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.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Originally Posted by Morgalis

much obliged sir

I did a test install of this hack today on a vB 3.0.7 board, and it runs perfect without any modifications. Please double check your edits.

What version of vB are you using?

PS I suggest the instructions of step 5 tp be changed from "Add below" to "Add Above". With the origianl instructions the mail will only be send if the cronjob is set to be logged. This don't make much sense to me.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Actually i released that all of those 3 require_once lines are really unneeded. The hack will function the same if they are removed.

Leaving them in place where they are now could even be a (minor) security risk. If they would stay in this hack, i suggest you move them below the following line:

PHP Code:

if (!is_object($DB_site))
{
    exit;
} 


[ozmazdaclub]

Does this work in 3.0.8

I did a clean install and have checked all the edits and this is still not working

Help Required...

[ozmazdaclub]

Never Mind.... Got it working after commenting out a few lines.. my bad...

[ozmazdaclub]

Will this be ported to 3.5?

[csidlernet]

nicework thanks!

[utw-Mephisto]

Originally Posted by sydneymazdaclub

Will this be ported to 3.5?

[high]* utw-Mephisto want to know as well[/high]

[MB Dreamz]

I've had this hack installed and running fine for the past few days without any issues, until today. It just so happens that no one has a birthday today, but I still received an email like this:

Here are today's birthdays:



Birthday Thread:
http://www.cafetrends.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1898

And it started a new thread just like it did before but without any names. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[cpz]

How can I add a small animated birthday banner below "user birthday(i'm not telling ) in the birthday threads
I uploaded banner into my forum/images/banners file

[SCRIPT3R]

[vB 3.0.9]

installed as instructed; works perfectly!