Major Additions - vbJournal

vbJournal by Mary
Article Publishing Module
http://www.MicroHellas.com

Totally different and incompatible with my other Mods
vbArticles & vbNews

I just informed that there is another mod with this name
Except that I apologize to its Author for any trouble
I want to make clear that my mod has nothing to do with Blogs.

1.- General information

vbJurnal it is a combination (in features but in interface too) of my former (Free versions) vbArticles and vbNews. What I'm delivering in features in this 1.0.0 version is the main mod. There are nearly dozens of additional features that can be add on it, but everything is depending on it's popularity. If I see lots of installations, sure I'll spend time to add more features.

Some of the additional features that I've in mind are:

• Text Search
• RSS feeds
• Assign a future date for publishing
• Rating and Reviews
• Video upload
• Attachments
• Article Pagination
• Chapters
• etc etc

Please note that I'm not planing to add subcategories. I don't like it to become completitor of my commercial modules

2.- Features

• This module is mainly for use for Article posting with 1 photo. Unlike vbNews and vbArticles which are using 3nd party HTML editor, vbJurnal uses vB's Editor.
• Editors choice Articles
• Breaking Articles
• Important Articles
• Newest Articles by category
• Most Active Authors (according to the number of post Articles)
• All these blocks can be turn off in case that you don't need them, by setting 0 as the number of appearing articles
• All these blocks are following the active category. eg Breaking news in main page shows articles from all categories. Breaking news while you're in X category shows breaking news from X category only.

3.- Installation

• Step 1: Open vbjournal.php file with a text editor like notepad. At line 9 you'll find a variable: $mydateformat = 'm/d/Y'; This is set to default US date format. You can change it according to your country's setting eg. for UK d/m/Y or for other European countries to d.m.Y or d-m-Y. You can also add the time if you want. eg 'd/m/Y H:ia' this will give 20/8/2007 14:15pm. The reason that I didn't used the internal vbdate function is because that some users from Scandinavian countries, Spain and France had problems with vbdate().
• Step 2: Upload the contains of /forum directory to the same directory where you've installed vBulletin
• Step 3: CMOD following directories to 777
  /photos (inside vbjournal directory)
  /tmp (inside vbjournal directory)
  /thumbs (inside vbjournal/photos directory)
• Step 4: For security reasons backup your database AND turn your board off
• Step 5: Check at your AdminCP->vBulletin Options->Plugin/Hook System that Plugin system is enabled.
• Step 6: From your AdminCP->Plugin System->Manage Products choose Add/Import Product and import the product: product_vbjournal.xml
• Step 7: If you want to add a link to your nav bar then you must edit the NAVBAR template:

Search For:

<td class="vbmenu_control"><a href="calendar.php$session[sessionurl_q]">$vbphrase[calendar]</a></td>

Add Below:

<td class="vbmenu_control"><a href="vbjournal.php$session[sessionurl_q]">Journal</a></td>

....or use any other word you want

• Step 8: By default none usergroup has permissions to use vbjournal, so you need to give permissions to any group. Goto AdminCP->Usergroups->Usergroup Manager and edit any usergroup you like to give permissions.
• Step 9: In your adminCP, under vbJournal, choose vbJournal options and configure it depending on your needs. If you can't see vbJournal's menu, press F5 to refresh the page, or logout and login again to your admincp.
• Final: Now, you can access vbJournal at: www.youdomain.com/vb_installation/vbjournal.php

4.- Copyright

The script cannot be redistributed, reproduced, or published in any way. Modifying this
script and sharing or publishing your modification A-N-Y-W-H-E-R-E (including here)without the author's written permission is not allowed, but you can modify it as you want but just for your own use.

In addition to above restrictions you can't develop and share addons for 3nd party scripts (eg for vBadvanced).


Greetings
Maria

[SherryG]

Awesome hack, THANK YOU!!

I do have a couple of questions for you though.

1. Is it possible to change the titles of the module blocks to better suit my website?
2. Is it possible to add additional modules?

[Piccante]

Hi Maria.

Just to confirm that version 1.0.2 has sorted out my problems with members editing their own articles.

Thank you very much

I hope this proves to be popular mod and that extra features are added. It's superb! :up:

[MaryTheG(r)eek]

Originally Posted by Ratman2050

I already have my articles posted here:

http://www.thedevnetwork.com/cmps_in...ageid=articles

If I install this mod can I import those pre written articles easily?

Only with copy and paste. There is no any other way. Sorry.

[MaryTheG(r)eek]

Originally Posted by SherryG

Awesome hack, THANK YOU!!

I do have a couple of questions for you though.

1. Is it possible to change the titles of the module blocks to better suit my website?
2. Is it possible to add additional modules?

For (1): Do you mean changes like: Breaking Articles to change to eg Unbreaking Articles?. Sure. You just need to change the phrases.

For (2): Do you mean something like vBadvanced? Sorry not. vbJournal is not a CMPS module. Of course if you're good in modifying templates you can do miracles.

[MaryTheG(r)eek]

Originally Posted by Piccante

Hi Maria.

Just to confirm that version 1.0.2 has sorted out my problems with members editing their own articles.

Thank you very much

I hope this proves to be popular mod and that extra features are added. It's superb! :up:

Thank you for your supporting words.

[majorvbuser]

Hi Maria,

I have a few questions, perhaps you could advise me of whether this application can support it whether I would be better of with vbarticles.

What I want is a mod that allows a few well known authors I know to be able to upload their own articles as opposed to allowing everybody to upload articles, can I control the ability to upload / edit an article by usergroup or similar? I don't want all users to be able to upload articles only view them.

Where we have things like "Breaking articles, important articles" etc can my coder rename those, ie is it doable?

Where it says "catagories" could I change that text to say "authors" ?

Where you have catagories such as Songs , Education etc, What I would prefer is to actually set those as the authors names, so instead of "songs" I would have the authors name with a litttle information on that author underneath. I will only be having about 5 - 10 authors submitting articles, I would also like to replace the current images for catagories with the images of the authors.

Although this is not as important i would like users to be able to rate (perhaps with a star system) the authors articles, and ideally to be able to allow registered users to comment on the articles.

How is it with SE, is it VBSEO compatible? When you add an article , is there a place to add basic html tags such as <TITLE> etc so if the content is spidered it will place something reasonably descriptive in front of the search engine user.

Does it allow the authors to upload images/video?

Do we get full control of what goes into " important articles , editors choice " etc etc. Or is important articles based on say "total views" etc.

I don't mind purchase vbarticles if this can't do it but would like to know what you suggest..

Thanks

[MaryTheG(r)eek]

Originally Posted by majorvbuser

What I want is a mod that allows a few well known authors I know to be able to upload their own articles as opposed to allowing everybody to upload articles, can I control the ability to upload / edit an article by usergroup or similar? I don't want all users to be able to upload articles only view them.

Yes you can, by adding a new usergroup eg Editors, add the members to this usergroup and give "Adding" permissions only to this usergroup

Originally Posted by majorvbuser

Where we have things like "Breaking articles, important articles" etc can my coder rename those, ie is it doable?

You don't need a coder to chane a phrase or word

Originally Posted by majorvbuser

Where it says "catagories" could I change that text to say "authors" ?

Yes, you can.

Originally Posted by majorvbuser

Where you have catagories such as Songs , Education etc, What I would prefer is to actually set those as the authors names, so instead of "songs" I would have the authors name with a litttle information on that author underneath. I will only be having about 5 - 10 authors submitting articles, I would also like to replace the current images for catagories with the images of the authors.

Yes, you can. Just keep in mind that the description is limited to 255 characters.

Originally Posted by majorvbuser

Although this is not as important i would like users to be able to rate (perhaps with a star system) the authors articles, and ideally to be able to allow registered users to comment on the articles.

For the moment only vbArticles can do it but soon vbJournal will have this feature too.

Originally Posted by majorvbuser

How is it with SE, is it VBSEO compatible? When you add an article , is there a place to add basic html tags such as <TITLE> etc so if the content is spidered it will place something reasonably descriptive in front of the search engine user.

Next upgrade for both vbArticles and vbJournal will be vbSeo friendly.

Originally Posted by majorvbuser

Does it allow the authors to upload images/video?

Currently only in vbArticles.

Originally Posted by majorvbuser

Do we get full control of what goes into " important articles , editors choice " etc etc. Or is important articles based on say "total views" etc.

Usergroups with moderation permission are setting articles as Important etc etc.

Originally Posted by majorvbuser

I don't mind purchase vbarticles if this can't do it but would like to know what you suggest..

If you're not in rush of time, vbJournal will be better than vbArticles as it will have features of vbNews too. Everything is up to you.

Originally Posted by majorvbuser

Thanks

You welcome

[Piccante]

Hi Maria

I have another problem. After a user edits their own article and resubmits it, it no longer shows within the vbjournal article categories...it is lost! (The user can still find it within "My Articles", but no one can see it within the main vbjournal page). There is no Admin Approval needed.

[majorvbuser]

Originally Posted by MicroHellas

You don't need a coder to chane a phrase or word

Sadly, I do, I'm a marketer by trade, I don't even touch templates, it's all voodoo to me

From what I can see it looks as if all the basics are already there and working at this point, the only additions needed would be VBSEO and the ability for users to rate articles.

I would be tempted to grab vbarticles as it seems to have the missing features bar the VBSEO, can I ask if we installed the current version of either vbarticles or vbjournal and you then upgraded them in the next version to VBSEO, would we be able to upgrade, implement the VBSEO option and still retain all our articles, comments etc or would we have to start from scratch with the new version? Would the existing articles then all have URL's VBSEO Style?

The only reason I'm now hesitant to buy vbarticles is your saying vbjournal is going to be better, so your free s/w is going to surpass your paid for software. What would be the benefit of purchasing vbarticles if vbjournal is about to supercede it and it will allow you to have the vbnews functionality. Did I miss something? As it's for our business $50 is irrrelevant essentially so I'm more than happy to pay for vbarticles, but I don't want to get something which isn't as good as something your about to make here for free.

Do you have a timescale your prepared to divulge for the addition of VBSEO and ability for users to rate articles, and will VBJournal allow for users to post their own comments or just to rate the article>?

Also in my initial post I asked could people upload images/video in vbjournal to which you said only in vbarticles, can I clarrify, can vbjournal allow images, but not video, we could manage without video.


Thanks again for your time Maria, greatly appreciated.

[MaryTheG(r)eek]

Originally Posted by Piccante

Hi Maria

I have another problem. After a user edits their own article and resubmits it, it no longer shows within the vbjournal article categories...it is lost! (The user can still find it within "My Articles", but no one can see it within the main vbjournal page). There is no Admin Approval needed.

Thank you so much for your notice. Changing the code to update to 1.0.2 by mistake I removed some lines. Zip file updated with the correction.