vBulletin Taskbar Ticker

vBulletin Taskbar Ticker.

This is based on a hack at www.theforumz.com and written by Gutspiller. It is reposted here for the benefit of all licensed vBulletin Owners and their communities.

This add-on allows your users to see your most up-to-date topics in their Windows Taskbar (sorry Mac and Linux users). It has a scrolling display using the Marquee Tag. You can change the HTML to present anything you want really though.

Here are the features:

1. It now uses Global.php to connect to the database.
2. It now uses vBulletins database class to perform database operations.
3. It will show the latest topics to the user based on their vBulletin usergroup and the appropriate permissions. This allows you to hide private forums still.
4. All forum url's and titles are now pulled from the vBulletin Options.
5. All query and variable names fit in with vBulletin's naming scheme better.
6. All links reuse the same window.

One thing I haven't done yet is convert the whole thing to use templates though if I get the time I will do that because I hate having HTML in the code.

Installation

• Edit ticker2.php and change the Title tag to represent what you want it to say.
• Upload ticker.php to your website.

End User Installation
To install the ticker on your Windows 98 or higher computer (also works on Windows 95 with IE5+ installed) follow these instructions.

1. Right-click on your Taskbar and go to toolbars->new toolbar
2. Type "http://www.domain.com/forums/ticker2.php" without the quotes in the location box
3. Click OK

Make sure to change the domain so that it points to the proper location for them.

There is no support for this outside this thread but all you should have to do is upload it and create a new toolbar. It works on my machine and no there isn't a public demo yet. Anyway, Enjoy it.

[Mystics]

Originally posted by ptbyjason
If you view Who's Online it messes up the location of the user. Does anyone know a way to prevent the Who's Online to appear normal. I've attached the image of me using the ticker and viewing the Who's Online.

If you want to remove showing the Ticker in "Who-is-online" completely, do this:

Open ticker2.php:

Search for

error_reporting(7);

and add BELOW it

$tickerstart=1;

Open sessions.php:

Search for

if ($templateversion > '2.0.1') { // Use location!

and replace it with

if ($templateversion > '2.0.1' AND $tickerstart==0) { // Use location!

Then upload both files.

[hr=[high]][/hr]

If you just want to show the correct location, do this:

Open online.php

Find this

  default:
    $userinfo[activity] = 'unknown';
  }

BEFORE that, add this:

  case 'ticker2.php':
    $userinfo[activity] = 'ticker';
    break;

Then find this:

    default:
      // Let's show the admin the location but put something false up for everyone else..
      if ($bbuserinfo[usergroupid] == 6) {
         $userinfo[location] = htmlspecialchars(stripslashes(replacesession($userinfo[location])));
        $userinfo[where] = "<b>Unknown Location:</b> <a href=\"$userinfo[location]\">$userinfo[location]</a>";
      } else {
        // We were unable to parse the location
        $userinfo[where] = "$bbtitle <a href='index.php?s=$session[sessionhash]'>Main Index</a>";;
      }

BEFORE that, add this:

    case 'ticker':
      $userinfo[where] = "Watching the <a href='ticker2.php?s=$session[sessionhash]'>Ticker</a>";
      break;

Greetingz,
Mystics

[andrew67]

Originally posted by ptbyjason
If you view Who's Online it messes up the location of the user. Does anyone know a way to prevent the Who's Online to appear normal. I've attached the image of me using the ticker and viewing the Who's Online.

I belive only Admin will see that message, everyone else see's the location as the user is browsing main page....

[Mystics]

Originally posted by andrew67


I belive only Admin will see that message, everyone else see's the location as the user is browsing main page....

Yeah, your are right, but nevertheless he should include my changes ('If you just want to show the correct location, do this: ')

Then the Admin and the users got the correct location shown in Who-is-online.

[DarkReaper]

Very cool. I just changed the refresh and fixed the images and it works wonderfully.

I'm concerned about what was said earlier though...if private forum posts are visible, that's not good

[ptbyjason]

Dark Reaper, mine only shows threads that the user has access to. If I am not logged in, I cannot see the moderator board posts. If I am logged in I can see all of the threads from all of the boards. There shouldn't be any problem with security on this.

Mystics, thank you. There is one problem with your script though. When I modify the ticker2.php and sessions.php, it still shows the same error. I modified the online.php and now it shows that the user is viewing the ticker. I don't know why it still won't show the exact location for the user. I use VB 2.03, could that have an effect on it?

andrew67, there is a very good reason why this needs to be corrected. If I am trying to track the location of a member, I need to know where they are if they have the ticker running or not. The way it is now, if someone has the ticker running, I lose the use of the Who's Online page.

Mystics and wluke, I think the modification should be added to the original hack.

[LuBi]

I once saw something similar to this used for on some SOF site with newspro. lovin it for vB

[Wayne Luke]

You are right.. I didn't think about Who is Online. Frankly because I don't use it because I don't need that much control over my users. They pretty much police themselves and everything stays in line.

I will work on adding the other features though as well as making it a template.

The session.php and other changes will most likely not work in versions before 2.2.0 because of changes in the code. This has not been tested on any version except 2.2.1. If you make those changes in a prior version you are on your own. Sorry.

[nuke]

Like I incorporate the Ticker on the Board on the head page: Source code favor as an example Large

Big Thx

[wot-Mike]

For those of you who have phpMyChat (integrated with the vB database!), this shows who's active in chat:

[voogru]

where do i get ticker.php?