Miscellaneous Hacks - [CMS] Use original thread for comments

As of 4.1.11 this functionality is included in vbulletin. So you no longer need this mod.

What does this do?
This is a really simple hack that sets the thread for article comments to be the original thread for any thread that is promoted to an article.

What can I use it for?
This mod has two major uses:

1. If you have a wealth of information in your forums and you want to promote it into articles, this mod allows you to retain the rest of the thread as comments in the cms while adding any new comments as replies to the thread; essentially allowing it to function as both a forum thread and a CMS article.

2. If you want to use multiple fourms for CMS comments. This is a fairly none obvious use case, but probably a popular one. If you have three sections in your cms (for example) and want each section to feed into its own forum, the current cms dosn't allow you to do this. With this mod installed, you can. Instead of creating your new article directly in the cms create it in the forum you wish to use for comments. Write your article as the first post of the thread and promote it to a cms article. Fill out the extra information needed (eg publish date) and save. Comments will be saved into the original thread, in the forum you created it in.

Installation Vb 4.0.1 and later
1. Import product

Uninstallation
1. Disable the plugin "set thread id"

Full uninstallation
1. Move threads that have been promoted to articles into the vbcms comments forum.
2. COPY the threads back to their original forums
3. Remove product

Steps 1 and 2 are needed to retain cache functions on the comments threads. Without them new comments will not appear on the article.

Changelog

• 4.0-0.1 a2
  • Fixed bug causing original thread to be delete when the article was deleted
• 4.0-0.1 a1
  • Initial release

Notes

• I believe this is the first mod for the CMS (not including addon widgets/content types)
• Removing this product entirly will cause issues with the cache on any articles using the original thread. Follow the uninstall steps to remove functionallity while retaining the ability to comment on these articles this mod has altered.
• [S] Although its compatible with vbulletin 4.0 Rc 4, a bug in RC 4 and 4.0.0 Gold prevents it from acctually working. I have provided a replacement hooks_vbcms.xml file which corrects the issue in the interim.[/S] (fixed in vb4.0.1)
• [s]Deleting an article will remove the associated original thread This is considered a bug in this product and will hopefully be fixed with the next release. [/s] (fixed)
• The above bug has been fixed, however pending this request: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/proje...?issueid=34188 Thread tags for the original thread will still be removed. There is /nothing/ I can do about that until the issue listed is resolved. (this has been marked as fixed in 4.0.2; will update further when i've tested that its fixed.)
• [S]If you hard delete the original thread without first removing the article you will be affected by this bug: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/proje...?issueid=34187 the fix I posted to that issue needs to be applied BEFORE deleting the original thread. After more research, this only becomes an issue if you promote a thread more than once. If you've done this, you can fix the error by clearing the CMS cache.[/S] (fixed in 4.0.1)

As of 4.1.11 this functionality is included in vbulletin. So you no longer need this mod.

[rollerman]

Originally Posted by carrlos

Yes, it was installed before-hand. Just click on the little "pencil" next to your home page name on the CMS page and it will take you to edit the page. You'll find it on the left-hand side under Section Information.


Yeah, I wish it did that too. I hate having to promote each time. Then you get taken to the screen where you have to choose all the publishing options. It would be nice to have an auto-promote hack that you can preconfigure with your publishing options in advance through the admincp. :up:

A-freaking-men! I'm dying for an auto-promote that will bring (in the case of my site) the latest news right up front for both visitors and current members just logging in.

Thanks, Carnage, for this mod. This will greatly simplify things on my end. Like pretty much everyone else said, why this wasn't at least an option from the get-go is beyond me. That's about as intuitive as it gets.

[joyboy2001]

Nominated ...

The way I see it, vBulletin IS a forum software and the CMS is addon functionality ... Discussions should be THE FIRST priority ...

vBulletin should have not created the mess of having 'Article comments' in the first place ... Discussions on all articles should take place within their own unique threads in their respective forums ... If vB is obsessed with showing the number of comments to the article, it should use the number of replies ...

Essentially, this mod would not have been required if vBulletin would have done it's job well ...

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by joyboy2001

Nominated ...

The way I see it, vBulletin IS a forum software and the CMS is addon functionality ... Discussions should be THE FIRST priority ...

vBulletin should have not created the mess of having 'Article comments' in the first place ... Discussions on all articles should take place within their own unique threads in their respective forums ... If vB is obsessed with showing the number of comments to the article, it should use the number of replies ...

Essentially, this mod would not have been required if vBulletin would have done it's job well ...

I agree totally. Add-ons should not take members or visitors away from the core, which is the forums.

[rollerman]

OK, what am I doing wrong? I've re-read this thread three times, and I just can't figure it out. If it's just importing a product, then something seriously isn't working for me. When I try to import it to "./includes/xml/product.xml," I get "Invalid File Specified." I've deleted and re-downloaded the XML file from here to no avail.

What am I missing?

[Videx]

Originally Posted by rollerman

OK, what am I doing wrong? I've re-read this thread three times, and I just can't figure it out. If it's just importing a product, then something seriously isn't working for me. When I try to import it to "./includes/xml/product.xml," I get "Invalid File Specified." I've deleted and re-downloaded the XML file from here to no avail.

What am I missing?

You may be taking the instructions too literally. If the .xml file is in your downloads folder, you want to import it from there. And it ain't called 'product.xml' - it's currently called 'product-imhotek_useoriginalthread alpha 2.xml'.

[rollerman]

Originally Posted by Videx

You may be taking the instructions too literally. If the .xml file is in your downloads folder, you want to import it from there. And it ain't called 'product.xml' - it's currently called 'product-imhotek_useoriginalthread alpha 2.xml'.

Doh!

I was trying to import hooks_vbcms.xml.


Thanks!

[murekhalir]

Do you install both xmls?

[Carnage]

no, the hooks xml is only required for older versions of vb4; if you are running 4.0.2 you just import the product.

[Carnage]

<a href="https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=231422" target="_blank">https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=231422</a> adds promote to the inline mod tools and works really well with this mod. Recommended for anyone looking for a quick and easy way to promote 100's of threads.

[osayidan]

Any way for this to keep or somehow make use of the thread prefixes of promoted articles?

With this mod allowing threads from any forum to become an article, when you have a root category showing all recent articles contained within it, things get confusing.

For example on a news forum one might have forums for various geographical locations, and on the CMS one root section on the front page to show all the recent articles contain within it's sub categories, but without prefixes people have to click on an article to find out what sub category it is in.

Even just transferring the prefix into the article title automatically when clicking on the promote button would be awesome. People sometimes forget to manually add it when promoting and it causes confusion and requires people to go back and fix these errors.