Integration with vBulletin - DJ's Living Avatars User CP/Admin CP "Integration"

PGAmerica released something similar to this a while back for an older version of Living Avatars based on some template modifications I had made in my forum. I figure we were about due for an update and I thought how much easier it might be to have this in the form of a product. Since I had thrown this together for myself last night, I decided I might as well release it right quick for those who need it.


WHAT DOES THIS DO?

This product "integrates" Living Avatars for you and your users. Technically, Living Avatars is already integrated, but a lot of us like to have the controls and admin functions in familiar places. We'd also like it to blend with our forum a little better. This not only makes the Living Avatars Admin Panel accessible from your Admin CP, but also puts the Edit Screen for LA in an iframe where you can then further customize the Theme to make it blend with your forum and skin.


SCREENSHOTS

See screenshots at the bottom of this post.

LIVE DEMO

Login with the username Test and password test to see a live demo. All I ask is that you please refrain from making excessive edits to the avatar, as I don't know what a bunch of you online at the same time making edits to the same avatar might do. Yes, the guy in the dress is hilarious. (Also, please don't use the Test account to try and contact me. That's not what I created it for.)


CREDITS

Credits really go out to everyone here who has directly or indirectly brought me to this point in vB coding.

Also, the script utilizes a dynamically resizing iframe, provided here by the Dynamic Drive website. And before you ask, yes, several of us have asked several times now. We can use their scripts in mods, provided we don't remove the copyright, or try to redistribute the script by itself. Remember that the copyright must stay intact, even on your own personal website.


INSTALLATION

1. Download and Unzip the contents of the ZIP file.
2. Upload the contents of the UPLOAD folder to your forum's root directory. (This is the directory where your vBulletin is physically installed.)
3. Go to Plugins & Products >> Manage Products >> Add/Import Products and import the product-djs_la_usercp_admincp.xml file.
4. Refresh your Admin CP if it doesn't do it automatically and your Living Avatars manager menu should be right below your regular Avatars manager menu. Your users will now have a link in their User CP that takes them to living_avatars.php.
5. If you hadn't already done so, you may now edit the Living Avatar Theme to better match your forum colors. And remember that you now have access to that Theme in your Admin CP.

OTHER OPTIONS

If you activated the "Add Forum Link" option when you first installed Living Avatars (this is the setting within Living Avatars that puts the big image link on the page with your regular avatars) you'll want to edit where those links now point to. Follow the template edit below to change that for each style your forum uses. (Alternatively, you could also go into cPanel on your server and make living_avatars a redirect to living_avatars.php.)

In modifyavatar look for:

<a href="living_avatars/"><img src="living_avatars/includes/images/living_avatars_forum_logo.gif" border="0" /></a>
<div style="padding-top: 10px">
<a href="living_avatars/">Click here to create or update your Living Avatar.</a><br /><br />
The more you post on our forum, the more points you earn! Use these points
to collect items such as clothing to create your own unique avatar!
</div>

Change the code in red to living_avatars.php


TROUBLESHOOTING

Is the User CP link still not showing up? You may need to edit the template directly then. First find out of your running Princeton's GTUserCP - Enhanced USERCP Interface + USERCP Menu. Make whichever template edit below applies to you. (Additionally, there might be a whole bunch of other modifications similar to Princeton's mod. If for any reason a modification you're running changes the template your User CP uses to another set of templates, find the custom set of templates that modification uses and make the edits there. Otherwise, these changes won't show up.)


Typical Template Edit

If you are not using Princeton's Enhanced USER CP interface, simple edit your USERCP_SHELL template. Find:

<tr><td class="thead">$vbphrase[settings_and_options]</td></tr>

Above add:

<tr><td class="thead">$vbphrase[living_avatars_options]</td></tr>
<tr><td class"alt2" nowrap="nowrap"><a class="smallfont" href="living_avatars.php?$session[sessionurl]">$vbphrase[edit_living_avatar]</a></td></tr>

OR


GTUserCP - Enhanced USERCP Interface + USERCP Menu Template Edit

If you are using Princeton's Enhanced USER CP interface, then you need to edit a different template then normal. Look for your GTUserCp Templates group.

In your GTPM_USERCP_SHELL template find:

<tr><td class="thead"><a style="float:$stylevar[right]" href="#top" onclick="return toggle_collapse('settings_and_options')"><img id="collapseimg_settings_and_options" src="$stylevar[imgdir_button]/collapse_thead$vbcollapse[collapseimg_settings_and_options].gif" alt="" border="0" /></a> $vbphrase[settings_and_options]</td></tr>

Above add:

<tr><td class="thead"><a style="float:$stylevar[right]" href="#top" onclick="return toggle_collapse('living_avatars_options')"><img id="collapseimg_living_avatars_options" src="$stylevar[imgdir_button]/collapse_thead$vbcollapse[collapseimg_living_avatars_options].gif" alt="" border="0" /></a> $vbphrase[living_avatars_options]</td></tr>
</tbody>
<tbody id="collapseobj_living_avatars_options" style="$vbcollapse[collapseobj_living_avatars_options]">
<tr><td class="alt2" nowrap="nowrap"><a class="smallfont" href="living_avatars.php?$session[sessionurl]">$vbphrase[edit_living_avatar]</a></td></tr>
</tbody>
<tbody>

[zombietom]

I love the ideal of this and all works well except the link in admin cp does not show up...any ideal why

[zombietom]

i still clicked install because it does load the admin panel inside the forums...but i never got a link to show up in admincp...but i don't see a problem with it yet ..so all is good and thanks for this mod.

[TheChaosFactor]

You CAN'T be serious? Everybody on my board was just making meez avatars and showing them off. These guys are going to flip when they find out it's a board feature now.

Thanks. This made my day, and I promise it'll delight the members of my forum to no end.

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by TheChaosFactor

You CAN'T be serious? Everybody on my board was just making meez avatars and showing them off. These guys are going to flip when they find out it's a board feature now.

Thanks. This made my day, and I promise it'll delight the members of my forum to no end.

Thank you. Be sure to mark as Installed so you'll get updates. Like the one I just made after you posted.

[Digital Jedi]

***UPDATE***

Hopefully this update will correct the problems some of you were having with the Admin CP not showing up. All that's necessary for this update is to re-import the product XML file, remembering to allow overwrite.

[peleh]

Not Found

The requested URL /forum/living_avatars/index.php was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

[TheChaosFactor]

I still haven't managed to get this working in my adminCP... It's in includes/xml for certain.

I dunno what to do differently.

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by peleh

Not Found

The requested URL /forum/living_avatars/index.php was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Er, if you don't have Living Avatars installed, how do you expect this add-on to work?

Originally Posted by TheChaosFactor

I still haven't managed to get this working in my adminCP... It's in includes/xml for certain.

I dunno what to do differently.

Did you allow overwrite when you imported the new product?

[anthony parsons]

Yep, I also cannot see it in the ACP. I downloaded the latest version listed, put it into a new install of vb3.8.4 with LA installed, checked all the files, import, etc, not showing in the ACP still.

Must say though... still very cool and thank you very much for an excellent piece of work. The frontend alone is worth it, let alone once the backend functions correctly. Thanks and much appreciated.

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by anthony parsons

Yep, I also cannot see it in the ACP. I downloaded the latest version listed, put it into a new install of vb3.8.4 with LA installed, checked all the files, import, etc, not showing in the ACP still.

Must say though... still very cool and thank you very much for an excellent piece of work. The frontend alone is worth it, let alone once the backend functions correctly. Thanks and much appreciated.

If you give me temp Admin CP access, maybe I can see why people are having this problem. Or at least, rule stuff out. I'm pretty sure I checked everything, but sometimes it takes looking at it on different servers.