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.

[SillyAlien]

MOTM candidate. Easily!

... and Thank You!

[Sean James]

Does this work with gold?

[SpankMe]

Just what I need. Looking forward to further development of this mod. Would like to see the article displaying the original post as well. That way when a member updates their post it will be reflected in the article as well.

[Carnage]

Originally Posted by Griffin80

Does this work with gold?

ive had no issues with gold so far; if you had this installed when you upgraded, you may need to upload the hooks_ file attached again as the vb upgrade will have over written it

[BozzaJos]

Hi Carnage!

It's so strange that this isn't a default option in vBulletin. My question is if step 1 and 2 are still needed with the gold release? If not, you might wanna update your first post.

Another question is if you can tell me how the development is going for this mod? Will there be some improvements soon and worth the waiting? It's always nice to be kept up-to-date.

I thank you for the time. All that's left to is that this is a great and must-have mod! Only reason why I don't just install it is because it's still in beta stage and since my vBulletin knowledge is pretty limited, I need fully tested products hehe. That's why I leave this reply. I hope you understand.

Keep up the good work!

[Carnage]

My question is if step 1 and 2 are still needed with the gold release? If not, you might wanna update your first post.

Yes, unfortunatly, steps 1 and 2 are required with gold. The bug is listed as fixed for 4.0.1

Another question is if you can tell me how the development is going for this mod? Will there be some improvements soon and worth the waiting? It's always nice to be kept up-to-date.

There aren't likely to be more features. Its a very simple mod, it does exactly what its meant to, nothing more. If people find bugs, i'll fix them, if vb updates break this mod, i'll get it working again. Other than that, i can't see much development thats needed.

Only reason why I don't just install it is because it's still in beta stage and since my vBulletin knowledge is pretty limited, I need fully tested products hehe.

I think all of my mods are in beta stage; generally, my mods are used on my own sites, i release them as betas as I've no idea how they'll act in the wild... I'd say my betas are probably as good as most mods on the site; they may never leave beta if i don't get enough feedback on how well the work (as a comparison, most of googles apps are in beta, gmail was in beta for 5 years)

[Booth]

This really should be a default feature of vBulletin 4 - I suggested it months ago, grrrr!

[BozzaJos]

Thanks for the quick and detailed reply Carnage! Always fantastic to see such quality support...

I hope you don't mind that I ask a couple more things? I'm still a bit unclear how this mod actually works. Let me start by telling what my favorite method would be (within the possibilities of the CMS of course / hopefully). I would like to add articles on the CMS and promote threads on the Forum as an article. From what I know, the only possibility to have comments enabled in the CMS is to select 1 single section where the forum thread should be created. This is for me not very handy since I have many different sections and can't have all discussions placed in one single forum section. For that, I did have a solution. If possible, I want to select a section which isn't viewable on the Forum and isn't open for new posts (so only threads by staff members). This will keep the comments on the CMS and only one article. Perfect for the news articles.

But we have a lot of members who posts quality articles on the Forum so I need to use the "Promote to Article" button as well. Is this where your mod comes in action? And is it possible to combine this mod with the things I told above?

I hope you get my situations and I would love to hear from you if and how this mod can help me.

Thanks again for your time and sorry if I'm bothering you with all my questions.

[Carnage]

i'm not 100% sure i've followed what you are trying to do but here is what this mod will do:

1. If you create an article in the cms, the comment thread will appear in the cms comments forum as defined in vb options.

2. If you promote a blog post, there will be a comments thread created in the cms comments forum.

3. If you promote a Forum post the thread that that post comes from will be used for the comments.

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If you want multiple forums to contain the posts from articles; heres how you can do it with this mod.

1. Instead of creating a new cms article Create a forum post in the forum you wish to use for comments for that article.
2. Promote the post to an article.
3. The thread you created will be used for comments.

[daveaite]

This should definately be part of vbulletin gold. TSK TSK