Miscellaneous Hacks - VSa - Auto Birthday Greeter

Info:
This hack automatically creates a birthday thread in the forum you select. Only members that allow their date of birth to be displayed will be listed, and age will be shown only for those who has chosen that. Members are shown in colors defined in usergroup settings. You can choose to exclude inactive members. Several users can be set as greeters (used randomly when posting). Thread will be created first time when someone loads forumhome after midnight.


Notes:
-This executes 1 very simple query on forumhome/in target forum.
-mktime() error? Check out this post.


Installation:
-Import XML file (as product) through AdminCP: Plugin System > Manage Products > [Add/Import Product]


To set options:
Go to: vBulletin Options > VSa - Auto Birthday Greeter


Versions:
v1.0 - Aug 26. 2007.
-Initial release
v1.4 - May 03. 2008.
-Latest vb 3.x version
v2.0 - Feb 17 2010.
-Updated for vB 4
-Added option to disable smilies
v2.0.1 - Feb 28 2010.
-New: Proper Time is now automatically detected
-Fixed: Several compatibility issues
v2.0.2 - Feb 28 2010.
-Fixed: Bug with multiple threads created
v2.0.3 - Mar 02 2010.
-Fixed mktime errors
v2.0.4 - Sep 06 2010.
-Fixed: Another bug with multiple threads created
-Fixed: Minor bugs
v2.0.5 - Sep 16 2010.
-Fixed: Multiple threads
v2.0.6 - Sep 23 2010.
-Fixed: Wrong thread creation time

[oly51]

Yesterday it greeted a member who lives in Norway at ~2:00pm EST (10 hours early). Today it greeted a member who lives in IL in the US ( GMT-6) at ~10:00pm (2 hours early).
Could the program be triggering on the members time zone instead of the servers?

[GeorgeB85]

This is working incorrectly. on 4.0.7. It is posting the birthday messages roughly 25 hours late. I just had a posting for a members birthday that was yesterday, and it didn't post till almost 1am last night.

[Julie]

I've had this installed for a while now, even on 4.0, and it's been working OK, it just posted the thread too early (about an hour before midnight or so), so I just had to manually edit the date inside the thread. Which wasn't a problem, because not a lot of birthday threads were posted.

But today I had to disable it. I had two members who had a birthday, and during the night, this script posted over 100 threads :S

Hopefully there'll be an update soon, because I really like this script!

[kras]

Even though i have created translations of the phrases; It's still uses the default English phrases in the gratulations.

[woffie]

Not posting any threads. Giving up on this one.

[persianpros]

Persian Translation

By Persian Prince

[kras]

The original code used the vbdate()-function in a way that created bogus times, which actually is a design flaw in the function itself. However, since the Unix timestamp is independent from the default timezone settings i see no point in the original logic anyway, unless you alter the code to take advantage of vbdate's built in hourdiff mechanism, but since that mechanism uses the current users timezone you could get pretty unpredictable times.

I have altered the code so that a current UTC time is first created and then modified with the forums' timezone setttings to create a local forum time. In short, the product works fine now with the following changes.


Replace:

PHP Code:

$vsaabgreeter_servertime = mktime('0'.date('H', TIMENOW),    '0'.date('i', TIMENOW), '0'.date('s', TIMENOW), '0'.date('m', TIMENOW),    '0'.date('d', TIMENOW), '0'.date('Y', TIMENOW), -1);
 $vsaabgreeter_forumtime = mktime('0'.vbdate('H', TIMENOW),    '0'.vbdate('i', TIMENOW), '0'.vbdate('s', TIMENOW), '0'.vbdate('m',    TIMENOW), '0'.vbdate('d', TIMENOW), '0'.vbdate('Y', TIMENOW), -1);
 
 $vsaabgreeter_propertime = TIMENOW;
 if ($vsaabgreeter_servertime > $vsaabgreeter_forumtime)
 {
         $vsaabgreeter_timeoffset = $vsaabgreeter_servertime - $vsaabgreeter_forumtime;
         $vsaabgreeter_propertime = TIMENOW - $vsaabgreeter_timeoffset + 10;
 }
 else
 {
         $vsaabgreeter_timeoffset = $vsaabgreeter_forumtime - $vsaabgreeter_servertime;
         $vsaabgreeter_propertime = TIMENOW + $vsaabgreeter_timeoffset + 10;
 }
 
 $vsaabgreeter_execdate = date('m-d', $vsaabgreeter_propertime);
 
 $vsaabgreeter_done = false;
 $vsaabgreeter_posted = $vbulletin->db->query_read(" SELECT daydone    FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "vsa_birthdaythread WHERE daydone =    '".$vbulletin->db->escape_string($vsaabgreeter_execdate)."' ");
 
 if ($vbulletin->db->num_rows($vsaabgreeter_posted) > 0)
 {
         $vsaabgreeter_done = true;
 }
 
 $vsaabgreeter_exechour = date('H', $vsaabgreeter_propertime); 


[hr]-[/hr]

With:

PHP Code:

 $vsaabgreeter_Time = new DateTime("now", new DateTimeZone('UTC'));
 $vsaabgreeter_offset = $vbulletin->options[timeoffset];
 $vsaabgreeter_Time->modify(($vsaabgreeter_offset >= 0 ? '+' . $vsaabgreeter_offset : $vsaabgreeter_offset) . 'hour');
 
 $vsaabgreeter_execdate = $vsaabgreeter_Time->format('m-d');
 
 $vsaabgreeter_done = false;
 $vsaabgreeter_posted = $vbulletin->db->query_read(" SELECT daydone  FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "vsa_birthdaythread WHERE daydone =  '".$vbulletin->db->escape_string($vsaabgreeter_execdate)."' ");
 
 if ($vbulletin->db->num_rows($vsaabgreeter_posted) > 0)
 {
         $vsaabgreeter_done = true;
 }
 
 $vsaabgreeter_exechour = $vsaabgreeter_Time->format('H'); 


[hr]-[/hr]


Note that the exclude times are still there, which by default means that no threads will be created after 20:00. These times can be altered in the array shown below

PHP Code:

 $vsaabgreeter_exchrs = array(20,21,22,23); 


[hr]-[/hr]

or removed completely by replacing:

PHP Code:

 $vsaabgreeter_exechour = $vsaabgreeter_Time->format('H');
 $vsaabgreeter_exchrs = array(20,21,22,23);
 
 if (!$vsaabgreeter_done AND !in_array($vsaabgreeter_exechour, $vsaabgreeter_exchrs)) 


[hr]-[/hr]

with

PHP Code:

 if (!$vsaabgreeter_done) 


[hr]-[/hr]

Attached is a file with all changes.

[voglermc]

Thanks Kras!

[voglermc]

Kras, I'm getting this error since installing your version

Warning: DateTime::modify() [datetime.modify]: Failed to parse time string (hour) at position 0 (h): The timezone could not be found in the database in [path]/includes/class_bootstrap.php(517) : eval()'d code on line 91

[-=Leb=-]

I wouldn't install it without valter's permission!