CommBull (Community Bulletin)

vb3.5 Commbull
vb3.6 Commbull

Note:
The 3.6 version is a commercial product, any queries on it should be submitted to: vb3.6 Support Site

THIS THREAD IS FOR SUPPORT FOR 3.0 VERSIONS ONLY. PLEASE VISIT THE APPROPRIATE FORUMS (links above) FOR THEIR SUPPORT

[valid point]
it's been brought to my attention that not everyone knows what this is ... fair enough: This hack is considered a "weekly newsletter" by the fact that it will email members (only sent by an admin) who have opted to receive it new posts, hot threads, etc ... basically a summary of what has been going on since the last time the newsletter was sent out. However there is a vast number of options, and I won't go into detail of all of them ... you can view the the images that I've attached, but u will only get a full idea by installing it.
I would say that there is 0 risk of this installation doing any damage to your current install as these are the changes that it does (manually and automatically):
- change profile.php and admincp/index.php
- add a couple columns to user table (receivebulletin and receivebulletin_type)
- add some phrases to phrase table (receive_email_from_commbull, type_email_from_commbull, newsletterformat, commbul)
- add a row to datastore table (commbull)
- add some html to nav template for admin side
So, if you are unhappy with the install. you can just ignore that it's there and it'll never cause any problems ... your next upgrade will overwrite any changes to the index and profile pages and the extra columns in the DB won't be an issue

[mods that i've added from vB2 version]
- to change languages, comment/uncomment line 22 and 23 to switch from English to German
- save prefs (option)
- skip to page X in case of mailout freeze
- auto redirect to next page (option)
- adding personalized text to top of newsletter w/out searching through the two text & html fields ... u'll c what i mean :ermm:

[INSTALL]
drop the 3 files into the admincp directory and then go to admincp/commbull.php ... follow the instructions and you are good to go.
If you find that the option isn't showing up on the control panel after the install, then it's because you aren't using the default phrases. Go into phrase manager, search for 'commbull' and update the fields appropriately.

If something goes wrong, don't worry .. it checks for already completed updates to the database to avoid redundancy ... enjoy!!

[4number8]

Installed perfectly on 3.0.7 and works flawlessly...Thanks alot for you time on this.

clicks installed

[RichieBoy67]

I figured out my html problem!! Recently I changed my settings for optimization to store my ccs sheets as files..... lol man - I was ready to pull my hair out...

works fine now... I will just disable this option before e-mailing... or I'm sure I could change the path... works though again!!!

[dethfire]

this thing craps out with large forums and servers without a lot of memory

[memobug]

Originally Posted by dethfire

this thing craps out with large forums and servers without a lot of memory

You should probably be specific about the errors you're receiving.

My bonsaitalk.com forum is ~6000 members and 1.5GB sql and it seems to do okay. I pay about $5 hosting per month through some noname server farm.

Maybe reduce the number of members you're sending to at one time and increase the delay between page refreshes if you are using an auto refresh.

There's no doubt this code could be improved if it cached the results and sent out the mailings periodically all day long.

Regards,

Matt

[clanlife]

Is there a way of automating this so it runs itself every say friday?

Cheers.

[GetGamer.com]

I've used it with over 22,000 members and it works perfectly fine (although it takes hours to run through the entire process).

The only problem that I (STILL) have is that members cannot change their bulletin preferences. The options appear, but if they make changes, they aren't saved. This is a serious problem and no one seems to have any suggestions.

[Horsham R/C]

Before I go ahead and install this, is there a way to do this based on a paid subscription only?

[memobug]

Originally Posted by Horsham R/C

Before I go ahead and install this, is there a way to do this based on a paid subscription only?

It know it is capable of filtering based on primary usergroups. I don't think it observes secondary usergroups. I think I hacked mine about six months ago to respect a particular secondary group title but now I can't remember

Regards,

Matt

[memobug]

Originally Posted by GetGamer.com

I've used it with over 22,000 members and it works perfectly fine (although it takes hours to run through the entire process).

The only problem that I (STILL) have is that members cannot change their bulletin preferences. The options appear, but if they make changes, they aren't saved. This is a serious problem and no one seems to have any suggestions.

I didn't see your earlier post, but it sounds like you didn't make the modifications to profile.php or didn't make them right. That's about the only explanation for it. I reinstalled this in 3.0.7 yesterday and it went fine.

Regards,

Matt

[fixer]

thanx for the hack
it works fine in 3.0.7

But in admincp, Where could i find the link to commbull.php?