Integration with vBulletin - vbWiki Standard - vBulletin+MediaWiki integration

Update:

9/28/2007: vbWiki Std v1.3 RC5 is now available for download. This version adds compatibility with MW 1.11.0+

5/17/2007: vbWiki Std v1.3 RC4 is now available for download. This version is compatible with MW 1.10.0+ and vBulletin 3.6.6+

1/21/2007: vbWiki Std v1.0.2 RC3 is now available for download. This version fixes the 'session error' that used to happen on some installations of MediaWiki 1.9.x.

Description:

vbWiki Standard is the lite version of vbWiki Pro. vbWiki Standard allows the integration of vBulletin and MediaWiki user authentication.

(vbWiki Pro is a commercial product that, in addition to the functionality found in vbWiki Standard, provides full skin integration, enhanced user management, Admin CP, editing of wiki skin in vBulletin's Style Manager, among other features.)

Why should you add a wiki to your forums?

Forums are great for community building with their high level of interactivity. Successful forums have hundreds or thousand of concurrent users creating and replying to threads.

However due to this very reason the more your forums grow the more "collective knowledge" is scattered throughout the thousands (or hundreds or millions) of threads in your forums. Making it difficult for users to find and use.

A wiki is not that good at community building, but it is a great medium to centralize this 'collective knowledge'. Enabling you to create an 'ecosystem of information' (quoting pipin ) maintained and contributed by your users.

The idea behind vbWiki (both Standard and Pro) is to enable the seamless integration between these two packages (vBulletin and MediaWiki) side-by-side in your community. You (and your users and community) get the best of both worlds.

Or so the theory goes...

Features:

• Single sign-on for vBulletin and MediaWiki (users log in only once)
• Supports mapping of vBulletin usergroups to MediaWiki user roles
• Users viewing wiki pages are shown in vBulletin's "What's going on?" section (both guests and registered users)
• Supports auto-authentication, users who choose to be "remembered" are logged in upon visiting the site to both vBulletin and MediaWiki.

Installation:

These installation instructions do not apply to vbWiki Pro. Refer to vbWiki Pro installation instructions for more information.

MediaWiki and vBulletin must be installed and properly working before installing vbWiki. MediaWiki can be downloaded here.

• Create a new directory in your forums directory named vbWiki.
• Upload the content of the installation package to this new directory.
• Rename the file vbWiki_Init.php-dist to vbWiki_Init.php
• Open the file LocalSettings.php found in your MediaWiki directory in a text editor and at the very end find the following line and remove it if present:

PHP Code:

?> 


• Add the following code at the end of the file (entering the correct directory path):

PHP Code:

require_once "/absolute/path/to/your/forums/vbWiki/vbWiki_Init.php"; 


Troubleshooting:

• Last installation step: Click Mark as Installed..

If you run into any trouble installing vbWiki (blank page, logins not working, etc.), follow these instructions to temporarily turn on vbWiki's Diagnostic Tools.

Open vbWiki_Init.php (or vbWikiPro_Init.php) and find this line:

PHP Code:

$run_vbWikiPro_diag_tools = false; 


And change it for this:

PHP Code:

$run_vbWikiPro_diag_tools = true; 


Navigate to the wiki home page, and see the results.

Changes:

• 0 vBulletin files to Edit
• 1 MediaWiki file to Edit
• 10 vbWiki Files to Upload

Requirements:

• vBulletin v3.5.4 (version 3.6.x recommended)
• MediaWiki 1.6.8+ (recommended 1.7.x+).
• PHP4+

Uninstalling...

• To uninstall vbWiki Standard simply remove (or comment) the line added to LocalSettings.php.
• Optionally remove the directory vbWiki from your forums directory.

[ElfMage]

Thanks. It seems that this issue happens with MW 1.9.0, which is why our users have not reported it before (MW 1.9.0 was released 4 days ago).

We are in the process of fixing this, and as soon as we have a solution, we'll post an updated version. In the mean time, if you would prefer to test the integration before we post the new version, you could try MW 1.8.3.

[westpak]

I have vb 3.6.4, wiki 1.6.8 and instaled vbwiki standard and the first time I go to wiki it logs me in automatically from the forum but if I click on Main Page I just get a blank page and any other attempts to try and get to wiki show the blank page.

[ElfMage]

Hello westpak.

Please follow the instructions outlined in the FAQ labeled 'Blank page when visiting wiki' found in this link. And PM or e-mail me the error you get. Thanks.

You could also enable the vbWiki's diagnostic tools to verify that all paths are properly set. Instructions for this are also found in this FAQ.

[redlabour]

Great - clicked install and buyed Pro-Version!

[kontrabass]

What does this hack do, when a VBulletin username has a space or underscore? If I remember correctly, MediaWiki allows neither in usernames...

[ElfMage]

vbWiki solves this issue by doing an internal translation and mapping of names with special characters (with no additional overhead.)

For instance if a user's name is [Elf]Mage, vbWiki internally creates a wiki user name: ElfMage-45, removing all special characters and adding the user id at the end.

Regardless of whether the user is logging in from vBulletin and MediaWiki, he/she always uses [Elf]Mage.

[ElfMage]

Hello all, I just uploaded vbWiki Std v1.0.2 RC3. This new version fixes the error shown when editing pages on some MW 1.9.0 installations.

This issue only occured when using MediaWiki 1.9.0 on servers that had 'magic_quotes_gpc' enabled.

Let me know if you encounter any issues with this new version. Thanks.

[Iseran]

I've just installed the latest version on my wiki setup (without fancy short url because I had problem implementing it), and there is an odd problem going on:

Using MediaWiki 1.9.0
Using vBulletin 3.6.4

When I log in from the wiki, I also log in and STAY logged in the forums, but after the "login is successful" message from the wiki, I am no longer logged in. I check the forums and I am still logged in there.

Trying to log in from the forums do not make me log in the wiki automatically.

What could be the problem?

[ElfMage]

Hello Iseran, this is most likely caused by having your wiki and forums installed in different sub-domains.

You may need to adjust your cookie domain and cookie path settings in both vBulletin and MediaWiki. Refer to the FAQ titled 'Wiki and Forum installed on different subdomains' located at http://www.nuhit.com/faq

If this is not the case please enable vbWiki Diagnostic tools on your wiki (you can limit it to a specific IP), and send me a PM with the results of the diagnostic.

(For information on how to enable Diagnostic Mode, refer to the same link listed above).

Thanks.

[Iseran]

Originally Posted by ElfMage

Hello Iseran, this is most likely caused by having your wiki and forums installed in different sub-domains.

You may need to adjust your cookie domain and cookie path settings in both vBulletin and MediaWiki. Refer to the FAQ titled 'Wiki and Forum installed on different subdomains' located at http://www.nuhit.com/faq

If this is not the case please enable vbWiki Diagnostic tools on your wiki (you can limit it to a specific IP), and send me a PM with the results of the diagnostic.

(For information on how to enable Diagnostic Mode, refer to the same link listed above).

Thanks.

That is odd, wiki and forums are not installed in different sub-domains.

Wiki is installed under local home document root/wiki
Forum is installed under local home document root/forums

I will try running Diagnostic Mode and see what I get.

Thanks for the reply!