Major Additions - Yet Another Awards System

*** CREATE A BACKUP OF YOUR FORUM AND DATABASE BEFORE INSTALLING ***

DESCRIPTION:
This is a Medals/Awards system. Admin can give members awards, and award icons will be displayed in member's profile, posts, as well as in a award list.

FEATURES:
In AdminCP
- Can Create/Edit/Delete/Reorder categories/sub-categories in ACP (with category name and description)
- Can Create/Edit/Delete awards in ACP (with Award Name, Description, Icon URL, Image URL)
- Can Move one (or all) award(s) from one category to another
- Can set some awards un-classified (not displayed for public)
- Can re-order awards in awards showcase
- Issue awards to members, based on username or userid, with Issue Reason
- Remove awards from members
+ Writes granting/removing awards to the log

In ModCP
- Issue awards to members, based on username or userid, with Issue Reason
- Remove awards from members
+ Writes granting/removing award to the log

Front page
- Display awards list in with: Award Name, Description, Icon, Image, and Members who get each award.
- Display awards showcase in profile, with Award information, Issue time and reason
- Display award icons in postbit (showthread, showpost, announcement, private)

New Features/Additions since 3.8
- Points System
- Separate Award Request/Recommendation Forms
- CSS Customizable

Current Release Version 4.0.9

• Added - Handling of user merges
• Added - Handling of user deletes
• Added - Manage awards on per user basis
• Added - Extra info to the logs for mass removal and editing of issued awards
• Added - Ability to collapse categories on awards.php
• Added - Checksum file for checking for suspect file versions
• Added - Various missing phrases
• Fixed - Memberlist not showing awards when option is active
• Fixed - Navtab not being selected (vb version < 4.2)
• Fixed - Category title not being displayed on awards.php
• Fixed - Logging not working in modcp
• Fixed - A few other minor bugs

[squidsk]

Originally Posted by mIQe

Well I guess you and I read different things in to the term support. I read it as this: If a product is supported the customers can come with what ever problems they have with the product and get the help they need to fix the problem. It doesn't matter if it is free or not. What matters is that it is supported or not.

This product is supposed to be supported.

If it does mean what you say that it is just patches and such, then an other word then supported should be used. Such as In Active Development or some thing along those lines. Using supported is misleading in that case.

The difference we have is my expectations for support differ vastly if I'm paying for it as opposed to getting it for free from someone who likely has a full time job and does this for fun in whatever spare time he or she has. At work the servers are on a 4 hour turn around, and I'd be pissed if I didn't get service within that 4 hour window without a damn good reason, but my company pays a premium for that service. Here where I pay nothing for the service my expectations are much lower.

As for the award automation, it does not work, at all. I've tested with a 1 day membership award and it isn't awarded either. If it is some setting I've not done right or not, I have no idea as the documentation on how to use the product is not 100% on how to set it up. Nor have I gotten support here to sort it out.

Personally we don't use it on our site, so I'm limited in what I can do since I've never played around with it.

As for rewarding automated awards retroactively, if it was a button you could click to start a process to check each member's amount of days as a member once, then it wouldn't be a huge amount of queries that runs all the time. Plus those that wouldn't like to use that function could choose not to. But since it's not working at all this is all just wishful thinking.

Why have a button, retroactive awards only need to be applied once, and its easy enough to craft an SQL query that will give the award to those that should have it, then there's no extra messy bits lying around your install.

[mIQe]

Originally Posted by squidsk

The difference we have is my expectations for support differ vastly if I'm paying for it as opposed to getting it for free from someone who likely has a full time job and does this for fun in whatever spare time he or she has. At work the servers are on a 4 hour turn around, and I'd be pissed if I didn't get service within that 4 hour window without a damn good reason, but my company pays a premium for that service. Here where I pay nothing for the service my expectations are much lower.

My expectations for support differs as well, just as yours do. How ever waiting weeks for help is not what I call support. If I paid for a product I expect 24 hour support and that they can solve the problems in a day. For a free product like this, I expect that something should have happened in 3 weeks time.

Personally we don't use it on our site, so I'm limited in what I can do since I've never played around with it.

I understand. Well I have tried to follow the very limited instructions and I can say that it does not work. So either I did something from due to bad instructions or the product is faulty.

Why have a button, retroactive awards only need to be applied once, and its easy enough to craft an SQL query that will give the award to those that should have it, then there's no extra messy bits lying around your install.

You say that as if I would have any idea what SQL is. I don't. I'm totally illiterate when it comes to stuff like that. Thus in need of support when it doesn't work.

So far, the forum logo on the awards page is not in the same place as it is on any other forum pages. - I've been told it might be the skin wrapper, but I don't get why that would be different for this page and not the others. It seems to draw all the info from the same place after all.

The awards that should be atomized aren't automated. - I've tried many different settings, I can't get it to hand out awards. I have no idea if it is retroactive or not.

[squidsk]

Originally Posted by mIQe

My expectations for support differs as well, just as yours do. How ever waiting weeks for help is not what I call support. If I paid for a product I expect 24 hour support and that they can solve the problems in a day. For a free product like this, I expect that something should have happened in 3 weeks time.

I have a different take on things as I have written a couple of free programs, and while I do offer support, often it isn't timely due to other constraints and patches can be months in the making even if the bugs are small and easy to fix.

You say that as if I would have any idea what SQL is. I don't. I'm totally illiterate when it comes to stuff like that. Thus in need of support when it doesn't work.

I forget sometimes that not everyone who administers a site necessarily has the technical skills to do the behind the work fixes that are sometimes required.

So far, the forum logo on the awards page is not in the same place as it is on any other forum pages. - I've been told it might be the skin wrapper, but I don't get why that would be different for this page and not the others. It seems to draw all the info from the same place after all.

I'd guess this is actually a problem with your skin, as you've been told. The easy way to check it is does the default skin look normal or does it have the same issue on the awards page. If it doesn't its a skin issue, if it does its an issue with the plugin, but on my forum I don't see any problems with the default skin.

[Gamelobby]

I installed this and the award page was all messed up. I deleted the mod and now I cannot re-install it. Any Ideas?

vB - 4.1.10

[squidsk]

Yes, there's currently a problem with the uninstaller for the mod not actually removing all tables, so when you try and re-install the mod it fails because the tables its trying to create already exist. The easiest way to fix the issue is to remove the sections of the install code that generate the errors, so if its giving you an error that says table A already exists then go into the install code and remove the entry that adds that table.

[mIQe]

Originally Posted by squidsk

I have a different take on things as I have written a couple of free programs, and while I do offer support, often it isn't timely due to other constraints and patches can be months in the making even if the bugs are small and easy to fix.

Well I've hosted websites with free custom made 3D models mods for games and provided support for that and I would try and be swift about giving it as it then was no longer on my to do list. Not everything I've asked about have been bugs, some have been about how to use the product and that should be fairly fast and easy to answer. Don't you think?

Originally Posted by squidsk

I forget sometimes that not everyone who administers a site necessarily has the technical skills to do the behind the work fixes that are sometimes required.

Well I managed to uninstall this product so I could try and install it again. So I'm not clueless if I get a reasonably understandable description on how to do something. I just can't whip something up on my own.

Originally Posted by squidsk

I'd guess this is actually a problem with your skin, as you've been told. The easy way to check it is does the default skin look normal or does it have the same issue on the awards page. If it doesn't its a skin issue, if it does its an issue with the plugin, but on my forum I don't see any problems with the default skin.

I've used a default skin and made a few new skins with the Style Generator and the image is aligned wrong using them too...

[Sarab]

Hello,

Will this mod have a patch or upgrade for 4.1.10 or not? if yes will it take long to see it available?

Best Regards
Sarab

[DAMINK]

Originally Posted by squidsk

Yes, there's currently a problem with the uninstaller for the mod not actually removing all tables, so when you try and re-install the mod it fails because the tables its trying to create already exist. The easiest way to fix the issue is to remove the sections of the install code that generate the errors, so if its giving you an error that says table A already exists then go into the install code and remove the entry that adds that table.

Wouldnt it just be easier to drop the tables themselves?
Instead of modifying the install code.

[squidsk]

Originally Posted by DAMINK

Wouldnt it just be easier to drop the tables themselves?
Instead of modifying the install code.

Of course it would, except not everyone knows how to drop a table and it usually easier to edit a file than create an sql query, especially as not all the errors are related to tables not being dropped, there are also fields that are causing issues as well if you look back at the thread.

[KGodel]

It would be great if there was a way to have category-specific postbits. Say, awards from Category X,Y,Z display under profile, but from Category A, B, and C display right of signature.