Integrated Journal System

[Gamingforce]

I have been working over the past few days to bring an journal system integrated with vBulletin. Although I didn't really document the changes as I went along, I could put it together as a hack package possibly if people are interested.

On our particular message board we call this journal system ChocoJournal. This is a pretty major hack. It involves modifications, changes to the user table, two new database tables, modification of vBulletin files and the use of the journal.php script which handles almost everything. Before going into this project I didn't know too much about MySQL and I wasn't too experienced with PHP but I have learned so much from coding this thing.

ChocoJournal Key Features:

• User may enable / disable journal
• Very easy to use since most of the information is obtained automatically
• Journal entries support vBcode
• A user selectable amount of newest entries are displayed first
• Option to view all entries
• User is able to comment on entries
• Journal entries can be made private (only viewable to people on your buddy list)
• Moderators and Admins do not have control over your journal entries.
• You or the commentor may delete comments.
• Current song / mood options in entries
• Stats box on main journal page featuring total entries, number of private entries with a percentage of the total, number of journal page views, the number of buddies the user has and if you are on the buddy list of the user (to find out if you can read private entries)
• Clicking on the avatar of the user in the stats box brings you to their profile
• Sessions supported globally throughout the journal system
• Journal status is integrated with profile featuring last entry time, and last public entry title.
• Chocobos are fast

(How a user activates their journal [taken from my board])

To activate your journal, go into User CP > Modify Profile and select the checkbox next to Enable ChocoJournal. You can change the entry display number from the default (10) to one of the choices in the pulldown menu. To edit / view your journal, click the ChocoJournal link on the extreme right of the User CP Nav Bar.

Here is a sample journal page:
http://www.gamingforce.com/forums/jo...=view&userid=1

Here is a sample of how the profile page looks like with the journal information:
http://www.gamingforce.com/forums/me...tinfo&userid=1

Planned features
> Give an option to allow / not allow commenting on an entry by entry basis.
> Design a universal journal home page featuring journal system stats and other cool stuff.
> Put an integrated page into a user's journal that shows the latest entries from each of buddy of the user.
> Possible integration of LiveJournal entries.

Let me know what you think. Thanks!