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.

[sticky]

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 ...

Exactly, EXACTLY, why in the hell do the people at Vbulletin not understand this.

[sticky]

Originally Posted by Carnage-

just to clarify:

default behaviour for a promoted thread is to create a new thread in the CMS comments forum that all article comments go into.

This mod makes it so that instead of doing that the thread that was promoted is used for the comments regardless of which forum it was in when it was promoted. It also means that any existing replies to the thread get displayed as comments on the article as soon as its promoted.

I'm taking another look at this mod but when I had it installed last that is not how it worked or maybe I was using it wrong.

Don't you need to have a specified forum for comments? As in, you can't just promote any thread from any forum and that original thread will serve for comments?

[fcherub]

Excellent, I've been looking for this...
should be default
nominated and rated 5 star
thanks

[mmacrypt]

I've also installed and love it so far, thank you for this mod.

[Carnage]

Don't you need to have a specified forum for comments? As in, you can't just promote any thread from any forum and that original thread will serve for comments?

You still need the cms comments forum; comment threads for articles that are created normally go in there. This only effects the comment threads for articles that were promoted from the forums.

[Ohiocustoms]

Nominated

Thank you.

[mitch84]

thank you, installed

[cbehan]

GREAT mod. love it.

Installed and nominated!

[wcguy]

I disabled this mod in the product manager before updating to 4.0.4 and when I went to re-enable I received this error message......

The following products are required by Use Original Thread for Comments and must also be enabled:
1.vBulletin CMS
To continue enabling all these products, click here.

Since I already have the CMS enabled, I am unwilling to click the "enable all these products" link for fear of creating a duplicate type bug/scenario......

I love this mod. Any advice?

[wcguy]

Crud. Even with the mod disabled, users can ad comments to an article promoted from the forum in the CMS, but then those comments won't show up on the CMS, even though the comment count is correct.

I'll have to think of a work around.