Forum Home Enhancements - User's Social Groups on Forum Home (like forumlist, fully templated)

Available for vB4:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=221581

What does it do?

• Shows all social groups the actual user is a member of or is subscribed to, just below the forumlist (or anywhere else on forumhome). If there are new messages, the corresponding forum statusicon is highlighted - just like in forumlist.
• If there are no groups to show, you can choose to show a teaser message.

Things to set in AdminCP/Options:

• show member of / subscribed to /nothing
• sort by name or last message date
• limit max number of groups shown, then link to appropriate page (grouplist for members, usercp for subscribers)
• restrict use by usergroup
• show a teaser message if there are no groups to show
• show buttons to open new discussion etc.
• apply custom css to grouptitle
• trim group description to max length or disable
• parse bbcode in group descriptions
• use a different set of statusicons for groups than for forums
• use .png for statusicons instead of .gif (global in AdminCP, per style in groupsbit template)
• show groupicon instead of statusicon

Looks

• Out of the box: I tried to copy the standard look of the forumlist on forumhome.
• As requested, it is now fully templated (following the forumbit-scheme) for easy adjustment to custom styles.
  See the screenshot of a modified example in this post.

Install/upgrade

1. Upload folder "images" to your forum root (can be omitted if you do not want to use the buttons).
2. Import the product file.
3. Check settings in AdminCP->Options->Social Groups on Forumhome.

Template edit
Will be automatically inserted below your forums list if you are using TMS, which I highly recommend to do. If not:

Find:

<!-- /main -->

Above add:

$cel_social_groups

If you don't like it there, you can insert $cel_social_groups anywhere you like on forumhome.


Technical stuff
1 product file that adds
+ 3 templates (following the forumbit-scheme)
+ 3 plugins
+ adds 2 queries to forumhome (only if groups are shown, of course).
+ a bunch of phrases (prefix: cel_sgfh_).
+ 4 png-buttons, taken from the silk icon set.


Limitations

• Marking of new messages only works with database, not with cookie based marking of read threads (-> AdminCP setting)
  Explanation: This mod relys on the information in the database when a discussion was last read by the actual user. If you rely on cookies for this, you can use this mod anyway, but there will be no marking if there are unread messages by changed statusicons.
• 3.7 Discussion groups will show up as "no messages yet" as long as there was no message written under 3.8
  Explanation: When converting the old 3.7 message board into a discussion, Jelsoft was a little bit slack. While normally all the information about the last updated discussion is stored in the socialgroups table, this information is not entered for the auto-created discussion. For example: The discussion ID for the last updated discussion simply is 0 instead of the actual id of the auto created discussion. Therefore, this mod can not retrieve the information it needs since the discussion is not linked to the social group. This only changes when the first message under 3.8 is written.
• Not a bug note: In vB 3.8 there was an issue where the last discussion title was not correctly updated by vB in the socialgroup table. This would lead this mod to show a wrong last discussion title under some circumstances. This was resolved in 3.8.1.
  See Bugtracker: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/proje...?issueid=27176

Version history

v 1.4
+ some bugfixes
+ option to turn teaser message off
+ option to show several buttons: to start a new discussion - see the group's members list - see the group' photos (only shown if there are any attached pictures) - unsubscribe (only if subscribed groups are shown) (Thanks to glorify)
1.4.1: Template/Style error in Google Chrome fixed

v 1.3
+ now fully templated. New templates: forumhome_cel_social_groups_groupsbit and forumhome_cel_social_groups_lastmsgby.
1.3.1: Link to user profile error fixed

v 1.2
+ added option to sort groups by date of last message
+ added missing phrase

v 1.1
+ improved database query
+ limitations somewhat lessened
+ added settings page to AdminCP
+ choose whether to show groups the user is a member of or subscribed to
+ limit number of groups shown, then link to appropriate page
+ restrict use by usergroup
+ some minor bugfixes


Planned features (no promises made!)

none atm

[s]option to use a set of different statusicons for the groups [/s]
[s]option to use the social group's icon instead of the statusicon[/s]
[s]and to go with that, for additional/substitunional unread marking, possibility to add css markup to the social group's title[/s]


Translations

• Polish (thanks to RadioErewan)
• German (thanks to redlabour)

Screenshots:

• AdminCP
• Forumhome (with groupicon and css formatted groupname, bbcode in description parsed)
• Forumhome (with forum statusicons and trimmed description -> bbcode not parsed)

### Don't forget to click install! ###
(No support if you don't)

[wacodep]

What are the chanced of getting this to work with the Social Forums mod (converts the lame, neutered SG 'discussions' to actual forums)?

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=207315

[cellarius]

Originally Posted by Saidinou

Hello and thank you for this product,


I have a problem when vBseo is enabled. All the latest post are linked as:

PHP Code:

 /forum/group.php 


I use vBSEO myself and do not experience this problem, sorry... for me, the "latest"-links work perfectly well.

Originally Posted by McCarroll21

I'm loving this, but I'm having a problem with getting the forum icon to show correctly. When there is a new post, the forum marker doesn't change. It shows the forum marker for one without a new post. Any ideas?

Originally Posted by PrincessFiona

perfect, thanks!

I don't suppose you could code something like this for the blogs that a member is subscribed to???? =)

Kris

Might this

Limitations

• Marking of new messages only works with database, not with cookie based marking of read threads (-> AdminCP setting)
  Explanation: This mod relys on the information in the database when a discussion was last read by the actual user. If you rely on cookies for this, you can use this mod anyway, but there will be no marking if there are unread messages by changed statusicons.

be the problem?

Originally Posted by Revan

For those with the "Warning: mysql_num_rows(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in [path]/index.php(67) : eval()'d code on line 186" error, open the forumhome code plugin and change

mysql_num_rows

to

$db->num_rows

Bit silly mistake, and there's some sessionurl variable mess-ups (using $session[sessionurl] when there's no parameter after "?" instead of just using $session[sessionurl_q] and no "?"), but overall it's a good mod and I'm glad I found it

Thanks for the fix, will be included in an upcoming release (soon ). 'course you're right, that was a really stupid one Also the wrong session variable.

Originally Posted by wacodep

What are the chanced of getting this to work with the Social Forums mod (converts the lame, neutered SG 'discussions' to actual forums)?

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=207315

None, really. I do not use that mod and will not change this one until I know what vB4 will make of the social groups.

[wacodep]

Originally Posted by cellarius

None, really. I do not use that mod and will not change this one until I know what vB4 will make of the social groups.

It was worth asking, right?

The standard 'discussion' areas for SG's are lame as hell. You can't do half the stuff in them as you can with a real forum, such as attach files to messages posted in the threads, etc.

Hopefully, JelSoft will see the err of their ways and create REAL forums for the SG's 'discussion' areas instead of the neutered ones there now (3.8.x).

[wacodep]

Originally Posted by cellarius

None, really. I do not use that mod and will not change this one until I know what vB4 will make of the social groups.

How about if you provided a way to toggle the display of the "Last Post" and "Posts" columns? That way, it would just show the group and the member count?

[cellarius]

v 1.4
+ some bugfixes
+ option to turn teaser message off
+ option to show several buttons: to start a new discussion - see the group's members list - see the group' photos (only shown if there are any attached pictures) - unsubscribe (only if subscribed groups are shown) (Thanks to glorify)

[cellarius]

Originally Posted by wacodep

How about if you provided a way to toggle the display of the "Last Post" and "Posts" columns? That way, it would just show the group and the member count?

Sorry: But that's why the mod is fully templated. Just edit forumhome_cel_social_groups_groupsbit to easily achieve what you want.

[wacodep]

Originally Posted by cellarius

Sorry: But that's why the mod is fully templated. Just edit forumhome_cel_social_groups_groupsbit to easily achieve what you want.

I *already* did that. I was just making a suggestion.

Forget it. Thanks.

[cellarius]

Originally Posted by wacodep

I *already* did that. I was just making a suggestion.

Forget it. Thanks.

Hey, what's the problem? I develop this mod along the lines that suit my needs. If someone suggests a idea I like, I pick it up. If I don't like it or do not see the need, I don't. See: I'm not getting exactly paid for this

You made a suggestion and I declined, telling you how to achieve what you want. How am I to know what you did or did not already do? No need to get tetchy.

[RadioErewan]

Here you have Polish translation of this mod (unfortunately there are few hard coded phrases for admin options).

Regards

[cellarius]

Thanks for the translation!

Also: Just found a template/style-error that (for me) only showed up in Google Chrome. Version 1.4.1 fixes only this small issue.