UPCOMING: vbAwards Hack (Ribbons, Medals, etc.)

[incursio]

After having a need for such a hack, and seeing only requests, and no code for one, I decided to put one together.

What is it?

vbAwards is a system that allows administrators to configure a robust award system which is fully integrated within VB v2.2.0+. You can have as many award "levels" as you like (i.e. merit badges, ribbons, medals, trophies, etc.). The awards engine consists of several components:

• The first, is the admin panel, where you can define new awards, edit/delete them, assign awards to users automatically, and even run test "scans" to see who is eligible for awards (great if you are still developing the criteria and want to see if you have it right). The award images themselves are completely configurable, BTW.
• The second, is the assignment robot. Run via cron, it allows you to automate the assignment of awards, based on your predefined rules/criteria.
• The third is the integration within VB itself - complete with award "shadow boxes", showing which awards a person has one, an overview page, which shows all the awards a person can earn, the Top 50 award winners, etc.

Now, the most important thing about this, is that most of the functionality is contained in a separate PHP module, meaning that the actual integration into VB is minimal at best. Add a couple of lines here and there, add a few templates, and you are all set.

The criteria for awards exist in the form of "embedded PHP" code. Basically, what this means is that you can really do anything you want. Some of the example plugins that I have allow you to automatically grant awards based on:

• # of posts in one or more specific forums
• # of threads started in one or more specific forums
• # of posts in threads that they didn't start (in 1 or more forums)
• # of referrals (new users they've brought in)

The above list is just a sample - you can get pretty crazy with the criteria. For example, we have one award that is only available if they've earned 10 or more "merit badges" (our lowest level of awards - they are forum specific), have been a member for at least 2 years, have at least 5,000 total posts, have referred at least 10 new people, and those new people must have at least 100 posts in order to count.

It can also work with external data sources (other mySQL database, mSQL databases, etc.). For example, on our site, I have it so that it works with our article publishing system and even our community image library - so people who contribute to those tools are eligible for awards as well.

To get a good idea of what the engine is capable of, or just to see it in action, visit my site at http://www.wetcanvas.com. Just head to the forums and look around.

A few screenshots will follow in subsequent posts in this thread.

This hack isn't currently available to the public, although it might be if there is enough interest. Be warned, I will likely charge a few bucks for it if and when I do offer it - its been a helluva lot of work, and I have bills to pay.

Cheers.
Scott