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.

[MPDesignZ]

My client wants this plugin to work differently than it is working. I have copied and pasted what he said below:

Hmmm. I don't think its working. I don't even want the comments section on the site. Just to have a link with how many comments and make a comment that takes them to the forum page. It's literally exactly like Apple Insider. Here's a link to a recent article and you'll see what I mean... http://www.appleinsider.com/articles..._dock_1_6.html

Take a look at the bottom left of the end of the article. You'll see how it says 97 comments. Then click on that and you'll see. They're showing the whole article, but I'd just like an excerpt of the article with a link at the end of the excerpt to the actual article page. Don't want to have duplicate content.

I have made the modifications that were in the readme file but it has not seemed to do diddly to anything. Did I miss something somewhere?

MP

[MPDesignZ]

Really need an answer here please. I need to know how to take out the comment box on wordpress & just have the link with the amount of comments on wordpress that link to the forums.

MP

[nishv]

Is it possible to make Wordpress/Vbulletin Bridge to NOT to Auto Integrate the users...

What I am trying to do is, make the comments postable on vBulletin and selected users on Wordpress who can post stuff... Which means, it will be cross posted to vB as well, but whoever wants to comment on it, needs to login to the forums to do so.

Thanks.

[snoopy5]

Hi

vb 3.68 and wordpress 2.3 newset download. I just tried to integrate. Does not work. I have installed WP in teh same database, but with different prefixes.

vb and WP are on the same server & domain, but with different subdomains

I also changed the username of admin via phpmyadmin to be not in conflict with anything.

The problem is, that I even does not come to the step ti bridge the suer db. If I logout to see wjetehr ether is any bug, I get the error:

"cannot load /my_absolut_path_to/wordpress/global.php. You should check your path!"

"wordpress" is the dierctory in which I installed wordpress. I guess it is wrong that it tries to take thet path, since within WP, teher is no file called "global.php".

So what did I do wrong?

[Jafo232]

It is trying to get global.php from your VBULLETIN install, not WP..

[snoopy5]

ok, so where do I have to change what to make it right?

[wolfyman]

after hours and hours of mistakes, I finally got this working.

LOVE IT!

Couple questions.

1. I cannot get the url rewrites to work in wordpress, it seems the only way to work this is with standard WP crap urls?
2. Will this work with any vbSEO type hack? Are there any free ways to rewrite my urls in WP and VB with this hack installed?

[wolfyman]

I am getting this from a few users.

Only in IE though.

but I cant post in any forum threads... keep getting error message " your message needs to be longer than 1 character"....

[gimpusmons]

Originally Posted by Alan Pace

MPDesignZ and Jafo232, I *think* I have your answer. In any case, I think this will point you in the right direction. I'm about to upgrade to WP 2.3 on a site that uses this bridge, so I'll know for sure after that, but from my experience getting a Coppermine photo gallery bridge to work after another 2.3 upgrade, and based on the error you posted, I think the solution to this is likely to be relatively simple. With the 2.3 release Wordpress database functions were consolidated into wp-includes/wp-db.php, and moved out of several other files. The file wp-admin/admin-db.php is no longer used by WordPress and contains redundant functions. The bridge code has a "require" at line 400 for admin-db.php, hence the error message. This may not be the entire fix, but commenting out line 400 from vbbridge.php would be a logical first step. After that, you may get a similar error but the message may now reference some other no-longer-needed file. Once you've eliminated references to files that contain redundant functions, the bridge will probably work.

I can confirm that correcting line 400 will fix the "admin-db.php" error for Wordpress v2.3. I'm not sure what "commenting out" means but I redirected the path to "wp-includes/wp-db.php" and now bridged forum users can view the blog without a problem.

Thanks for the tip Alan. This saved me a lot of time.

[misticjeff]

Like many, many, many of the other people posting on this thread, I had the problem where I was being redirected away from /wp-admin even after I had mapped the users and had logged in using vBulletin.

I spent 2hours and 40 minutes trying to get this plugin to work. 2 hours and 30 minutes of that time was spent reading all 40 pages in this thread in hopes to discover a fix for my problem. Somewhere around page 30, Jafo kindly announced that he was refusing to help anyone who posted here looking for answers with this problem.

I was so close to just giving up. Just as I was about to smash my stupid laptop to pieces for being a lying bastard that wouldn't just let me into my damned admin panel, the answer came to me. I stood frozen with my MacBook raised high above my head, mere seconds away from hurling it to the hard-wood floor as visions of vBulletin control panels, PHP code and David Hasselhoff flashed before my eyes. It was at that moment that I knew that in order to get into the /wp-admin section, I needed to follow these steps:

1. Follow Jafo's install directions
2. After the plugin is successfully installed, register a new user with the EXACT SAME username as your WordPress administrator username. I was using "admin" to log into WP, so I created a VB user with the same name, "admin."
3. Log out your newly created user
4. Log back into VB with your VB administrator username.
5. Go to the VB Admin Control Panel
6. Click the "Users" category in the menu on the left side
7. Click "Search for Users" in the sub-menu that appears
8. Find your newly created user -- "admin" in my case
9. Change the Primary Group to "Administrators" and click save
10. Log out the current user
11. Log back in with the user you just set to "Administrators" -- again, this was "admin" for me.
12. Direct your browser to http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin and cheer!

I hope this helps someone. I did some cursing, a little punching and a lot of weeping in the 2 hours and 40 minutes that it took me to figure this out. If anyone is having problems following these directions, reply or PM me and I'll do my best to get back to you.

Word to your mothers,
Eric