Forum Home Enhancements - User's Social Groups on Forum Home (like forumlist, fully templated)

Available for vB4:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=221581

What does it do?

• Shows all social groups the actual user is a member of or is subscribed to, just below the forumlist (or anywhere else on forumhome). If there are new messages, the corresponding forum statusicon is highlighted - just like in forumlist.
• If there are no groups to show, you can choose to show a teaser message.

Things to set in AdminCP/Options:

• show member of / subscribed to /nothing
• sort by name or last message date
• limit max number of groups shown, then link to appropriate page (grouplist for members, usercp for subscribers)
• restrict use by usergroup
• show a teaser message if there are no groups to show
• show buttons to open new discussion etc.
• apply custom css to grouptitle
• trim group description to max length or disable
• parse bbcode in group descriptions
• use a different set of statusicons for groups than for forums
• use .png for statusicons instead of .gif (global in AdminCP, per style in groupsbit template)
• show groupicon instead of statusicon

Looks

• Out of the box: I tried to copy the standard look of the forumlist on forumhome.
• As requested, it is now fully templated (following the forumbit-scheme) for easy adjustment to custom styles.
  See the screenshot of a modified example in this post.

Install/upgrade

1. Upload folder "images" to your forum root (can be omitted if you do not want to use the buttons).
2. Import the product file.
3. Check settings in AdminCP->Options->Social Groups on Forumhome.

Template edit
Will be automatically inserted below your forums list if you are using TMS, which I highly recommend to do. If not:

Find:

<!-- /main -->

Above add:

$cel_social_groups

If you don't like it there, you can insert $cel_social_groups anywhere you like on forumhome.


Technical stuff
1 product file that adds
+ 3 templates (following the forumbit-scheme)
+ 3 plugins
+ adds 2 queries to forumhome (only if groups are shown, of course).
+ a bunch of phrases (prefix: cel_sgfh_).
+ 4 png-buttons, taken from the silk icon set.


Limitations

• Marking of new messages only works with database, not with cookie based marking of read threads (-> AdminCP setting)
  Explanation: This mod relys on the information in the database when a discussion was last read by the actual user. If you rely on cookies for this, you can use this mod anyway, but there will be no marking if there are unread messages by changed statusicons.
• 3.7 Discussion groups will show up as "no messages yet" as long as there was no message written under 3.8
  Explanation: When converting the old 3.7 message board into a discussion, Jelsoft was a little bit slack. While normally all the information about the last updated discussion is stored in the socialgroups table, this information is not entered for the auto-created discussion. For example: The discussion ID for the last updated discussion simply is 0 instead of the actual id of the auto created discussion. Therefore, this mod can not retrieve the information it needs since the discussion is not linked to the social group. This only changes when the first message under 3.8 is written.
• Not a bug note: In vB 3.8 there was an issue where the last discussion title was not correctly updated by vB in the socialgroup table. This would lead this mod to show a wrong last discussion title under some circumstances. This was resolved in 3.8.1.
  See Bugtracker: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/proje...?issueid=27176

Version history

v 1.4
+ some bugfixes
+ option to turn teaser message off
+ option to show several buttons: to start a new discussion - see the group's members list - see the group' photos (only shown if there are any attached pictures) - unsubscribe (only if subscribed groups are shown) (Thanks to glorify)
1.4.1: Template/Style error in Google Chrome fixed

v 1.3
+ now fully templated. New templates: forumhome_cel_social_groups_groupsbit and forumhome_cel_social_groups_lastmsgby.
1.3.1: Link to user profile error fixed

v 1.2
+ added option to sort groups by date of last message
+ added missing phrase

v 1.1
+ improved database query
+ limitations somewhat lessened
+ added settings page to AdminCP
+ choose whether to show groups the user is a member of or subscribed to
+ limit number of groups shown, then link to appropriate page
+ restrict use by usergroup
+ some minor bugfixes


Planned features (no promises made!)

none atm

[s]option to use a set of different statusicons for the groups [/s]
[s]option to use the social group's icon instead of the statusicon[/s]
[s]and to go with that, for additional/substitunional unread marking, possibility to add css markup to the social group's title[/s]


Translations

• Polish (thanks to RadioErewan)
• German (thanks to redlabour)

Screenshots:

• AdminCP
• Forumhome (with groupicon and css formatted groupname, bbcode in description parsed)
• Forumhome (with forum statusicons and trimmed description -> bbcode not parsed)

### Don't forget to click install! ###
(No support if you don't)

[cellarius]

I'm happy to announce that this mod has been succesfully (I hope ) ported to vB4 beta 3. It was the first one I tried when I layed hands on alpha 1, and now I polished it for the public beta. Hope some of you find it still useful with vB4, forum and/or suite.

Here we go: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=221581

[cellarius]

If you're using this mod, you may also be interested in my new one: It shows a notification if there are new messages in discussions:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=228247

Attachment 106326

[MrRem]

Is there a way to make this compatible with this mod:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=207315

Or could someone enlighten me if vBulletin 4.0 Gold will have Social Groups using the normal forum layout (i.e Signatures, postbits, messages showing in latest posts) etc ?

[cellarius]

I don't use that mod, so I don't know how it works. If you want to look at the groups in vB4, then just go to http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/groups.php

[MrRem]

OK, what about changing this part of the template:
forumhome_cel_social_groups_lastmsgby

so it contains a link to the group rather than displaying the thread and last psot by?
I'm not very good with coding so any help or pointers would be most appreciated

[identitas]

I can't get it to show up. I have it activated in the vbulletin-settings. I use it inside vBadvanced CMPS, as module called "social groups last messages", calling a template containing "$cel_social_groups".

What shall I do to get it activated?

I use vbulletin 3.8.4 patch 2.

[cellarius]

I do not use vBA and thus really have no idea what is needed to make things work with that.

[identitas]

Originally Posted by cellarius

I do not use vBA and thus really have no idea what is needed to make things work with that.

It works at "forumhome" I notice now. But I want it to appear on a diffrent page than "forumhome", how can I do this?

When I place it elsewhere it doesn't show anything.

[cellarius]

It may work if you change the hook of the main plugin to a hook that is executed wherever you want to show it. I would advaise against a hook that is executed everywhere, since that may add strain to the server.

[identitas]

Originally Posted by cellarius

It may work if you change the hook of the main plugin to a hook that is executed wherever you want to show it. I would advaise against a hook that is executed everywhere, since that may add strain to the server.

Thanx for the tips . I changed hook in:

"fetch template" - hook to - "global_start"
"forumhome code" - hook to - "global_start"

Still it gives no output. Any ideas?