Automatic Birthday Thread

This hack is inspired by the Birthday Hack for vB2 by Logician. It will automatically create a Happy Birthday thread in a specified forum, listing the people with birthdays for that day. Then other members can post their happy birthday wishes in the thread.

I had the original hack installed on my VB2 board and when I upgraded to VB3 my members missed it. Luckily, it's really easy to implement.

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Files to modify: /includes/cron/birthday.php
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Instructions are in the attached text file. The mod should take about 5 minutes.

Be sure to change the variables that say // CHANGE ME

You can customize the message in the $birthday_greeting_thread variable. You could also ad IMG tags with an image of some kind, like in my screenshot.

Note that you MUST turn on BB CODE in you birthday forum in order for this to work properly.
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Enjoy (and thanks for the inspiration, Logician!)
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New in Version 2.0:

Bug fixes:
> More accurate age calculation. Sometimes it was a year off.
> The correct thread shows up in the last thread post on the forum home page.
> HTML is not required to be turned on in the birthday forum.
> Most of the code is completely rewritten to vB3 standards.

New features:
> Improved look
> Birthday line now says: (User) was born on (date), (AGE: xx)
> If the year is not given, it says "Not telling! " for age.
> The admin is emailed a list of the birthdays with links to their profiles and a link to the happy birthday thread.
> If you use the uShop/uCash hack, you can give birthday points to the users

Upgrading:

Since the code has changed so drastically, I suggest starting with a fresh copy of birthday.php and following the instructions for a new install.

[venomx]

I use 3.0.3 and installed it fine... Not sure it works yet because I only have 7 members.... soooo hard to get members for a forum about everything.

[KW802]

Originally Posted by Megareus Rex

I see the creator of the hack has 3.0 Gold. Any plans to modify the hack to work on 3.0.3? (The code for birthday.php has changed some, so I'm not sure how to do it now.)

Worked fine for me with 3.0.3.

[Megareus Rex]

O.o really...

I'm reluctant to try and make the code work, merely because the birthday.php code isnt exactly what it asks you to search for, and testing the bot takes so long, and I'm not the paitent type...

Guess i might as well try though. Nothing to lose except someone doesnt get their precious b-day email, lol.

[House_of_Crazed]

Okay, I have a bug

Apparently, when more than 1 person has a birthday, it will not post the other people. Just one person.

I've gone through the code thousands of times and can't see anything.

[richier]

Originally Posted by House_of_Crazed

Okay, I have a bug

Apparently, when more than 1 person has a birthday, it will not post the other people. Just one person.

I've gone through the code thousands of times and can't see anything.

I am having the same problem it only shows one birthday not everyones on that day

Help please :nervous:

[ChurchMedia]

Two questions for both of you, then we'll try to figure it out.

1) Did you install the hack as described in the original instructions, or did you do any of the modifications suggested by other people in this post?

2) Have you run the cron job manually to see if you get any errors? You have to do this from the admin cp. You can \\ the vbmail lines to make sure that your members don't get emails while you are testing.

See if you can get an error message and we'll go from there.

[Boofo]

Originally Posted by ChurchMedia

Two questions for both of you, then we'll try to figure it out.

1) Did you install the hack as described in the original instructions, or did you do any of the modifications suggested by other people in this post?

2) Have you run the cron job manually to see if you get any errors? You have to do this from the admin cp. You can \\ the vbmail lines to make sure that your members don't get emails while you are testing.

See if you can get an error message and we'll go from there.

I get the same thing. It only pulls the first birthday.

[Lionel]

Works for me. Witnessed that 5 days ago with 2 birthdays

[richier]

Originally Posted by ChurchMedia

Two questions for both of you, then we'll try to figure it out.

1) Did you install the hack as described in the original instructions, or did you do any of the modifications suggested by other people in this post?

2) Have you run the cron job manually to see if you get any errors? You have to do this from the admin cp. You can \\ the vbmail lines to make sure that your members don't get emails while you are testing.

See if you can get an error message and we'll go from there.

Yes and Yes I get 1 birthday in the thread when I run the cron and thats all.

And no extra hacks

[House_of_Crazed]

1. Yes
2. Yes - I even put the original file back and redid it. Same thing.

No extra hacks has been installed for the birthday.php in the cron folder inside the includes folder.