CommBull (Community Bulletin)

vb3.5 Commbull
vb3.6 Commbull

Note:
The 3.6 version is a commercial product, any queries on it should be submitted to: vb3.6 Support Site

THIS THREAD IS FOR SUPPORT FOR 3.0 VERSIONS ONLY. PLEASE VISIT THE APPROPRIATE FORUMS (links above) FOR THEIR SUPPORT

[valid point]
it's been brought to my attention that not everyone knows what this is ... fair enough: This hack is considered a "weekly newsletter" by the fact that it will email members (only sent by an admin) who have opted to receive it new posts, hot threads, etc ... basically a summary of what has been going on since the last time the newsletter was sent out. However there is a vast number of options, and I won't go into detail of all of them ... you can view the the images that I've attached, but u will only get a full idea by installing it.
I would say that there is 0 risk of this installation doing any damage to your current install as these are the changes that it does (manually and automatically):
- change profile.php and admincp/index.php
- add a couple columns to user table (receivebulletin and receivebulletin_type)
- add some phrases to phrase table (receive_email_from_commbull, type_email_from_commbull, newsletterformat, commbul)
- add a row to datastore table (commbull)
- add some html to nav template for admin side
So, if you are unhappy with the install. you can just ignore that it's there and it'll never cause any problems ... your next upgrade will overwrite any changes to the index and profile pages and the extra columns in the DB won't be an issue

[mods that i've added from vB2 version]
- to change languages, comment/uncomment line 22 and 23 to switch from English to German
- save prefs (option)
- skip to page X in case of mailout freeze
- auto redirect to next page (option)
- adding personalized text to top of newsletter w/out searching through the two text & html fields ... u'll c what i mean :ermm:

[INSTALL]
drop the 3 files into the admincp directory and then go to admincp/commbull.php ... follow the instructions and you are good to go.
If you find that the option isn't showing up on the control panel after the install, then it's because you aren't using the default phrases. Go into phrase manager, search for 'commbull' and update the fields appropriately.

If something goes wrong, don't worry .. it checks for already completed updates to the database to avoid redundancy ... enjoy!!

[traderx]

Thanks for the upload sabret00the.....

Will there ever be an update so that it will be able to be put on a schedule?

For some reason I am not getting any formatting like my forum, it's all white (see gif). I did change it to be able to use my css as a file thinking that was it, but it wasn't... see sig for site layout

Thanks

[sabret00the]

Originally Posted by interfx

I also just tried your version... Like it alot...

Let us know when you add in other add-ons like photopost, etc...

InterFX

will do

[sabret00the]

Originally Posted by traderx

Thanks for the upload sabret00the.....

Will there ever be an update so that it will be able to be put on a schedule?

For some reason I am not getting any formatting like my forum, it's all white (see gif). I did change it to be able to use my css as a file thinking that was it, but it wasn't... see sig for site layout

Thanks

you can't use css as files as it doesn't realise that it should download the file, for that you'd have to put in a large enough image for your email client to ask if it can download the file, the short version is that you'd be better off using css normally.

i had an idea of making it check how you're using css switching it then switching it back after use but i forgot, the hack author will probably do this though.

regarding sending it as a scheduled task, i've not looked into it although it's an idea, it would also require stripping all of the settings half of the hack.

[traderx]

Originally Posted by sabret00the

regarding sending it as a scheduled task, i've not looked into it although it's an idea, it would also require stripping all of the settings half of the hack.

Ok... I think that this would be a core feature of this hack, I just wonder why it hadn't been thought of from the get-go

[sabret00the]

Originally Posted by traderx

Ok... I think that this would be a core feature of this hack, I just wonder why it hadn't been thought of from the get-go

simply because it's a newsletter so they expect you to put in information, rather than a subscription which is already available

oops forgot to say i tried to consolidate some of the space, i'm thinking of adding a right column that will hold a features member, featured forum and then below you could add add-on's like latest arcade score, latest quiz, latest journal entry, and ofcourse latest photo (from your gallery) good idea? bad idea?

does the hack author wanna save me the effort and do it instead :lol:

[traderx]

Originally Posted by sabret00the

simply because it's a newsletter so they expect you to put in information, rather than a subscription which is already available

oops forgot to say i tried to consolidate some of the space, i'm thinking of adding a right column that will hold a features member, featured forum and then below you could add add-on's like latest arcade score, latest quiz, latest journal entry, and ofcourse latest photo (from your gallery) good idea? bad idea?

does the hack author wanna save me the effort and do it instead :lol:

I think that is a great idea. I have just install the journal hack and think it would be a good addition to the news letter. On my site (4xtraders.com/forum) I have added a left and right column to my whole site (use header and footer), could there be a way that this could be included in the html email of your commbull.php that you created. I looked around yours and was getting lost as to where/how I could do this.

Just wondering, could it be possible to pull whats send in the emails to my www.site.com/index.php? I would to have some of these items on my main page. I have created a vb powered page but have no clue how to pull those items into it..... just an idea

Thanks
Coll

PS.... HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!!!!!

[memobug]

Originally Posted by dethfire

yeah it works if I uncheck registered

I changed my ISP, and commbull started timing out for me during the mailing. I have users-at-once set to 300 users at a time, as I did before.

I noticed that sometimes scripts time out after 30 seconds. It looks like there is a php setting you can make to allow scripts to run longer than 30 seconds - up to 900 seconds, for example.

set_time_limit(900);

Maybe adding that in near the top would help? I tried it in online.php for example, which sometimes times out on me and I didn't get any errors.

I have just sent my newsletter this month, so I can't test this but if someone who's having timeout problems wants to give it a try... Please let me know if it helps.

Regards,

Matt

[sabret00the]

Originally Posted by traderx

I think that is a great idea. I have just install the journal hack and think it would be a good addition to the news letter. On my site (4xtraders.com/forum) I have added a left and right column to my whole site (use header and footer), could there be a way that this could be included in the html email of your commbull.php that you created. I looked around yours and was getting lost as to where/how I could do this.

Just wondering, could it be possible to pull whats send in the emails to my www.site.com/index.php? I would to have some of these items on my main page. I have created a vb powered page but have no clue how to pull those items into it..... just an idea

Thanks
Coll

PS.... HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!!!!!

yeah it would be easy to port the code over

[sabret00the]

Originally Posted by memobug

I changed my ISP, and commbull started timing out for me during the mailing. I have users-at-once set to 300 users at a time, as I did before.

I noticed that sometimes scripts time out after 30 seconds. It looks like there is a php setting you can make to allow scripts to run longer than 30 seconds - up to 900 seconds, for example.

set_time_limit(900);

Maybe adding that in near the top would help? I tried it in online.php for example, which sometimes times out on me and I didn't get any errors.

I have just sent my newsletter this month, so I can't test this but if someone who's having timeout problems wants to give it a try... Please let me know if it helps.

Regards,

Matt

i would recommend that you set it to 100 users max (at a time) in all honesty.

[memobug]

Originally Posted by sabret00the

i would recommend that you set it to 100 users max (at a time) in all honesty.

100 would be fine if there were an autorefresh capability. I have about 4000 users and better things to do

I did hear back from the ISP:

Thank you for writing in. There was a setting in the server for time out as 30 seconds. We have increased it to 300 seconds. So you will not face the problem any more. Please feel free to contact us for any further assistance.

Regards,

Matt