A "Members' Onlyl " issue...

[annieb]

Hi -

I am the process of installing a vBulletin system on my membership website. I want a customization that may be a bit unusual. Hopefully someone here will be able to help. I am happy to move this posting to the "paid services" area if that is what will be required.

I run a story website (erotica for women). We update weekly with six new chapters of continuing serialized stories. My members have been wanting a forum for a long time, so they can discuss the stories and interface with the authors.

I want the forum POSTING to be limited to members ONLY. However, I want the general public to be able to read the exchanges, as I think it will induce people to sign up for the website members' area. The easiest - and most obvious way - to accomplish this is to put the forum in the free area of my site and I know that there is a way in vBulletin to restrict posting to members only. However, I need a way to automatically "reconcile" the vBulletin membership list with the website members' list (written to an .htaccess file in my members' area continually by my credit card processor). We really want this to be a members' only perk and with our large membership (minimum 15-20 people sign up, cancel, or their cards decline daily) we do NOT want to have to do this manually. So the first option would be to create some sort of script that would reconcile the board members list with the website members list.

The second way that occurred to me that this could be accomplished is to put the forum inside the members' area. That of course solves the problem of members coming and going, but how does the general public then get access to read? I was wondering if it might also be possible to create a script that would write a mirror image duplicate of the entire board to the free area of my site daily - identical in every way except that posting would be disabled.

Any ideas about how to accomplish this would be GREATLY appreciated.

Anne

[magnus]

How is the .htaccess file written to currently? Do you edit the file manually, or do you have a PHP interface?

If you use an interface, an extra query could be written to add a user to BOTH the vBulletin database as well as the .htaccess file -- this would also bypass the need to 'register' on the forum.

* Edit: I re-read and see that it's written to by your credit card processor. Is this script something YOU have access to? (ie. Can it be modified?) If so, what you're asking for would be relatively simple.

One, less enticing -- but overall more congruent method is to use vBulletin as your backend for everything. With vBulletin's subscription system, you can manage subscriptions to both the content and forum -- thus affording you the ability to use vBulletin's powerful conditional and access management system as well as a central userbase for whatever else you may wish to add in the future.

[annieb]

My .htaccess file is in my members' area. I have access to it through ftp, in that I could download it, etc, though it's encrypted. Frankly, I am not sure how the whole thing works, but I did talk to the support people at where my site is hosted about possibilities and here was their response:

Unfortunately we don't do any sort of integration like that, but I think
it's very doable for someone who's experienced in vbulletin customization.
They should be able to add something in to the <CC Processor's name> script that
adds/removes the user to vbulletin as needed. It's more than just an
.htaccess though -- the user has to be added to the vbulletin database,
account confirmed, and all that. It should be fairly trivial for someone
who works with it regularly though.

I would bet that the vBulletin people could recommend a company to do the
modification. The <CC Processor's name> scripts are pretty simple to figure out, the
only thing you'd watch to be sure of is that you have them clearly
describe the changes made to the <CC Processor's name> script so that if the
netbilling script ever needs to be updated (by <CC Processor's name>) that those
changes could be put back in.

------
That was the response from my hosting company. Frankly, I am worried about altering those scripts very much which is why I thought that my second solution - that somehow a mirror image of the board complete except with posting disabled - could be written from the members' area to the free area every few hours. This would solve the problem completely without the critical members' scripts ever needing to be touched. If the member's account is current he/she can get into the members area and post. If their account is canceled or declined, they can't get in.

Also, I have a large and fully featured members' area, which includes art, movie clips, lots of things. I don't really see how it could be managed just through vbulletin...?

Further ideas?

Anne

[magnus]

Originally Posted by annieb

They should be able to add something in to the <CC Processor's name> script that
adds/removes the user to vbulletin as needed. It's more than just an
.htaccess though -- the user has to be added to the vbulletin database,
account confirmed, and all that. It should be fairly trivial for someone
who works with it regularly though.

Ok, good. So you do have access to manually manipulate the script yourself. As stated, this wouldn't be a huge undertaking to do what you're asking.

Originally Posted by annieb

That was the response from my hosting company. Frankly, I am worried about altering those scripts very much which is why I thought that my second solution - that somehow a mirror image of the board complete except with posting disabled - could be written from the members' area to the free area every few hours. This would solve the problem completely without the critical members' scripts ever needing to be touched. If the member's account is current he/she can get into the members area and post. If their account is canceled or declined, they can't get in.

This is a pretty convoluted way to do something that could be done much easier, IMHO. But, it all really boils down to what you want to do. Although, you would be required to have and maintain 2 vBulletin licenses to, legally, accomplish this.

Originally Posted by annieb

Also, I have a large and fully featured members' area, which includes art, movie clips, lots of things. I don't really see how it could be managed just through vbulletin...?

Easy. vBulletin is a PHP/MySQL based solution. It can, literally, do anything. There are already options, such as PhotoPost PHP which seamlessly integrates into vBulletin -- giving you the power to provide conditional access based upon vBulletin usergroups. Also, with vBulletin's template engine you can design things to look however you want. The only limit is your imagination, really.

[annieb]

My server admin found this info on vbulletin's help site:

http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/m..._group_archive

Basically, the functionality to maintain an "archive" on the board is already in place. The only issue for me, then, would be to write the "archive" to the free area while maintaining the live board in the members' area, right?

Here's what the info says:
Note:
On your own forum you can find the Archive here: http://www.yourforum.com/forumdir/archive/
(live example: http://www.vBulletin.com/forum/archive/)

So, if I can just change the place that the archive is written to , I've accomplished what I want, it seems. Or am I msising something...?

Anne

[magnus]

This doesn't address your issue of adding/removing members from the user database. You said you wanted that task automated. Unless that's no longer a concern?

[annieb]

If the board is physically IN the members' area, no non members would have access to posting, since the members' area is already protected by my credit card processor's script. I don't care if expired website members remain "active" in the vBulletin database - in fact I would prefer, because then if they rejoin they can get in to post with no hassle.

My concern was that if the board was outside of the members' area (which would facilitate general public's reading of it) my customer service person would - on a daily basis - have to manually add any new website members to vBulletin's database and remove any website members whose memberships had either declined or been canceled. THIS is what I wanted to avoid completely.

But - again - if the board is in the members' area, the processor's access script will handle access to the board which is all I care about. Then the only issue remains - how do we write this static "archive" of the board to a location other than the default?

[magnus]

Using .htaccess rules, you can specify which directories are protected or not.

[annieb]

Sorry, I haven't responsed to this in a while, had to go out of town on an emergency. I appreciate the suggestions, but still think my point is being missed. ALL I want is a "copy" of the board (ie the archive) to write to a location outside of my website members' area, so the general public can read it - and hopefully be intrigued by what the members are saying and thus join the site. If the board is in the members' area of my website, my website's member data base will "protect" the board and will allow any paid members to post (as long as they also create a username on the board). Any members whose memberships decline or are canceled will not have access to the members' area so by default will not have access to the board. I don't care if they are "removed" from the board's database since the result is the same. In fact I would prefer that they NOT be removed from the board's database, since many members whose memberships decline (say because their credit card has expired) rejoin quickly, and then they would not have to recreate their vbulletin log in.

So at this point, all I am interested in(I think) is how to alter vbulletin's code so that the board's archive writes to a directory different than what would be the default...

A

[magnus]

Nobody is missing your point.

Originally Posted by magnus

Using .htaccess rules, you can specify which directories are protected or not.

You've already stated you're using .htaccess rules. So rather than modifying code to write to a different directory, simply allow access to all for the archive directory. Done.

If you're insistant on writing to another directory, you could probably just create an symlink to point elsewhere.

ie.

$ ln -s /new/archive /forum/archive