vBExternal v1.6

Alright, the people waiting for the quiz hack are gonna kill me for making this while i'm supposed to be developing v2.. heh.

Anyway, welcome to vBExternal, the answer to all your questions of "how can i get this to show on my website from my forum?"
vBExternal provides you the user with the availability to include several forms of information from your own forum, on your own website, with minimal work required!

UPDATE - 1.5:
This update provides more stability, the vBExternal file will only call 1 query for $vboptions and 1 query for the action, a maximum potential of 2 queries (some may execute 3 dependant on functionality used)

UPDATE - 1.6:
Several minor bugs fixed, 2 main one's were users online (repeating names) and emoticons (being red x's).
Also using vBExternal is completely different as to before (the download contains instructions on how to set up vBExternal the new way)

To update: Re-upload vBExternal.php

Features:

• Newest Members
  
  • Description: Outputs X members onto your website, ordered by newest first
    
  • Available Parameters/Options: Change amount shown (default is 5)
    
• Top Posters
  
  • Description: Outputs X members onto your website, ordered by # of posts
    
  • Available Parameters/Options: Change amount shown (default is 5)
    
• Newest Threads
  
  • Description: Outputs X threads onto your website, ordered by post date
    
  • Available Parameters/Options: Choose all/1/several forums to pick from (default is all forums), Change Amount shown (default is 5)
    
• Newest Replies
  
  • Description: Outputs X threads onto your website, ordered by newest reply
    
  • Available Parameters/Options: Choose all/1/several forums to pick from (default is all forums), Change Amount shown (default is 5)
    
• News
  
  • Description: Outputs X posts onto your website, from a specific forum, ordered by post date
    
  • Available Parameters/Options: Choose which forum news is pulled from, Change Amount shown (default is 5)
    
• Users Online
  
  • Description: Outputs all your users online on your forum, onto your webpage
    
  • Available Parameters/Options: N/A
    

Installation:
All you have to do is upload a few files, no running an installer, no file edits, no template additions/edits, nothing!!

Resources:
The system uses the default 1 vB queries onload, and then only ONE additional query (if action is successful)

Using vBExternal:
First of all, your site will have to be php, if your site is say .htm/.html, no worries, just rename the file type to .php, it will all be the same. Then read 'Usage Instructions' contained within the download to see how to set it up


Customizing HTML Output:
Go inside yourforumdir/vBExternal/
You'll find a few HTML files, these files are the template "structure" for each action, you can change the HTML to your own liking, however leave in the macro's --> {bla} (These are swapped with data called from your forum)

I think that's it really, really simple, really easy to use, so there ya go

PS: Feel free to send me any donations, my paypal is: webmaster@gzevolution.net

Enjoy,

- Zero Tolerance

[Zero Tolerance]

Yeah i guess you could call it a software development kit (that is what SDK means right....? )

And yeah, i'm surprised jelsoft havn't, their competitors IPB have had SDK around since IPB 1.2 (not sure about 1.0/1.1)

- Zero Tolerance

[Zero Tolerance]

UPDATE - 1.5:
This update provides more stability, the vBExternal file will only call 1 query for $vboptions and 1 query for the action, a maximum potential of 2 queries (some may execute 3 dependant on functionality used)

- Zero Tolerance

[Vaelen]

It's giving me the PHP error saying the file isn't there, lol, even though I'm 100% sure it is. I'm also positive the syntax is correct, i use includes on my site already and I basically just copied the code.
Says failed to open stream

[Zero Tolerance]

Did you put the correct path to the vBExternal.php? So if your forums directory was: vbulletin/, and you were calling from the parent directory of that, it would be:

include('vbulletin/vBExternal.php?bla');

- Zero Tolerance

[Vaelen]

Could it be the fact that I'm using the include on a page that I include to begin with?

index.php includes content.php ->> I wanted to include VBexternal.php on content.php

and yes, the path is correct

[Vaelen]

for includes i always have to use the full path, which is
/home2/vaelen/public_html/forum/vBExternal.php?blah

[Zero Tolerance]

Well you can either keep doing that or:

PHP Code:

chdir('./') 


Should work, but php and directories really do my nut in

- Zero Tolerance

[Marky]

Awesome hack... will definatly use when I get my site up ^_^
Nice work

[Vaelen]

I'm at work right now.. I'll play with it a bit later when I get home, I'm sure I can get it working. Whether I can or can't, awesome script anyway. Been looking for one to do this over the past few weeks with this type of functionality ^^

[jugo]

ZT... Your rock!!