Links and Files Database

The VB3.0 version is no longer supported although there have been no reported problems for some time

See here for the VB 3.6 version of this hack, which is now the supported version. This version currently also works with VB 3.5
See here for the VB 3.5 thread for this hack.

What's new in v1.60?

Option to display associated thumbnail images
Option to accept/not accept new entries if these already exists in database
Code for mass edits (accessed via admincp) tidied up
VB phrasing completed
Includes a full French and a partial German translation (thanks to cclaerhout, Allan and LeeWicKeD), handled properly by installation script.
Various bugs fixed and tested against php4 and php5:
Better database validation (on startup/in admincp: links with invalid associated forumids, categories with invalid parentids)
Alternative linkbit templates provided (default uses a fieldset, the other is the old-style table row)
Alternative category selection templates (pull down menu/list of checkboxes),
Star rating displayed using standard VB stars rather than in text form
Series of minor bug fixes
See file change.txt in zip file

What it is/does

- Provides a searchable database of weblinks and/or downloadable files, for example manuals, music files, pictures, etc.
- Integrates within VBulletin, without requiring any code changes.
- Transparently handles links and file downloads. (If you want to provide downloads from your own site, you need a separate tool to upload these files. This hack does not and will not include a file uploader.)
- Provides unlimited nested categories.
- Each link/file can be a member of multiple categories.
- Link and category title and descriptions can use all BBCODEs, giving the possibility to add images, colouring, etc, as you wish
- Viewing/access permissions controlled using VBulletin forum system
- Users can rate links, in a similar manner to VB thread rating.
- File downloads are semi-leechproof, i.e. the user does not see where the file is stored and can only access the link if she has access to the associated forum.
- Audio files playable via Windows Media Player can be offered as a jukebox .
- Tracks who downloads what
- Validates links on entry/editing, and provides admin facility to validate the entire database.

Installation/upgrading instructions

Read instructions.txt in the zip file. Installation script works out whether to install or upgrade.

To upgrade from an earlier release of this hack, simply re-run the installation script. If you modified the templates in the top styles, you will lose these modifications unless you back up and re-edit.

PLEASE BACK UP YOUR DATABASE

See also

For screen shots, see attachments.

Tested with

VBulletin 3.0 and higher
PHP 4.1.1 and 4.3.4, should work with all 4.x versions, seems ok with 5.0.4
MySQL 4.0.
Reported ok with MySQL 4.1 but not exhaustively tested

Credits

Initially inspired by drkFusion's vb2 hack "vb Link Directory" v.2 and discussion about v.3 on Vbulletin.org. This is a complete rewrite with many more features. Every credit to the VBulletin folks for providing the infrastructure and to those on vbulletin.org who have helped with testing.

Integrations/Conversions

Natch has written extensions to integrate this hack with VBindex and VBAdvanced.

For convenience, this hack includes fully integrates with, but does not install, his VBIndex hack - i.e. the required template and code are provided, and the admin panel handles the configuration settings. Please refer to his thread for instructions.

Integration with VBadvanced is described in thread 1319 at vbadvanced.com.

The zip file includes a script and instructions for converting from vbLinks v2 (see thread 44551

[rmorley]

Ok Andrew, so if I want to allow anyone to view and add links, but I want to moderate all the added links, I should set moderate_link parameter to 1, and set default_forumid to "none". In the permissions section the can_add_link parameter has every usergroup checked.

I am not sure if it matters, but I set "Can_Set_permissions" to only the administrator.

Is there anything I am missing? I cant explain it, but unregistered users are seeing all links, even those awaiting moderation. However, a registered user does not see the items awaiting moderation.

Thanks for your help, and sorry about being a pest.

Originally Posted by AndrewD

If a link is created by a user who is authorised to moderate links, then the link is immediately accepted. Moderation only applies to links created by users who are not authorised to moderate. I suspect that is what you are seeing.

The separate question is how to create links that can only be viewed by certain users. You do this by associating the link with a VB forum which has the required viewing permissions.

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by rmorley

Ok Andrew, so if I want to allow anyone to view and add links, but I want to moderate all the added links, I should set moderate_link parameter to 1, and set default_forumid to "none". In the permissions section the can_add_link parameter has every usergroup checked.

I am not sure if it matters, but I set "Can_Set_permissions" to only the administrator.

Is there anything I am missing? I cant explain it, but unregistered users are seeing all links, even those awaiting moderation. However, a registered user does not see the items awaiting moderation.

Thanks for your help, and sorry about being a pest.

I understand the problem

When moderation is switched on, new links are only visible to the user who submitted the entry and to moderators, until the link has been moderated.

However, if you allow an unregistered user to add new links, this creates the difficulty you observe. Logic:
- link was created by userid 0 (the userid of an unregistered user)
- any other unregistered user also has userid 0, therefore the hack thinks that they are the same user who added the link, therefore displays the unmoderated link.
- any registered user who is not a moderator has a different userid, therefore cannot see the unmoderated link

Possible solutions:
- I change the code so that links added by unregistered users are only visible to moderators (i.e. not even to the person who added the link) until the link has been accepted by a moderator
- You only allow registered users to add links
- maybe there's another possible solution?

What do you think is best?

[rmorley]

Good, I'm glad I'm not going crazy. It does make sense now. Although it would be a bit more difficult, I think Option 1 (Links added by unregistered users can only be view by moderators) would probably be the best option.

Option two, I believe, could probably be implemented using the Default_Forumid parameter, if you wanted to restrict to only registered members.

Do you think this is a quick modification? If you can make the change, I would be willing to test it out for you.

Rob Morley

Originally Posted by AndrewD

I understand the problem

When moderation is switched on, new links are only visible to the user who submitted the entry and to moderators, until the link has been moderated.

However, if you allow an unregistered user to add new links, this creates the difficulty you observe. Logic:
- link was created by userid 0 (the userid of an unregistered user)
- any other unregistered user also has userid 0, therefore the hack thinks that they are the same user who added the link, therefore displays the unmoderated link.
- any registered user who is not a moderator has a different userid, therefore cannot see the unmoderated link

Possible solutions:
- I change the code so that links added by unregistered users are only visible to moderators (i.e. not even to the person who added the link) until the link has been accepted by a moderator
- You only allow registered users to add links
- maybe there's another possible solution?

What do you think is best?

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by rmorley

Good, I'm glad I'm not going crazy. It does make sense now. Although it would be a bit more difficult, I think Option 1 (Links added by unregistered users can only be view by moderators) would probably be the best option.

Option two, I believe, could probably be implemented using the Default_Forumid parameter, if you wanted to restrict to only registered members.

Do you think this is a quick modification? If you can make the change, I would be willing to test it out for you.

Rob Morley

Assuming that you are running v1.60, try the attached local_links.php. It's almost complete - the change also requires a mod to the 'whats new' count, but this should be enough for now. Let me know.

[rmorley]

Preliminary tests look good. I will continue to test it, and let you know what I find out. Thanks agian for responding so quickly, and putting together a quick fix for the problem!

Originally Posted by AndrewD

Assuming that you are running v1.60, try the attached local_links.php. It's almost complete - the change also requires a mod to the 'whats new' count, but this should be enough for now. Let me know.

[rmorley]

Andrew,

I am not sure if this is already in the works, or I just missed it on the admin page. When moderation is turned on, is it possible to have Vbulletin email a moderator so that they can review the added link and accept or reject it.

Is this option possible by using the default_forumid parameter?

Thanks

Rob

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by rmorley

Andrew,

I am not sure if this is already in the works, or I just missed it on the admin page. When moderation is turned on, is it possible to have Vbulletin email a moderator so that they can review the added link and accept or reject it.

Is this option possible by using the default_forumid parameter?

Thanks

Rob

This is not in the system at present and no-one had asked for it, but I'll give it some thought. I'm wary about the consequences - do different moderators receive different emails, do standard users receive emails when there is something new, should this be a 'cron' job - i.e. regular emails announcing status, etc.

The forum assignment does not have any connection with this - it is basically a mechanism for providing security and association.

[rmorley]

I had not thought of the new post notification for users. You could probably use some of the same code used in the subscription notification in VBulletin, but I am not sure how important this would be. I just looked at Vbulletin, and it looks like there is a cron job setup to handle thread subscriptions on an hourly basis. Rather than trying to re-create this, would it be possible to tap into the thread/post subscription process? I am not very familiar with the VBulletin coding, so I have no idea of the complexity of this enhancement.

Regarding emailing moderators, I was thinking about the possibility of creating a Moderator_Email_Address parameter. Then, when a new link is added, and being held for moderation, an Email could be sent to the moderator(s). Since this would probably only email a few folks, I was thinking that this could be run when the submit button is clicked.

Thanks agian for the enhancement that handles moderation of unregistered users.

-Rob

Originally Posted by AndrewD

This is not in the system at present and no-one had asked for it, but I'll give it some thought. I'm wary about the consequences - do different moderators receive different emails, do standard users receive emails when there is something new, should this be a 'cron' job - i.e. regular emails announcing status, etc.

The forum assignment does not have any connection with this - it is basically a mechanism for providing security and association.

[Goodspeed]

Originally Posted by AndrewD

I'm sure it's possible - but I've never used pafiledb.

a) Can you code in php? If so, you could use the source code in the subdirectory upgrade_vblinks (see the release zip file) as a template
b) can pafiledb export its contents in some readable format? If so, we could probably tweak that format to be imported here.

Andrew unfortunately I got really low skill in coding.

There is only database backup available in pafile db, is it possible to move data from sql dump to csv?

Forgot to ask you: is it possible to setup links category view in the same way as forum category view, I mean dept of forums? Something like here, at vbulletin.org?

Thank you for your help!

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by Goodspeed

Andrew unfortunately I got really low skill in coding.

There is only database backup available in pafile db, is it possible to move data from sql dump to csv?

Forgot to ask you: is it possible to setup links category view in the same way as forum category view, I mean dept of forums? Something like here, at vbulletin.org?

Thank you for your help!

I took a quick look at pafiledb. It's quite easy to translate the database format, however it would take me several hours to write and text the code. How many entries and categories do you have in your pafile database?

Concerning the second question, you can set up the category view to include subcategories to any depth.