Add-On Releases - vBExperience 3.8

vBExperience 3.8 (aka xPerience)

Created by Marius Czyz aka Phalynx.

Triple Winner of the "Mod of the Month"-Award (March 2008, September 2009, July 2010) on vBulletin.org.

A version for vBulletin 4.0 has been released! Thread: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=245023


vBExperience 3.8.6 is currently (August 2010) in development.


Description
vBExperience is your feature packaged solution for motivation and satisfying your users. vBExperience is an advanced Level/Promotion and Activity System with Shop, Awards and Activities. It will calculate an activity and experience score for every user based on their activites on the forum. Now your users will see how their level is increasing by participating on your forum.

This mod was developed by me because I was never satisfied with the post count. Communities are not only defined by post count, they need much more parameters: Are the postings the user creates helpful? Are his threads frequently read? Does the user participate on the community by posting pictures, attachments, leaving visitor messages, tagging threads? All this can be answered with this mod.

Comments, suggestions, translations, bugs, etc... are very welcome! Support is only given to people who have clicked Mark as Installed.


Compatibility
This mod will work with vBulletin 3.7.x and 3.8.x. For vBulletin 3.6 you will need vBExperience 3.7



Demo:
http://www.insideearth.net/xperience.php?langid=5

Demo 3.8.6:
http://www.insidetwoworlds.com/xperience.php

Other Demo Site:
http://www.insidesupcom.de/xperience.php?langid=1


There are mainly four things visible for the users: The users score, his level, his next level up in %/points and his activity in %.


Calculation of the score
Taken into calculation are these things:
Threads
- Created threads
- Thread views of own threads
- Thread replies of own threads
- Thread votes of own threads
- Thread tags
- Replies to own threads
- Sticky threads
- Socialgroup Discussions (Discussions, Posts)

Posts
- Created posts
- Views on attachments

User
- Days since registration
- Average posts per Day (for users who are on forum for at least seven days)
- Referrals
- Received infractions
- Reputation / Use of reputation system
- Visitor messages on profiles
- Members of own social groups
- Albumpictures
- Friends
- Completing Profile

Misc
- Calendar entries


Additionally there is support for 3rd party addons (some are already installed):
- vB Tournaments and Ladders (via CDP Addon)
- Post Ranking System (via CDP Addon)
- Helpful Answers (via CDP Addon)
- AWCoding-Donation System LITE and PRO (via CDP Addon)
- Cyb Paypal Donate (included)
- DownloadsII (included)
- ibProArcade Highscorer Points (via CDP Addon)
- LDM Links and Downloads Manager (included)
- PhotoPlog 2.1 (via CDP Addon)
- PhotoPost vBGallery (via CDP Addon)
- PhotoPost Pro (via CDP Addon)
- Post Thank You / Use of Post Thank You (via CDP Addon)
- QuoteIt! 3.16 (via CDP Addon)
- SAPR: Advanced Post Rating system (via CDP Addon)
- thanks via vS-Hide Hack Resurrection (Expanded Edition) (included)
- v3arcade Highscorer Points (via CDP Addon)
- v3arcade Submissions Points (via CDP Addon)
- vBulletin Blog (included)
- Who Downloaded This Attachment? (included)
- Other Addons can be easily added via CDP - Custom Data Provider plugins.

Additionally you can install these modifications:
- Thread Necromancer: Gives (minus-) points when a user is posting in old threads.
- Scrupulous Poster: Gives points for editing posts. Award users that are editing own posts instead of doing double post.
- Deletion Addicted: Gives points when an user/nod soft-deletes post, thread, visitormessage, groupmessage or picturecomment.
- Arm of Law: Give points for moderators who are using the infraction system
- Discussion Ender: Give points for people who are the last on a discussion
- RadioActivity: Reduce points for every day the user is not online

Also, there are already addons available that are working as Custom Data Provider (CDP). A CDP can extend vBExperience by collecting data and adding it to the vBExperience datastore. All point providers can be used for Awards and Shop.

You have to install these hacks for your own, vBExperience doesn't install nor touches these.


vBAdvanced
There are three vBAdvanced 3.0 XML modules: Most Active Users, Most Experienced Users and Last 20 Activities. Import them via vBAdvanced AdminCP.


Awards
There are six default awards: Most Popular, Activity Award, Posting Award, Community Award, Frequent Poster, Blog Award, Calendar Award. The awards are shown in Rankings and Profile. You can set them also to display in postbit near the username. There is a scheduled job running once a day (02:30h) to calculate them.
Via AdminCP they are completely customizeable and can also be assigned manually.
Awards can be created for every data provider.


Rankings
Showing User, Level, Awards, Activity Points (experience, thread, post, user, misc) - sortable.
Since 3.8.3, there is a also a ranking for Social Groups

Shop
A virtual Shop will motivate your users to earn more points. You can define categories and put virtual items with pictures in it. A currency can be defined seperatly for every item, e.g. 20 points from threads or 100 points from gallery. Users can purchase the items, they appear in their profile. The costs of the item are substracted from their xperience points. Additionally you can set quantity of the items.
The Shop will motivate your users to collect specific points to buy an item. Optionally you can show the last purchased items on postbit.
You can put virtual items in it, like WoW addons: Sell WoW Items in exchange of f.e. thread points. Great for RPG forums.
Non-Virtual Items like bold Usernames or Downloads for Points are already on my todo list.

Earn Points
There is an overview for the user on how points can be collected, with a list of users own points. All data is beeing pulled from the database (settings, phrases)

Statistics
The statistics is showing a Top-X list of the leading users. Usefull for optimizing points of the point provider. Only enabled point providers with results will be displayed.


Promotion system
To motivate users to do more on your forum I created the promotion system. By reaching defined xperience points the user will be moved to another usergroup - where you can set graphics, shadows, highlighting, etc... What is interesting in combination with this: you can give the user more possibilities f.e. larger avatars or bigger PM box. A log of the promotions is available.


Calculation of the activity
The system calculates the activity by taking the average post count/visitormessages/group discussion/Blog entries of the ten most active user and comparing it to own post count. This can be set to count only the last X days, f.e. 21 days.


Settings
You can control how many points are given to every calculation. For example you can give many points for creating new threads but only a few for views of that thread. Setting a value to 0 will disable a setting.
Additionally, you can set ignore users (f.e. for bot users), forums (f.e. offtopic forums) and usergroup id's.


Performance, Big Boards
vBExperience has been tested on smaller and also on some bigger sites. I know from boards with around 120k users running this mod smoothly. More about this topic can be read in the file readme_optimization.txt


Frequently asked questions
Q: How do I change the name Experience to something new?
A: You can change the name via phrases. Just search and replace all phrases that contains vBExperience.

Q: When installing vBExperience, does everyone start from scratch, or will it automatically configure everyone's points based on actions before the install?
A: If you recount, vBExperience will calculate ALL existing data since the beginning of the board.

Known Issues:
- Awards: On "Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread" awards are only shown for the user who is viewing this.
- Awards: If activated in with rich username, they are attached to the username. If the username is linked, the awards are also linked. If a link is underlined, the awards are also underlined. This behaviour is hardcoded in vBulletin and cannot be fixed.
- Settings are showing only a blank page, read here: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/proje...6979#note74140
- If you completely remove vBExperience, you need also to uninstall the product XML manually from the pluginssystem

Credits for icons
- FAMFAMFAM, http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/
- IconExperience


History
3.8.4.3 / 3.8.5 Beta 5, 10th July 2011
- Prio 1 security patch, please update just xperience.php!


3.8.5 Beta 4, 25th September 2009
- Promotions: Listing now also the last Usergroup. Please notice the new settings for nethermost/uppermost usergroups.
- Several minor cosmetic changes
- Clear Activities (except Shop)
- Fixed error with GetActivityAll() on profile
- Several Beta 3 fixes

3.8.5 Beta 3, 18th September 2009
- Fixed Promotions
- Fixed Notifications
- Added Activities to Promotions
- All Activities are not obeying limit
- AdminCP/Experience has a recount for Promotions and Achievements
- Fixed listing of Achievements with Firefox
- Several Beta 2 fixes

3.8.5 Beta 2, 02nd September 2009
- Just a short note: Condition in Achievements and Promotions are calculated in POINTS, not in counts of items.
If you choose 10 Day, you must enter the points needed for this.
For example: You have an achievement for 10 days. You have set 2 points for every day since registering. Calculation: 10*2 = 20
You will have to set 20 as the condition.
- New tabbed interface. If you want to change the style, edit the template xperience_navbar_css
- Promotions now showing usergroups and conditions for a promotion to the next group
- You can import old vBExperience Legacy promotions (that were created within level.xml)
- Achievements in Profile
- Achievements below Avatar
- Several Beta 1 fixes

3.8.5 Beta 1, 28th August 2009
- Achievements!
- Promotions!
- Notification on Awards, Promotions and Achievements
- GAP: Empty pointfields will not be displayed anymore
- Activity: Showing percent values with a decimal
- Activities now also for users
- Awards below Avatar
- Default Awards are now also creating new category
- Shop: Fixed issue in not returning cash on sells
- Reworked Edit Shop Items



For more see history.txt

[RK1gaming]

yea downloaded the package today and seeing the same errors with the achievements when people get them as a notification - getting a 404 error -

I am also not getting the points set up option and other things that i had before .. I will re-download and re-upload to make sure I a not missing something but i have had VB EXP for a while now - but will double check

[RK1gaming]

here is a view of my exp menu seems things are missing

[rugby]

i tried this activity code in forumhome template after $navbar, but its not working

$activity

i tried this also in forumhome template

<if condition="$foundactivity==0">
		<td class="alt1" width="100%">
			$vbphrase[xperience_no_activities]
		</td>
	<else />
	<td>
		$activity
	</td>
	</if>
</tr>

again that is not working too, is there something i can do to make this work?

i have attached screenshot below, it keeps on showing as no activities yet, but in xperience it shows all the activities.

please let me know the code to put in forumhome template to make that activities work properly.

[m3rl1nuk]

Yes double checked and all files upped ok, reverted back to the last stable version for now :-)

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by RK1gaming

here is a view of my exp menu seems things are missing

You do realize that you have additional controls for Experience in your vBoptions menu, right?

[thetgc]

great mod

for the bars, is the code available so i can place it where i want? as the option to place it where i want isnt there

thanks,

[Phalynx]

I'm back now. Will answer all questions today.

Yes, I'm aware of the problem with the forum prefix /forum/ in notifications. Also, I will take a deeper look at the promotions.
Disregard the readme for promotions that says you will have to edit XML files and import them. It has been replaced with the GUI in the AdminCP.

Originally Posted by Bleed0ut

Phalynx...

Possible Bug.


Notice username Triz... He obviously has points for average posts per day, yet when showing his total in the left frame it only shows a total of the points shown in the other frames. His Average Posts per Day points are 4 so his left total should be 5553 eventho his average posts per day aren't high enough to show.

Hope you understand where I'm getting at...

Originally Posted by Bleed0ut

EDIT: Wait I just realized I didn't even know what I was getting at. Why does it list Average posts per day if we don't get any points for it?

AVG PPD are independent of the points for posts, as they are need for calculating the Activity percentage.

Originally Posted by SEW810

Sorry about double post.

Another thing....
There is no link to regenerate achievements just like in Awards or Show shop items at postbit

Maybe this is an issue:
I have deleted default Achievements but they are still apearing at post bit.
Permofming a recount.... be right back.

EDITED ***********
Nothing happened with recount. I have clicked on "Clear all issued Achievements and Logs" link too but nothing happened

EDITED AGAIN***********

Never mind, achievements at postbit have gone now

Will take a deeper look to make it more comfortable.

Originally Posted by LGKeiz

Thanks for fixing the first problem!

Now I'm having issue with a user receiving negative points when they gave points away he explained it 100% in this post

http://gamingsync.com/showthread.php?p=4756#post4756

can you check it out, thanks!

Will take a deeper look and fix it for next beta.

Originally Posted by LGKeiz

Also your showcase block is poorly coded, I've highlighted what you don't need in the showcase block

<if condition="$vboptions[xperience_achievements_postbit_wrap]">
<div class="alt1 block_row">
	<fieldset class="alt1">
	<legend>$vbphrase[xperience_achievements_short]</legend></if>
		$achievements
	<if condition="$vboptions[xperience_achievements_postbit_wrap]"></fieldset>
	</div>
	<else />
	<br/>
	</if>

It causes custom styles to have extra lining in the showcase box.

PS: I've tested it on my styles, and other styles, and default vb styles it looks the way it should look.

Please don't say poorly. It's just not optimized
Will change it.

Originally Posted by bold

Phalynx, can you make it so that the categories in the shop are in two columns? The long list of categories in my shop makes you scroll far down to see the items.

Added to my todo list.

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by p4rp4d30

Hi, vBExperience not update by itself makes the user statistics is = to 0

Please click "Mark as Installed" to get support.

Originally Posted by Nephalim

I got a problem where members get a message about acheivements. But when they click on it theres a error page. The link in the message dropdown ends with;;;; achievements#xpa but the page is just ;;;; achievements

really cool add-on though. Hopefully we'll get this little error fixed

Please specify more, e.g. screenshots or URL.

Originally Posted by neoxephon

I noticed that some people are having problems with the Notifications menu links for vBExperience 3.85

The links end up pointing to http://www.mysite.com/member.php...
Instead of http://www.mysite.com/forums/member.php...

I fixed this for my forums and thought I would share how to fix it.

1. First, if you already have vBExperience installed, uninstall it.
2. Open up "product_vbexperience385.xml" in a text editor.
3. Make the following changes:

Find:


The links in the Notifications menu should now be fixed.

Thanks for the help, but I already had it that way. That problem is that some users are having a backslash "/" in the settings, some users not.

Originally Posted by lycheepassion

Hey it says import the xml files how do I do that ive ftpd the files binary and text only not sure what to do next

AdminCP, Plugins & Products, Import Product XML

Originally Posted by OneShot

I'm having some problems with vBExp 3.8.5 Beta 2 and Downloads 5.1.0. I'm running both on vB 3.7.5 PL1.

Through some experimentation I tracked the problem down to vBExp. The Problem is that whenever someone tries to download a file via the Download section he gets the message "You don't have permission to download this file"

When I disable vBExp everything works, but then thats obviously not the best solution. nybody got an idea where the problem might lie and how I might be able to fix it ?

Cannot confirm that.
It seems you installed the LDM plugin for vBExperience. Are you using it in the shop?

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by Nephalim

I'm getting so many database errors that I had to turn the experience product off on my forum.

Please tell me all of them. I cannot fix it if I don't know of it.

Originally Posted by AJ CHRI

i have a problem with the vbsxperienze all moderator returned user! way?

Please click "Mark as Installed" to get support. Disable the promotions if you don't configured them.

Originally Posted by JVCode

Loving the new achievements feature, are there any plans to add more achievements to this ?or if anyone else has made custom achievements, are you willing to share with us? I'm useless at making the images for them lol.

Yes, I plan to integrate far more achievements.

Originally Posted by RK1gaming

am i missing something or is this new release missing files and stuff

Did you downloaded the ZIP and extracted all files of it?

[Phalynx]

Originally Posted by m3rl1nuk

install beta 2 have the following error when you click on member name and acheivment notifications

Fatal error: Call to undefined function GetActivityAll() in /member.php(463) : eval()'d code on line 297

It seems you are using an outdated product xml. Please reimport it.

Originally Posted by RK1gaming

here is a view of my exp menu seems things are missing

They are not missing, take a look at the vBulletin Options.

Originally Posted by rugby

i tried this activity code in forumhome template after $navbar, but its not working

$activity

i tried this also in forumhome template

<if condition="$foundactivity==0">
		<td class="alt1" width="100%">
			$vbphrase[xperience_no_activities]
		</td>
	<else />
	<td>
		$activity
	</td>
	</if>
</tr>

again that is not working too, is there something i can do to make this work?

i have attached screenshot below, it keeps on showing as no activities yet, but in xperience it shows all the activities.

please let me know the code to put in forumhome template to make that activities work properly.

It will not work as the code that is preparing $activity is not active on that place.

Originally Posted by thetgc

great mod

for the bars, is the code available so i can place it where i want? as the option to place it where i want isnt there

thanks,

Check options, there you can move it in the template hooks of the postbit template.