own social groups
- Albumpictures
- Friends
- Completing Profile

Misc
- Calendar entries


Additionally there is support for 3rd party addons (some are already installed):
- vB Tournaments and Ladders (via CDP Addon)
- Post Ranking System (via CDP Addon)
- Helpful Answers (via CDP Addon)
- AWCoding-Donation System LITE and PRO (via CDP Addon)
- Cyb Paypal Donate (included)
- DownloadsII (included)
- ibProArcade Highscorer Points (via CDP Addon)
- LDM Links and Downloads Manager (included)
- PhotoPlog 2.1 (via CDP Addon)
- PhotoPost vBGallery (via CDP Addon)
- PhotoPost Pro (via CDP Addon)
- Post Thank You / Use of Post Thank You (via CDP Addon)
- QuoteIt! 3.16 (via CDP Addon)
- SAPR: Advanced Post Rating system (via CDP Addon)
- thanks via vS-Hide Hack Resurrection (Expanded Edition) (included)
- v3arcade Highscorer Points (via CDP Addon)
- v3arcade Submissions Points (via CDP Addon)
- vBulletin Blog (included)
- Who Downloaded This Attachment? (included)
- Other Addons can be easily added via CDP - Custom Data Provider plugins.

Additionally you can install these modifications:
- Thread Necromancer: Gives (minus-) points when a user is posting in old threads.
- Scrupulous Poster: Gives points for editing posts. Award users that are editing own posts instead of doing double post.
- Deletion Addicted: Gives points when an user/nod soft-deletes post, thread, visitormessage, groupmessage or picturecomment.
- Arm of Law: Give points for moderators who are using the infraction system
- Discussion Ender: Give points for people who are the last on a discussion
- RadioActivity: Reduce points for every day the user is not online

Also, there are already addons available that are working as Custom Data Provider (CDP). A CDP can extend vBExperience by collecting data and adding it to the vBExperience datastore. All point providers can be used for Awards and Shop.

You have to install these hacks for your own, vBExperience doesn't install nor touches these.


vBAdvanced
There are three vBAdvanced 3.0 XML modules: Most Active Users, Most Experienced Users and Last 20 Activities. Import them via vBAdvanced AdminCP.


Awards
There are six default awards: Most Popular, Activity Award, Posting Award, Community Award, Frequent Poster, Blog Award, Calendar Award. The awards are shown in Rankings and Profile. You can set them also to display in postbit near the username. There is a scheduled job running once a day (02:30h) to calculate them.
Via AdminCP they are completely customizeable and can also be assigned manually.
Awards can be created for every data provider.


Rankings
Showing User, Level, Awards, Activity Points (experience, thread, post, user, misc) - sortable.
Since 3.8.3, there is a also a ranking for Social Groups

Shop
A virtual Shop will motivate your users to earn more points. You can define categories and put virtual items with pictures in it. A currency can be defined seperatly for every item, e.g. 20 points from threads or 100 points from gallery. Users can purchase the items, they appear in their profile. The costs of the item are substracted from their xperience points. Additionally you can set quantity of the items.
The Shop will motivate your users to collect specific points to buy an item. Optionally you can show the last purchased items on postbit.
You can put virtual items in it, like WoW addons: Sell WoW Items in exchange of f.e. thread points. Great for RPG forums.
Non-Virtual Items like bold Usernames or Downloads for Points are already on my todo list.

Earn Points
There is an overview for the user on how points can be collected, with a list of users own points. All data is beeing pulled from the database (settings, phrases)

Statistics
The statistics is showing a Top-X list of the leading users. Usefull for optimizing points of the point provider. Only enabled point providers with results will be displayed.


Promotion system
To motivate users to do more on your forum I created the promotion system. By reaching defined xperience points the user will be moved to another usergroup - where you can set graphics, shadows, highlighting, etc... What is interesting in combination with this: you can give the user more possibilities f.e. larger avatars or bigger PM box. A log of the promotions is available.


Calculation of the activity
The system calculates the activity by taking the average post count/visitormessages/group discussion/Blog entries of the ten most active user and comparing it to own post count. This can be set to count only the last X days, f.e. 21 days.


Settings
You can control how many points are given to every calculation. For example you can give many points for creating new threads but only a few for views of that thread. Setting a value to 0 will disable a setting.
Additionally, you can set ignore users (f.e. for bot users), forums (f.e. offtopic forums) and usergroup id's.


Performance, Big Boards
vBExperience has been tested on smaller and also on some bigger sites. I know from boards with around 120k users running this mod smoothly. More about this topic can be read in the file readme_optimization.txt


Frequently asked questions
Q: How do I change the name Experience to something new?
A: You can change the name via phrases. Just search and replace all phrases that contains vBExperience.

Q: When installing vBExperience, does everyone start from scratch, or will it automatically configure everyone's points based on actions before the install?
A: If you recount, vBExperience will calculate ALL existing data since the beginning of the board.

Known Issues:
- Awards: On "Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread" awards are only shown for the user who is viewing this.
- Awards: If activated in with rich username, they are attached to the username. If the username is linked, the awards are also linked. If a link is underlined, the awards are also underlined. This behaviour is hardcoded in vBulletin and cannot be fixed.
- Settings are showing only a blank page, read here: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/proje...6979#note74140
- If you completely remove vBExperience, you need also to uninstall the product XML manually from the pluginssystem

Credits for icons
- FAMFAMFAM, http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/
- IconExperience


History
3.8.5 Beta 3, 18th September 2009
- Fixed Promotions
- Fixed Notifications
- Added Activities to Promotions
- All Activities are not obeying limit
- AdminCP/Experience has a recount for Promotions and Achievements
- Fixed listing of Achievements with Firefox
- Several Beta 2 fixes

3.8.5 Beta 2, 02nd September 2009
- Just a short note: Condition in Achievements and Promotions are calculated in POINTS, not in counts of items.
If you choose 10 Day, you must enter the points needed for this.
For example: You have an achievement for 10 days. You have set 2 points for every day since registering. Calculation: 10*2 = 20
You will have to set 20 as the condition.
- New tabbed interface. If you want to change the style, edit the template xperience_navbar_css
- Promotions now showing usergroups and conditions for a promotion to the next group
- You can import old vBExperience Legacy promotions (that were created within level.xml)
- Achievements in Profile
- Achievements below Avatar
- Several Beta 1 fixes

3.8.5 Beta 1, 28th August 2009
- Achievements!
- Promotions!
- Notification on Awards, Promotions and Achievements
- GAP: Empty pointfields will not be displayed anymore
- Activity: Showing percent values with a decimal
- Activities now also for users
- Awards below Avatar
- Default Awards are now also creating new category
- Shop: Fixed issue in not returning cash on sells
- Reworked Edit Shop Items


Todo for Beta 3:
- Download files with vBExperience as a credit system ("LDM Links and Downloads Manager", "DownloadsII")
- Activity eraser
- AdminCP Permissions
- Advanced User Permissions


For more see history.txt

[flapjack]

Originally Posted by Phalynx

No, currently you cannot combine vBulletin's Ranking with vBExperience. You will need to edit level promotions via XLS or XML.

In 3.7.15 I already implemented a log for all users. "User X promoted to Y". Maybe with 3.7.16 I will introduce a GUI for vBExperience Promotions.

Thank you for your reply. I am aware of the promotion system, but with the way my ranking system works that'd be a biiiit too tedious to set up

Thank you again.

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by zenkaizen

The level up bar (blue bar) is showing your current points / max point at highest lvl * 100%. Wouldn't it be better if it's showing your progress to the next level instead, like in most RPG games.

For example: http://www.insidesupcom.de/member.php?u=170

At the moment I'm writing this, the member only needs 5 more points to the next level. But the bar shows as 19% level up. The way it should behave, IMO is (user_points - current_lvl_min_points) / (next_lvl_min_points - current_lvl_min_points) * 100%. So assuming it takes 100 points to level up, the blue bar should show as 95% to that member.

If the design is intentional, then there's really no point of the blue bar, since the value will be equal or close to the orange bar (your level progression to the max lvl).

First of all, you will need to click "Mark as Installed".
Second, the intention of the blue bar is to show the progress to the next level in %. But there is since 3.7.14 a bug in it. It's already addressed in 3.7.15

Originally Posted by comicus

when do you think 3.7.15 will be ready? i'm definitely looking forward to seeing some of the fixes/changes. I know it's been discussed a little already, but I also think that if there's a way for you to incorporate user title/rank promotions based on VBExperience level, that would be *huge*. thanks again for all the hard work on this.

side note...I also agree with what Zen said above.

Beta 1 of 3.7.15 will be released tomorrow.

Originally Posted by flapjack

Thank you for your reply. I am aware of the promotion system, but with the way my ranking system works that'd be a biiiit too tedious to set up

You will have to wait for further updates to use promotions via GUI. On Inside SupCom I set the promotion system to be active with 9 usergroups, dependable on their xperience.

[AnabolicResourc]

Great hack, going to install it on my live forum as soon as i'm going to upgrade it to 3.7.2.

One question:
After installing it on my testforum the usernames in the postbit don't show big anymore as in the Additional CSS Definitions 14pt bold.
When i disable the product they show normal again.
Any idea how to fix this ?

[Phalynx]

Disable Awards near usernames. A fix will be available with v3.7.15

[RenegadeFerret]

In Settings: Shop I have a problem.

It is regarding the part where I can have a PM sent. I erased what it said by default and I don't remember what is supposed to be said there, or the code for some of it. I just need a PM sent to me telling me WHO purchased the item.

Anybody know what I need to type in there? Thanks a million in advance.

[H_A_R_R_Y]

This is the translation of the Arabic language
I've translated I hope to add language attached with the product

Translated by me
S P E E D = H_A_R_R_Y

Attach Lang + Pic To Product After Translation

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by RenegadeFerret

In Settings: Shop I have a problem.

It is regarding the part where I can have a PM sent. I erased what it said by default and I don't remember what is supposed to be said there, or the code for some of it. I just need a PM sent to me telling me WHO purchased the item.

Anybody know what I need to type in there? Thanks a million in advance.

Just type the name of the receiver...

Originally Posted by H_A_R_R_Y

This is the translation of the Arabic language
I've translated I hope to add language attached with the product

Translated by me
S P E E D = H_A_R_R_Y

Attach Lang + Pic To Product After Translation

Big thanks!

[Phalynx]

As promised, I will release now vBExperience 3.7.15 Beta 1.

Download is attached to first post. Primary as a bug-fix release it contains two new features: Statistics and Promotionslog.

See Demos:
Demo Shop:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience...=shop&langid=5

Demo Stats:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience...stats&langid=5

Demo Promotions:
http://www.insidesupcom.de/xperience...=shop&langid=2


Changelog:
3.7.15 BETA, 27th June 2008
- Awards: Removed space if Awards in Username is enabled and User has no Award assigned. Fixed also additional "</a>"
- CDP: Added multiplicator setting, dependency check and cache templates
- Experience: Now counting all albums
- New feature: Statistics
- Shop: Additional icons
- Shop: You can now select the position in postbit (same as for bars)
- Shop: Fixed items in postbit if too many items defined
- Fixed: Level up bar showing wrong values (need to recount!)
- New feature: List of last 50 promotions. Only promotions since installation of 3.7.15 are logged
- Promotions: Admingroup (ID 6) is not beeing touched anymore. Such a user is beeing ignored on promotions
- Bars: New setting to disable bars in profile
- Some cosmetic changes

Please report any bugs, misspellings, etc... directly here to the thread.

[VargTimmen]

Just installed yet and everything works fine.

[indie2industry]

Originally Posted by Phalynx

As promised, I will release now vBExperience 3.7.15 Beta 1.

Download is attached to first post. Primary as a bug-fix release it contains two new features: Statistics and Promotionslog.

See Demos:
Demo Shop:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience...=shop&langid=5

Demo Stats:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience...stats&langid=5

Demo Promotions:
http://www.insidesupcom.de/xperience...=shop&langid=2


Changelog:
3.7.15 BETA, 27th June 2008
- Awards: Removed space if Awards in Username is enabled and User has no Award assigned. Fixed also additional "</a>"
- CDP: Added multiplicator setting, dependency check and cache templates
- Experience: Now counting all albums
- New feature: Statistics
- Shop: Additional icons
- Shop: You can now select the position in postbit (same as for bars)
- Shop: Fixed items in postbit if too many items defined
- Fixed: Level up bar showing wrong values (need to recount!)
- New feature: List of last 50 promotions. Only promotions since installation of 3.7.15 are logged
- Promotions: Admingroup (ID 6) is not beeing touched anymore. Such a user is beeing ignored on promotions
- Bars: New setting to disable bars in profile
- Some cosmetic changes

Please report any bugs, misspellings, etc... directly here to the thread.

This hack is INSANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Quick question... Could you further explain how the different experience xmls work for me??

Thanks a mil