Integration with vBulletin - Complete Wordpress/Vbulletin Bridge - Share Users And Postings

DOES NOT WORK FOR Vbulletin 4.x

This version probably no longer works for Wordpress 3.x. I have started developing this product over and have released the NEW version here:

http://www.lampwrights.com/showthread.php?t=41

This mod bridges your Vbulletin users over to Wordpress. You can also use Vbulletin as your comment engine instead of the spammy one built into Wordpress. You can display the comments inline in your post. You need not use the comment feature, if your only interested in sharing users.

You can map your Vbulletin Usergroups to Wordpress Usergroups and those users will then be recognized as registered Wordpress users.

For example, user "Joe" registers at your forum and logs in. Joe then clicks on your Wordpress page. Joe is instantly added to the Wordpress user base with the permissions you set for his usergroup. In otherwords, if a user comes over belonging to the "Registered User" group, you can select that he is placed in the Wordpress "Subscriber" usergroup.

If you change a users group from vbulletin, it will automatically change in Wordpress.

Requirements:

• DOES NOT and WILL NEVER support Wordpress MU.
• Wordpress and Vbulletin scripts must reside on the same physical server.
• Wordpress and Vbulletin must use the same domain name.
• Stable Wordpress Version greater than or equal to 2.5.
• If your WP login name is the same as your VB username, this user will NOT be ported! If this was the case, you could lose your WP admin rights if there was an error, or if you deactivated the plugin.
• DOES work for Vbulletin 3.7.

Limitations:

• Please don't ask if it works for any BETA versions of Vbulletin. I do not know and will not convert this to the latest version of VB (whatever it is at the time you are reading this) until the version is released as non-beta.
• If you delete a user, you must do so in both Wordpress and Vbulletin.
• If you are using XMLRPC to post with applications such as Windows Live Writer, you must change the password of the author in the WORDPRESS admin cp, after the user is ported over from VB. If you are not integrating users, then you do not have to.
• Chances are, this will not work when VB and Wordpress are located in different sub domains. I.E. forum.yoursite.com - blog.yoursite.com. Cookie issue.
• I did the best I could in determining your forums file path with the script. There may be certain script setups that cannot find the file path properly, in which case you may get errors that the script cannot find or open /config.php. If this is the case, please HARDCODE your ABSOLUTE path to the forum in vbridge.php.
  
  To do this find:
  
  

   ## If you are having path problems, uncomment this next variable and define the path
  ## NO TRAILING SLASH!
  # $vwd = '/some/path/to/your/forum';

  And uncomment the last line, and change the path to your forums path:
  
  

   ## If you are having path problems, uncomment this next variable and define the path
  ## NO TRAILING SLASH!
  $vwd = '/some/path/to/your/forum';

Common Mistakes When Installing:

• Using two different host names causes problems. If your forum URL contains www.yourdomain.com, then your wordpress blog URL MUST contain the www. part of www.yourdomain.com also. This goes for any other host name. Browsers are finnecky when it comes to cookies (as they should be).
• Editors generally EDIT, not write. In Wordpress, editors don't show up in the post author drop down. This has nothing to do with this plugin, that is Wordpress code.
• Make sure you DO NOT create a subdirectory for this plugin in the wp-content/plugins directory. Just upload it directly there.
• If the admin username in Vbulletin is the same as the one in Wordpress (i.e. Admin), that user will NOT be able to login to the WP dashboard.
• If you do not map users before you turn auto-integrate on, the plugin has no idea whether your allowed into the dashboard.
• If you all of a sudden can't login to the dashboard, see the above two common mistakes.
• FOLLOW the directions and make a test post first. Being in a rush and not testing will most likely turn out bad for you.
• When you create a test user in VB to test mapping users, the test user MUST have an email address. If a VB users email address is blank, they will not map.

UPDATES:

01/03/2007 - Fixed the unlock_tables() issue on some setups.

01/03/2007 - Fixed a bug in the script that if you used a MySQL database prefix, integration would not work. Please see this post for more information! Special thanks to axisoverdrive for giving me access to his server and letting me troubleshoot the issue!

01/05/2007 - Fixed issue where if a user saved (not published) and published later, the post would not be added to the forum.

01/05/2007 - When a post is edited, it will also be edited in the forum.

01/08/2007 - Modified slightly so when posts are edited, so are the titles (if edited).

02/07/2007 - Major modifications to new version (now 2.05). The list follows:

• Reworked the code so it uses the $vbulletin object throughout the code especially during the bridging process.
• Users are bridged whether they checked the "Remember Me" box or not.
• Removed a couple of SQL calls that became redundant.
• Addressed a bug where if a user logged out of the dashboard, it only logged them out of VB.
• Added Inline Comments capability. Comments posted to the forum (using VB for comments) will now appear at the bottom of a WP Post when viewing the post.
• Author user names can now be linked to their VB profile page if desired.
• Added option to turn off posting to forum. All this really does is remove the "Select Forum To Post To" option when writing a post. (There you go AxisOverdrive )
• The $vbulletin object should now be available in all templates and most plugins.
• Fixed a bug where deactivating any plugin would semi deactivate this plugin.
• With the reduction in SQL calls, and the removal of now unnecessary variables, speed and memory use should be improved.
• PLEASE READ THE UPGRADE INSTRUCTIONS IF UPGRADING!

07/17/2007

• Fixed problem where upload iframe was a bit mangled.
• Fixed problem where users had to refresh the dashboard once after logging in.
• Fixed problem that arose from Wordpress 2.2.1 upgrade that would not allow activation.
• Fixed logout issue where users would still be logged into Wordpress.
• When a Wordpress post is deleted, so is the thread it created.
• Added option to allow thread posted from Wordpress article to be truncated, with a linkback to the article.
• Fixed issue when user re-activates plugin, and vb_threadid column already exists. Now checks for column first.
• Removed a stray VB_Init() call.
• Forums that do not allow threads will not be selectable in the drop down menu when writing a post.
• Forums are listed out in a parent/child nested pattern.
• (Note: 367 downloads of version 2.05)

11/29/07 - 3.00

• Added TABLE_PREFIX throughout the script instead of the get_option('vbb_VBPRX') call. get_option('vbb_VBPRX') is now deprecated.
• Addressed path issues by establishing $vwd first. If for some reason there are path issues on an install, the path only needs to be manually changed once, at the beginning of the script.
• Removed call to admin_db.php which seems to no longer be necessary.
• Changed all queries to the VB database to be handled by the $vbulletin object. This should facilitate multiple database configurations.
• Added limited XMLRPC support.
• Had to include a basic copy of the functions_wysiwyg.php file (functions_wysiwyg2.php) with a minor change in the sanitize_url function (now sanitize_vburl) as it conflicts with a new WP function of the same name. Otherwise, this is identical to the VB release. This was necessary to keep formatting somewhat uniform between the two.
• Removed unnecessary globals.
• Changed the global.php call so it always loads. $vbulletin should be available throughout the code (via global in functions).
• Edited some code around wysiwyg functions of VB, and conversions to vbcode.
• Added "Turn Plugin On" option.
• Fixed an issue with the forum list on the "Write Post" page. Default forum was not being auto selected in some cases.
• Modified from BETA so that the new functions_wysiwyg2.php file is loaded using the WP ABSPATH constant. Requires the plugin to stay in the plugins directory.
• Fix an error message when a post was deleted in VB, then edited in WP.

12/10/07 - 3.01

• Fixed two <? tags that should have been <?php (pointed out by Amenadiel)

03/31/08 - 3.02

• Fixed media-upload clash for new version of Wordpress (2.5).
• Added fix that will now delete threads in VB when the post is deleted in WP and not using Ajax delete.
• Added code to insert a default email address if VB users email address is blank upon bridging.

04/20/08

• Fixed a bug in user roles for the new version 2.5.1 of Wordpress.

05/08/2008

• Fixed issue where CSS was munging scrolling text box when selecting a forum during a post
• Fixed an issue where content encoding was getting screwey between WP and VP creating a lot of unintended characters (only on PHP installs where utf8_decode() exists (most)).

05/08/2008

• Fixed issue where post count of a user did not change

Sites Using This Plug-In:

• http://www.jeffsrecipes.com
• http://www.worldwidecreations.com
• http://www.xboxcircle.com
• http://www.detailuniversity.com
• http://www.daggersden.net/
• http://www.talkbronx.com/
• http://www.czeta.it

(PM me if you want to add your site here)

Special Thanks:

axisoverdrive - Debugging Help, Kyraal - Paypal Donation, Kalina - Paypal Donation, Wildcard27 - Paypal Donation, Shri - Paypal Donation, pspcrazy - Paypal Donation, Tomahoochi - Paypal Donation.

If you use this plug-in, and find it useful, please support us by nominating us for Mod Of The Month (MOTM) in the top right corner of this thread, or feel free to donate.

[redraider]

i agree we should be patient, this mod is a great one! ... one question though ... if i upgraded to 3.7 would that break this mod substantially? Anyone knows?

[trigatch4]

redraider: you could always do a FULL backup including your files and databases and THEN install 3.7. If anything breaks, take vbulletin down and revert to your backup.

I'm guessing that it WILL break stuff because 3.7 has so many more social features that relate directly to the users. And... this information is obviously being stored in the USER table which this mod correlates with the WP table.

Just my guess...

[Jafo232]

Originally Posted by trigatch4

redraider: you could always do a FULL backup including your files and databases and THEN install 3.7. If anything breaks, take vbulletin down and revert to your backup.

I'm guessing that it WILL break stuff because 3.7 has so many more social features that relate directly to the users. And... this information is obviously being stored in the USER table which this mod correlates with the WP table.

Just my guess...

Actually, no data is being saved to the Vbulletin tables. Chances are, 3.7 won't break anything, but I have not really tested it and am still awaiting a gold release.

[redraider]

Hi Jafo,

Could you help us solve this problem. The problem started after we upgraded to WP2.5 and latest vbridge.:

On further investigation I see this, the permalink system on my blog is like this:
/%year%/%postname%/

%year% gets converted to 2008.... somehow the plugin is not converting the %postname% variable to the correct postname when the thread is posted to the forums. The "Read More" Link has this URL

2008/%postname% instead of 2008/name-of-the-post ... in other words %postname% doesnt get changed to the correct URL

[dustin999]

I've tried everything, and I'm missing something simple I'm sure. I've reinstalled vbulletin (3.6.9) and wordpress (2.5) countless times and still can't get to the admin panel in wordpress after I turn on the integration.

What am I missing? At first I had the same admin user in WP and VB, so I just tried a fresh install of both with separate admin usernames. That didn't work. I've tried creating a new admin user for wordpress before I turn on the integration, that doesn't work. I'm mapping administrative users in vb to administrative users in wp, but that doesn't work. I tried not mapping administrative users, that doesn't work. Essentially no matter what I do, I end up with the "do not have sufficient permissions to access this page" error when I try to login to the wp dashboard

What's the proper way to integrate wp and vb and still preserve login functionality for wp admin? Please someone help me, I'm desperate and have been beating myself up with this for hours!!!

FYI, I've searched the forum and found references to this issue with the WP/VB bridge, but nothing actually gives me a solution.

Please help!

Thanks,
Dustin

[dustin999]

So, I'm still totally confused, and wondering if my version of wordpress (just downloaded yesterday) isn't supported yet by this mod? I decided to trace through the mysql changes vbbridge is making to see what was going on, and found that my administrator users were getting the wrong meta_value in the wp_usermeta table (I'm using wp_ as my wordpress table prefix).

As a workaround, I hacked vbbridge.php in the plugins directory, editting line 492 of the most recent version of vbbridge. I commented out line 492, and replaced it with this:

$usermeta_value = preg_replace('/a:1:\{s:23:"administrator\|user role";i:1;\}/', 'a:1:{s:13:"administrator";b:1;}', serialize(array(strtolower(get_option('vbb_vbugrou p_' . $vbulletin->userinfo[usergroupid])) => 1)));
$sql = "UPDATE " . $GLOBALS['table_prefix'] . "usermeta set meta_value = '". $usermeta_value ."' where user_id = '". $results->ID ."' and meta_key = 'wp_capabilities'";

In short, the problem I had was that vbbridge wanted to assign this value to the wp_capabilities column in my wp_usermeta table:

a:1:{s:23:"administrator|user role";i:1;}

However, wordpress had been assigning the following value to wp_capabilities in the wp_usermeta table:

a:1:{s:13:"administrator";b:1;}

I'm not sure I understand that whole string. Originally I just tried changing "administrator|user role" to "administrator" but apparently I have to change the s:23 to s:13 too for it to work.

Right now things appear to be working for me (knock on wood), but I'd like to know if this is normal for me to have to make these changes, and if anyone else has experienced this.

I'm guessing if this is an adequate solution, I'll probably need to do the same thing with other user roles as well.

Thanks,
Dustin

[Tomahoochi]

I'm having the same issue as dustin999. None of the wp_capabilites are being transferred correctly for ANY tpye of user. I'm running WP 2.5.1 now, but it was doing the same thing in 2.5.

[dustin999]

Yeah, I'm confused. In the mod information/requirements, it says it requires wordpress 2.5 or greater to work. But from everything I've seen, it's not compatible with wp 2.5 at all, at least not without the edits I mentioned above. Strange...

[pspcrazy]

Thanks for the pm dustin, I did what you did as well but a little differently i did it when i last posted so i forgot what i did Basically it was the same thing as you did, without any commenting needed

[evershawn]

I added this to my wordpress vb install and now I cannot log into my wordpress anymore, I just get a message of: You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page.

I tried deleting the plugin and it's still saying it. I think my whole website is borked now.... not a happy camper