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!!

[dethfire]

Doesn't work for me. I click "preview mailing", it looks like it's processing, but after 1-2min the browser status bar says done and the page hasn't moved or done anything, no preview.

[grandeur_69]

bizarre. Can't say i've ever had an issue like that. This happen more than once? What browser/OS are you using? Did u view the source code to see if anything was printed to the screen?

[dethfire]

Originally Posted by grandeur_69

bizarre. Can't say i've ever had an issue like that. This happen more than once? What browser/OS are you using? Did u view the source code to see if anything was printed to the screen?

winxp, firefox, it's a very large forum (not sure if that matters)

interestingly enough I did successfully install and use it on a few other smaller forums, so I am at a loss too. Nothing prints out, it stays on the newsletter config screen. It looks like it's loading for 1min and then just stops, never getting off the config screen.

[grandeur_69]

size of the forum would only matter if the server that you are hosting on can't handle the load properly. But, the preview pain is not a very complicated query window, so it shouldn't freeze there. I've had the mailout itself freeze a few times with large (> 10,000 members) and with small ones alike, but it's never froze at the preview stage.

[trainer]

quick question regarding this hack

if i edit the preview html window to add a few things, is that saved and sent out to all?

i tried it and it only seemed to work for the first page of emails that it was sent to, after that anyone who recieved the email got the un-edited version.

did i do something wrong? any suggestions? is this how the script works?

would we be able to re-work this so it is possible to send out custom information on top of some of the recent threads, most viewed threads etc.

[sabret00the]

installed and went very smoothly, even the preview works fine, however i have to wonder, if you save the css as a file will this mess up?

[grandeur_69]

trainer: the same html should be sent to everyone as it's passed into a form field after each submit

sabret: u could manually do it with your own, but most people have the css saved in the DB instead of having vB create a file. Therefor, to keep the css set to each client's current vB settings, it must be printed out in it's entirety.

[trainer]

ok put in the edit text box on the main setup page, one thing is $username didn't work. in the actual email it is blank.

[grandeur_69]

Originally Posted by trainer

ok put in the edit text box on the main setup page, one thing is $username didn't work. in the actual email it is blank.

i tried to explain in the text field that if you want something like current date, then the variable u input will be like: $date .. however, if you want something that is created dynamically with each email, you have to use /$username

[Vman]

I have installed everything, it seems to work fine except for this:

#1 When creating a newletter to go out, and its sent out, I don't get it and neither does anyone else...

#2 When I go back to View Installation Instructions I see this at the top of the screen:
User table altered... Failed (Possibly already updated)
User table altered... Failed (Possibly already updated)
Phrase table updated (profile.php 1 of 3)...Already Update
Phrase table updated (profile.php 2 of 3)...Already Update
Phrase table updated (profile.php 3 of 3)...Already Update
Phrase table updated (admincp/index.php) ...Already Update

Now is it not working because the User Tables is screwed up and if sooooooo What must I do to correct this?

Thanks