All I want for Christmas is...

[darnoldy]

Folks-

I am helping to set up a not-yet-public board aimed at a group that has been using other software. There are some features that vB seems to be missing that we'd like to have.

I'd like to know if these things are possible, and what level of modification they'd require. I'm pretty competent at HTML, CSS & Javascript--I'm a front-end guy--but clueless about php (so please, baby talk<G>).

1. A "to:" field in each message--esentially the poster of the parent message. I have figured out how to edit the postbit template, but not generate the value to include.

2. A "Waiting messages display" I would like to add a field to each member record that carried a list of new messages addressed to them. Each time someone replies to a user's post, the postid of the reply is added to the list. If the list is not empty, a link/message displays in the "welcome" box stating "you have X new messages". User clicks, get page displaying messages. As user reads messages, postid is removed from list.

3. The ability to address the first post in a new thread to a specific person. which would cause it to show up in their waiting messages display. Default would be "All" which acts as threads do now.

4. A "Staff" address, which would cause the message to show a waiting message for all staff (Mods, supermods and admins).

5. An "Admin" address, which would cause the message to show a waiting message for all admins--and it, and any replies would be visible only to admins and the thread creator.

Thanks!

--don

[darnoldy]

Nobody has any thoughts on this?

[Sean S]

Originally Posted by darnoldy

Nobody has any thoughts on this?

Hi there,

I didn't really want to answer at first cause I thought that more experienced programmers or users would answer back, but since no one has had the time or chance to do so, I'll be the first to answer some of your questions.

As for some of your questions, I didn't fully understand them, but the ones that I think I did, here is the answer to them.

1. A "to:" field in each message--esentially the poster of the parent message. I have figured out how to edit the postbit template, but not generate the value to include.

A: I'm not sure why you want to exactly have the "to:" field, but if you are experienced enough it shouldn't be too hard to add a new field in the postbit, i wont help you on how you would do it cause I'm not that experienced. Also you could use the Private Messaging function, since it has that "to:" function.

2. A "Waiting messages display" I would like to add a field to each member record that carried a list of new messages addressed to them.

A: I would highly recommend that you change the settings in the admin panel so that each user is automatically subscribed to the thread that they start, they can also set this option on themselves from their user control panel. Basically what happens is that once they make a new post, they will recieve either a e-mail or a message in their user cp letting them know of the changes to their threads, whether there was a new reply or not.


3. The ability to address the first post in a new thread to a specific person. which would cause it to show up in their waiting messages display. Default would be "All" which acts as threads do now.

A: I'm sorry I don't really have an answer for this, the only thing that I would personally do is to setup different forums or categories with different usergroup permissions for posting and replying threads.

4. A "Staff" address, which would cause the message to show a waiting message for all staff (Mods, supermods and admins).

5. An "Admin" address, which would cause the message to show a waiting message for all admins--and it, and any replies would be visible only to admins and the thread creator.

A: As for your last 2 questions, I would use the vbulletin function from the admin panel which controls the posting and replying in each forum. For example you can set one forum so that each time a new message is posted, a e-mail is sent to the admin first, if admin verfies it, it will appear in the forums, if declined, then the post is gone. Same case for the moderators, you just have to configure your usergroups.



I know that these wont help you 100%, but they will hopefully give you an idea,

merry christmas,
sean s.

[Michael Morris]

The more I read this the more I realize that this is probably a major hack that would involve the modification of at least 4 files - showthread.php, newthread.php, newpost.php, functions_newpost.php and possibly others.

[darnoldy]

michael-

Originally Posted by Michael Morris

The more I read this the more I realize that this is probably a major hack....

First, I enjoyed your tutorial--very informative. I'm having some issues trying to adapt it, and will address them in *that* thread.

I realize that the things I want get harder as you go down the list (at least I think they do). Some of these things require changing the way that vBulletin thinks about messages and threads. Maybe some of the earlier ones are easier?

1. the "To" field... WetWired's "'In reply to' Hack" seems to almost do what i want, but I haven't yet figured out exactly how that hack works so I can adapt it.

2. You seem to have been able to do quite a few things with the PHP_Include template and custom user fields. I was hoping that this approach, along with maybe a custom template, might work with the waiting messages idea.

If i can get these two thing implemented, I'm in good shape--the rest are gravy.

--don

[darnoldy]

Originally Posted by shah

I would highly recommend that you change the settings in the admin panel so that each user is automatically subscribed to the thread that they start, they can also set this option on themselves from their user control panel.

There are a couple of reasons why this is got a good substitute for the "waiting messages" feature.

First, The notification is delivered when the subscriber's reads e-mail, not when they enter the forum.

Second, the subscribe notice tells the user that someone has posted a a reply to some message in the thread--not that someone has posted a reply to the user's post(s) in the thread. In a purely linear thread, this distiction is small. In a multi-branched thread, it is very different.

--don